茶道論 2On the Way of Tea, Part 2

In our previous discourse, we established a foundational perspective on how culture comes into being, using the traditional Japanese discipline known as Sado [茶道] (The Way of Tea) to philosophically contrast it with Chanoyu [茶の湯]. Here, a suspicion naturally arises: are Chanoyu and Sado perhaps similar yet distinct entities? This suspicion is, intuitively speaking, correct. The reason lies in the fact that the impasse modern people face when engaging with the Japanese Tea Ceremony—or indeed any martial or performing art crowned with the suffix Do [道] (The Way)—is universal. This wall lurks at the depths, and because it remains unvisualized, it serves as the driving force behind the complex entanglement that solidifies the public impression of Japanese culture as merely rigid and austere. What, exactly, is this wall?

While Japanese culture has been discussed from diverse viewpoints both domestically and abroad, little attention seems to be paid to the risk that discussing it monolithically causes it to cease being culture at all. Despite the profound spirit flowing at the baseline of this culture, that spirit has historically been difficult to grasp; it has been distorted, has deviated, and has been alienated from its essence countless times, making it impossible to define in a single stroke. However, the circuit that allows us to understand it is Japanese-style Confucianism. In this article, I will present a cultural philosophy that examines this elusive entity of Confucianism from the perspective of whether it is viewed as sympathetic resonance or as a binding agent.

Let us begin by revisiting the reference made at the end of yesterday’s piece: the critical concept in martial arts known as "Shin-Gi-Tai [心技体]” (Mind-Technique-Body). I previously posited that "Technique (Waza)” is born precisely because "Mind" and "Body" are inseparable; viewed differently, this signifies that nothing functions well when mind and body are separated. In other words, whether in martial arts, performing arts, philosophy, or faith, the issue of this separation versus non-separation consistently occupies the base of every "Way." Conversely, all history, culture, philosophy, and technology—including the modern era—can be explained from this vantage point. Put simply, the modern age is a structure based on extreme separation.

To state the essential point first: I believe that Confucianism was adopted precisely to converge the mind and body into a state of non-separation, thereby channeling them into the Way. More accurately, rather than being consciously adopted, I suspect there was a primordial movement peculiar to East Asia that naturally tended toward this state. While this was systematized as Confucianism throughout the dynastic eras of China, which achieved civilization early on, there must have been a movement toward something approximate in Korea and Japan as well. That is to say, while the adoption of Confucianism was a later concept, a highly compatible foundation—one that could already be called Confucian—had naturally formed during the process of transition from its origins.

If we view the aspects of Confucianism through the lens of current traditional culture, the format in which strict manners are so subdivided that they are incomprehensible to the amateur does indeed present a problem. However, what is crucial is the fact that the Way cannot be realized if one acts with licentious freedom. In short, the attitude of judging matters in binary black-and-white terms is the very cause of cultural distortion. The most troublesome issue of individualism lurks here; indeed, modern individualism has been utterly overturned because it ignored this fissure. Therefore, to become a Way, one must begin by converging mind and body—or, to put it another way, by drilling regulations into one’s own conduct. The repetition of actual life becomes habit, and therein the source of Kata [型] is born. As this alone illustrates, culture is not born from a sense of purpose driven by subjective consciousness. Culture exists in a constellation that resides not even in the dimension of consciousness or the unconscious. And in fact, there is no other teaching that emphasizes this Kata as much as Confucianism.

Already in ancient China, from the Zhou to the Han dynasties, as evidenced in the The Book of Rites compiled by Dai Sheng, this Kata was meticulously subdivided, substantiated, and established in minute detail. I have personally never met anyone in modern Japan who reads the Raiki, yet there was a time in Japan when reading it was a matter of course for anyone aspiring to scholarship. Because the Raiki lists extremely subdivided teachings, a modern person glancing at it would dismiss it with banal logic: "It is stiff," "It is troublesome," "Why must so many things be decided?" or "There is no individual freedom." However, this perspective itself is the greatest misunderstanding of Confucianism. Yet, it is also true that Confucianism has aspects that invite such interpretation. The problem lies in the attitude of arbitrarily deciding matters in black and white. In Yin-Yang theory, just as "Yin is Yang, and Yang is Yin," Yin and Yang are not a separation of "Yin and Yang," but a non-separation. The source of this non-separation was called Taikyoku [太極] (Taiji) in ancient China. We must not forget this perspective in Confucianism either.

I believe that to overcome the misunderstandings surrounding Confucianism, one is better served by holding the major premise that "without Kata, the heart cannot be governed." Recently, I have come to think that this way of thinking is actually the most necessary thing for living in the modern age. This is because deeply involved in the background of an era where the concept of individualism has become so dubious is the complex entanglement of "freedom that ignores form." As I wrote yesterday, please note that Kata does not equal "formalism." The content of Kata is Spirit and Form, and since "Spirit and Form" manifest in non-separation, Kata becomes this source, and the source of Kata is the "Heart/Mind." The state where the movements of the heart are naturally regulated by habit to create "Kata = Spirit and Form" is a state of non-separation.

However, without insight into the heart or Kata in this recognition, the majority of people aim to cultivate the spirit by arranging the form, or conversely, allow the misconception to run rampant that form is born by cultivating the spirit. Rather, the modern era is a time where this rampant behavior has reached an extremity in human history. We have self-imploded to the point where we do not even realize we are deadlocked. In the first place, these approaches merely cling to or depend on one side; the essence is non-separation. Therefore, these "Ways" can only be mastered by creating a bidirectional circulation within oneself.

Here, linear time is nullified, and space-time is converged in non-linear time, but as this becomes quite difficult, I will not touch upon it now. In short, since the modern era, people have become intelligent only in their heads and think too logically about everything. The cause is the global proliferation of the university apparatus, and the price paid for people losing the way to live is far too great. Now that the earth is filled with people who have self-domesticated into a society that can only seek knowledge externally, we must reset everything once. This is the fundamental problem, yet actually, it is in Confucianism—generally considered the most logical and constrictive—that we hold the key to breaking through this sense of entrapment.

If the current of Zen aimed to reach the state of "Nothingness," I view the state reached beyond that as Confucianism. Just as Zen became a global trend born from Japan's cultural metabolism, Confucianism, too, will garner attention in the future not as its Chinese roots, but as something that can be called Japanese-style Confucianism. However, as I have suggested several times in Shitsurae, this Confucianism cannot be viewed monolithically; it is broadly divided into the Zhu Xi school of the Song dynasty and the Wang Yangming school of the Ming dynasty. The Confucianism in Japanese society and systems currently known to the world looks only at the negative aspects of this, so it is natural that people struggle to understand. It is because no one is looking at Japan itself, or the Japanese people themselves.

Everything begins with thoroughly realizing the "non-separation of Spirit and Form." This is because in this invisible realm of non-separation, there is the movement of the human heart, and Kata exists as its contour. The movement of the heart becomes the Kata, and the content of that Kata—Spirit and Form—is dynamically born; it is not a problem that can be thought of in a relationship where Spirit and Form are separated. However, in the modern age, we cannot escape the tendency to separate them, and the human spirit is torn apart here. In medicine, the term "Integrative Medicine" was quite popular for a time, but I do not believe in the concept of "integration" itself. The concept of integration presupposes the meaning of combining different separated concepts. The perspective that non-separation is not integration is important. In other words, the entire conception is different.

What needs to be thought about is not the distrust of why forms are listed so endlessly in the Raiki and Confucian scriptures, but rather to gain insight through the descriptions in the Raiki into what the source was that gave birth to the Raiki in the first place. This is the absolute condition for understanding the Japanese Do. Theories of Japanese culture without an understanding of Japanese-style Confucianism are always empty husks.

In fact, Confucius already stated in the Analects: "If a man be without Jin [仁], what is the use of Rei [礼]?" This is precisely what I wish to say. To be honest, if everyone in the world understood these words, there would be no need to write such difficult insights, and intelligence would return to the right direction. After all, these words represent not just Japanese culture, but the root of culture itself. Speaking personally in the context of this article, the true meaning is: "If one is a human being without compassion, what is the use of Spirit or Form?" Furthermore, the greatest theme of Confucianism, Jin, is defined by Confucius as “Ko [孝] toward parents" and “Tei [悌] toward brothers." In short, the basis of "compassion" common to humans is compassion toward parents and compassion toward siblings, and the daily execution of these is Jin.

Many people feel Confucianism is inaccessible, and the opportunities to read Confucian scriptures have almost disappeared. I keep wondering what a cultural theory without the discipline of one's own origins can offer. Yet as mentioned above, neither Confucius nor Mencius, the sages of Confucianism, are saying anything particularly difficult. People feel it is difficult because, as it has been since the time of Confucius, they understand but do not execute. Confucius thoroughly criticized this understanding without execution.

With this basic policy as our axis, let us look at a Japanese concept that is a typical error. That is Wabi-Sabi [侘び寂び].

I loathe the word Wabi-Sabi in its modern sense because even Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591), the founder of the Way of Tea, did not practice Chanoyu thinking only of such boring aesthetics. I am aware that Wabi-Sabi, completely alienated as an aesthetic, is popular as a catchy trend, but when one clings to aesthetics, the root vanishes. Furthermore, active people who seriously explore the next possibilities are surely not seeking such immature excuses clinging to conventional aesthetics. At least, I am one of them. Rather, precisely when looking at aesthetics, one must not be misled by the beauty of the sound. For the beauty of that sound is merely the decoration of the era.

In fact, Rikyu criticized those who enjoy only the visible colors, unaware that the flowers and autumn leaves of the world exist within their own hearts, as people who cannot reach “Sabi” [寂び]. The true meaning of Wabi-Sabi is that it is not something "signified," but modern people who can only see what is signified cannot understand this significance and cannot escape the context of consumer culture.

If one believes that only lavish decoration is artistic sensibility, one cannot understand the essence of the Rimpa school of painting, which is inseparable from the Tea Ceremony. In short, the divide lies in whether one views the seemingly lavish Rimpa paintings as mere aesthetic formalism or as spirit. As mentioned before, it is necessary to discern these from the perspective of the non-separated Kata and the primordial heart.

The era in which Rikyu lived was positioned in the latter part of an age where warlords fought for hegemony over various regions. Warlords who would achieve national unification—Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) as the leader, followed by his vassals Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616)—had already appeared. Also, the custom of calling this era the Warring States Period began at some point in Japan, but such a designation is the source of great misunderstanding. True, wars occurred during this era, but they were not fighting every day; viewed from the perspective of Japan as a whole, the majority of days were spent in utter tranquility. Furthermore, warlords were not ruffians who used licentious violence as a weapon, but possessed personalities forged under very strong self-discipline. It is generally ridiculed that Oda Nobunaga was the worst as a human being, but in reality, he was a figure of such caliber that he rose through the turbulent times at a young age based on his own spiritual discipline.

The heart of a warlord, living in the intense tension of the era, living in the anxiety of not knowing when he might be assassinated by rebellion or if his castle might burn down tomorrow, is something we moderns cannot possibly fathom. But precisely because of this, Chanoyu, the source of the Tea Ceremony, was required. There can be no development of culture without the demands of the era, so we must reconsider it from this perspective. And this is the exact same principle in the modern day. Rikyu merely responded to that demand in a realm that was not the self—the demand of the era.

In other words, the noisier the external world becomes, the more strongly humans seek an internal world of peace. Of course, the majority bury themselves in the noisy external world and lose themselves, but those who try to live sincerely inevitably seek the internal world. And that must not be something special. Warlords had to move around various regions, command armies, and possessed the skill to govern the castle and the castle town; they were incredibly busy. Moreover, Buddhism had gained tremendous power and was maneuvering in the shadows, and Portuguese missionaries were maneuvering to sell the latest weapons—guns, maps, telescopes—in exchange for permission to propagate their religion. Warlords had to pay attention to an enormous number of things. Amidst this, they required habits for daily spiritual discipline, and at the same time, lavish and grand tea gatherings were required as diplomatic protocol to demonstrate their authority to the world. However, we must not overlook that the source of Chanoyu lies in the former.

In fact, no matter how well-known Rikyu was, warlords could not make Rikyu's tea gatherings—where he moved between his base in Sakai, Osaka, and Kyoto—a daily habit (although Hideyoshi attempted to normalize this by keeping Rikyu close). Thus, tea rooms began to be built in various places, and tea rooms were established inside castles. Originally, the tea room was not a space to practice the Tea Ceremony merely in a functional aspect. It is a place where, after human beings have erased all decorations, existence faces existence in a desperate confrontation. In this intense state of tension, the master welcomes the guest, and using the tool called "Tea," sublimates the spirit. In other words, the swaying of the heart in the tea room, the very way of holding one's heart, is the essence of the master and guest in the Tea Ceremony, and the master corrects this swaying of the heart toward the guest. This is not the achievement of modern empathy, but a resonance of hearts. There, one resonates not by speaking words directly, but through "Do" [動] (Motion) and “Sei” [静] (Stillness), and it is therein that etiquette was born.

This is obvious even when considering the Nijiriguchi (crawling entrance) invented by Rikyu. It is generally said that Rikyu designed the tea room so that one must place one's sword down and bow one's head to enter, thus making everyone equal regardless of status. However, that is a beautification of modern interpretation, and typical of the ignorance of culture by scholars who can only see what is signified. And that has nothing to do with Japanese culture. Rather, Rikyu's true intent was to possess the mindset to face all the ornaments of being human. For example, in those days, his opponents were warlords achieving national unification, and he had to constantly confront hostile forces harboring antipathy toward them. In addition, greedy merchants disturbing the times and Portuguese missionaries wanting to gain their own concessions by selling weapons—Rikyu lived in a complex world where self-interest and various speculations intersected. In that complex world, while being a merchant himself, Rikyu used Chanoyu to execute how to correct the heart in that world (his tea room). In a sense, Rikyu executed something close to a Confucian sage.

I feel this is a point that is not considered at all. I believe the Tea Ceremony perfected by Rikyu is, rather than Zen, the execution of something Confucian. However, looking at the wisdom involved in Rikyu's Tea Ceremony, one can see a complex mixture of Buddhism and Confucianism based on the thoroughness of Yin-Yang Five Elements theory. There is nothing that cannot be discussed as sweepingly as the Tea Ceremony.

Therefore, those who drink Rikyu's tea require active daily discipline to cast off all decorations. And just as it is now, the "Way of Tea" presented an aspect of inversion where it was not understood even by tea masters of the time. In fact, Rikyu assessed Tsuda Sokyu (?-1591) and Yamaoka Somu (?-1595)—who were fellow Sakai merchants and known as famous tea masters—by saying, "They are tea masters known to the world, but they have not reached the deep truth of Tea."

Various labels and decorations, external ornaments, as well as one's own pride and self-esteem—one must cast all these off when entering Rikyu's tea room. Rather, unless one is a person who has forged the overcoming of these through daily discipline, one cannot understand the heart of Rikyu's tea. If one cannot cast them off until entering Rikyu's tea room, Rikyu will make them cast them off (here lies the threshold where Zen participates in the Tea Ceremony). Moreover, this is accomplished not by subjective enforcement, but by dissolving them in that place (the tea room).

Let me rephrase this for the modern reader's understanding. In the modern age, where everyone is excessively concerned with social status, as seen in the meaningless enumeration on a person's profile, it has become standard practice to project labels, decorations, pride, self-esteem, arrogance, and superiority. University of origin, graduate school, doctorate, what qualifications one has, a never-ending list of what tasks one performed in one's career history. Through this, people certainly gained social status and were able to earn money, acquiring a stable career converted into social trust. But let us become calm. The resulting era is this unsightly mess. The stronger one's will to proceed into the future, the more one must not fall into such folly. Either way, such people will sooner or later all be weeded out, so one should be the first to spend time stripping away this external world (social decoration) through one's own discipline. It is not achieved in a day; it takes time.

Let us say you are invited to Rikyu's tea gathering. If you worry about social decorations as you do now until the day you drink his tea, you will not understand the heart of Rikyu's tea. If you discipline yourself through thorough introspection until that day but still reach an impasse and are fighting an internal battle, Rikyu, through the tea, will softly unfasten those shackles.

Rikyu's behavior in tea was conducted in a tremendous, tension-filled silence, in a place where only a slight amount of light entered. Rikyu's figure appears ambiguous, indistinct. Thereby, the guests see their own figures reflected clearly. Seeing one's own figure reflected in that mirror—no matter how ugly—will one accept it and resolve to correct oneself through discipline? The real is, this is the essence of the Chanoyu created by Sen no Rikyu.

As you can see by looking at the characters again, Rikyu did not write "茶湯" in Chinese characters, but used the Japanese phrasing "茶の湯". The heart of Rikyu that chose “茶の湯” over “茶湯.” The truth of that profound world is concentrated in this concept.