With a smile on his face, Rikyu embarked on the unknown road. Okazou Tenshin 11 "The Book of Tea"

On April 21, 1591, Sen no Rikyu, the greatest tea master in Japanese history, was asked to commit seppuku by the then ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi. This old man with the courage of the Vajra recited the famous saying of Linji Lu: "I am seventy years old and I try to live a poor life. This sword of mine was killed by the ancestor Buddha. I have a big sword with enough power. It is only at this time that I Throw it to God”. Holding a short knife in his hand, he stabbed the body decisively. Immediately, the bright red smeared on the robe, and a pool of blood flowed under the body. Everything was silent. That brief moment that happened in the long river of time has been frozen in eternity.

"Only those who live with beauty can die with beauty, as the rest of their lives are elegant and moving." Harmony, respect, purity, and silence. "In the end, Rikyu sacrificed his own way with death.

Silence

Silence is the ultimate state pursued by the tea ceremony. Without it, there would be no meaning of the existence of the tea ceremony. In this concept, Zen Being closely associated with tea, it is what is commonly called "Zen Tea Yiyi"

Silence in Sanskrit refers to silence, peace, and stability. It is also used in Buddhist scriptures as death, nirvana, The meaning of "nothing" in the tea ceremony is similar to the meaning of poverty, purity, and isolation. After Shuguang Murata founded Soan Tea, the tea ceremony began to pursue the concept of "the origin and destruction of the relationship, the flower blooming and falling, and the flower returning to the dust". , began to pursue simplicity and appreciate the incompleteness of objects, no longer pursue perfection, no longer blindly pursue expensive tea sets and luxurious tea rooms, but return to tea itself, minimalism, simplicity, quietness and elegance are what it seeks.

Rikyu, who is of the same line, pushed this trend to the highest level and named "Wabi tea". "Wabi" has also become an important theory of tea ceremony. Generally speaking, "Wabi is the integration of simple beauty into simplicity and tranquility, and sabi is the luster of time." Rikyu's real name is Zongyi, and the name Rikyu is taken from the quotation of Chunwu Zongen of Dade Temple. Its meaning is "fame and fortune are gone" or "fame and fortune are gone", and it also means "silence".

In fact, this word is the most difficult to describe. Perhaps it is the same as the wisdom in Buddhism. It can only be understood but cannot be expressed in words. Let's pick two Japanese songs that Sen Rikyu and his teacher Takeno Shoou like to sing most. You might as well understand it yourself.

“As I looked at it, the flowers and red leaves disappeared. Thatched huts on the seaside in the autumn twilight."

"Let those people who are full of people waiting for the flowers bloom, look at the spring of grass in the snow in the mountain village."

Qing

If the word "Ji" describes the state where there is nothing and there is no limit to what is hidden in nothing, the word "Qing" takes the meaning of "clean and unsullied" in Buddhism. Rikyu is a Zen disciple, and the tea ceremony is also regarded as a kind of practice. The teahouse naturally becomes a place for practice. The courtyard outside the teahouse is called "dew ground", which is a Buddhist metaphor for the elimination of troubles in the three worlds and being in an unconcealed place.

It seems that the water bowl prepared in the open ground actually has a profound meaning. The water bowl is used for guests to wash their hands, but in Rikyu's view, it was not just hands that were involved at that time. Each of the great names in the tea party may have caused countless murders on the battlefield. When these people enter a place where they practice Buddhism, they should wash themselves first.

As the host of the tea party, they should wash themselves. Sen no Rikyu will always pay attention to keeping this practice place "pure" - he once said, "at a tea party on a snowy day, you should try not to leave too many footprints in the snow. This is a necessary experience." He said that he hoped that the participants would jump out of the house of fire in the three realms and put down all their burdens. A tea party is also a simple practice.

Respect

After putting down all the burdens, you should be respectful. Speaking of "respect", you might as well take a look at Rikyu's tea room design. Each Rikyu style tea room has a very special entrance. It’s so small that you can only walk knee-deep into the teahouse. Can it be called “respect” for guests to walk knee-deep into the tea room? Sen no Rikyu entertained daimyo from all over the world and even Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the teahouse. If there was no higher thing, would these people be willing to put down their weapons and face a tea man with such a low profile?

The word "respect" does not seem to describe the relationship between tea ceremony participants. Perhaps in Sen no Rikyu's view, everyone's purpose in participating in the tea ceremony should be the same, which is to respect Buddhism. The pursuit of Buddhism, and in the world, nothing can receive unquestionable "respect", and only Buddhism is worthy of this word. The idea of ??respect originally originated from Zen Buddhism. Zen Buddhism advocates that "my heart is Buddha" and "all things have the heart of Buddha". It believes that all people are equal in the face of "True Suchness".

Just as Murata Shuguang hung the ink calligraphy of Wanwu Keqin on the niche, the first thing every tea ceremony participant does after entering the tea room is to salute to the hanging scroll on the niche and refer to it for details. The connotation.

But I prefer to understand it this way: "Respect yourself, respect heaven and earth, and respect all living beings."

and

"The weather is not as good as the right place, and the right place is not as good as the people." Perhaps this proverb seems to be the most appropriate word to describe "harmony". Let’s look at Rikyu’s autobiography in “Nanfang Lu”: The essence of Caoan tea is to embody the pure and unsullied world of Buddha. This draft on the open floor is a place where the host and guest exchange sincere exchanges. There should be no fuss about the position, size, or the action of ordering tea.

Caoan tea is just about lighting a fire, boiling water, ordering tea, and drinking tea, nothing else. This naked posture that throws away everything is the living Buddha mind. If you pay too much attention to the movements of ordering tea and the timing of saluting, you will fall into worldly human feelings, or the host and guest will find fault with each other and laugh at each other's mistakes.

Therefore, the Kitano Tea Party co-operated by Rikyu and Hideyoshi has achieved unprecedented success. As long as you love tea ceremony, no matter samurai, businessmen, or farmers, you only need to bring a tea pot, a water bottle, and a drink, that is, Can participate. If you don’t have tea, you can use rice flour paste instead. Don’t worry about not having a tea room. You only need to spread two or three tatami mats in the pine forest. If you don’t have tatami mats, you can also use ordinary straw mats. You can freely choose the location of the tea mat.

This unprecedented event fully embodies the word "harmony". It also established Rikyu’s status as the best tea maker in the world at that time. Boil the water, add the tea leaves, and drink the tea in the proper way. That's all you need to know. Beyond that, there's nothing else about it.

To sum up these four characters, perhaps the word "和" describes the relationship between the tea ceremony participants, the word "Jing" describes the attitude of the participants in the tea ceremony towards Buddhism, and the word "清" describes the attitude of the participants in the tea ceremony. State, the word "Si" describes the state reached by the tea ceremony. In fact, these four words are not found in the documents of Sen no Rikyu's era. There are still different opinions on whether they were mentioned by Sen no Rikyu. However, no matter in any context, these four words are undeniable as the spirit of Japanese tea ceremony. ?

Tea is not just "Tao", it is also aesthetics, taste, and the process of realizing life. The tea ceremony has influenced Japanese thinking and even influenced Japanese culture. Literary giant Yasunari Kawabata woke up in the hotel where he was staying and saw the begonia flowers blooming beautifully on the table. He was shocked: "While I was sleeping, the begonias were not sleeping and were blooming lonely."

Has this silent beauty traveled through hundreds of years? In Kawabata Yasunari's dream, a tea man with a smile came slowly, holding a bowl of tea. "Please put aside all these worries, at least, enjoy this moment of joy." .

The text content refers to Sun Ye’s answer on Zhihu

The picture comes from the movie "The Search for Sen Rikyu"