Tea ceremony

The refined tea ceremony tynoyu (also sado, tyado) like nothing else reflects the Japanese national spirit. The cult of tea was adopted by Japanese monasteries from china and in the 13th century became an everyday practice during Zen Buddhist meditations. Later it became popular among court aristocrats as a form of a specific "tea game" tya-suk. Tea drinking spread among traders and craftsmen, but among them it took the form of friendly gatherings. Thus, the tea ceremony originated from temple rituals, court entertainments and friendly conversations. The founder of the tea ceremony in its modern form is the great master Sen-no Rikyu (1522 - 1599). He owns authorship of the saying that reveals the meaning of the tea ceremony: "Tyanoyu is worshipping beauty in the grey light of routine". The ceremony is based on four principles: harmony, purity, quietness and respect. The tea house tyasitsu originally looked like a hermit's hut, but at present there are more than a hundred types of tea houses from very simple to complex ones which remind of a precious casket. A tea house is entered from a garden along a winding path through a narrow nidziri-guti entrance. The design of the garden, the selection of special dishes and the behavior of the participants of the ceremony reflect the concepts of caducity of this ephemeral world and self-concentration. The esthetics of the tea ceremony is based on Zen principles vabi ("the beauty of lonely sorrow") and sabi ("the patina of antiquity"). The participants of the tea ceremony are the master (the person who makes and pours out tea) and those who drink it (usually not more than five people). Each person has their own ritual role that dictates the pose, the gestures and the speech; no one can break these fixed rules. The canon determines everything - from clothes to the rhythm and plastics of movements. Within the framework of the canon, however, each master elaborately develops the ritual, so there are many variations of it. The "way of tea" in Japan is respected no less than the "way of sword" or the "way of brush".

Tea cup. Japan. The Japanese. Early 20th cent.		Green tea with sweets made of rice and bean butter. Japan, Kioto. N. Maykova.  2006		Tea cup. Japan. The Japanese. First half of 20th cent.
Tea ceremony. Japan. The Japanese.		Tea ceremony. Japan. The Japanese.		Tea broom. Japan. The Japanese.