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Today I went to the Chanoyu Center in New York City. It was . . . well.
The Center is cunningly hidden in a double-carriage house in uptown Manhattan, quiet and unassuming. City life flows past it, unnoticing, uninterrupted. The only identification is the small plaque by the door that identifies it as the Urasenke Chanoyu Center. Inside, we were ushered into a small library, where we met our host, Yamada Hisashi. My first sight of him was an elderly man in a blue kimono, who walked with the careful shuffle unique to the old. His sleeves were somewhat heavy—he removed a folded fan from one, and occasionally a tissue from the other. His voice was scratchy—with disuse, he apologized, having not spoken all day. He introduced himself by name, without title or elaboration and with a small smile. And then he informed us that at the age of 15, he had volunteered to be a kamikaze pilot in WWII. If the war had gone on six months longer, he would not be around to speak to us.
“So it is good that the war ended, don’t you think?”
He told stories and explained everything we encountered in the tea house with an unflagging humor and patience that had all of us laughing. He told us the history of the scroll that hung in the library, painted by a great Zen master. He read it to us, “Have a cup of tea, it says. This is in reference to a story of a great tea master. He went with his servant to the gate and, as each traveler approached, he asked them if they had ever been to the temple before. The first traveler said that he had never been there before, and the master said, ‘have a cup of tea.’ The second traveler said that he had in fact come many times before, and the master said, ‘have a cup of tea.’ It was the same for the third traveler. For every traveler, the master asked the same question, and regardless of the response, said, ‘have a cup of tea.’ Finally the servant could stand it no longer, and he said to the master, ‘Master, you ask every traveler if they’ve been here before, and no matter what their response, you say, “have a cup of tea.” Why do you keep saying the same thing no matter what response you get?’ And the master said, ‘have a cup of tea.’”
He paused.
“Think about that for two hundred years.”
At the entrance hall paved with dark stones, he told us that the genkan, the doorway to the tearoom area, was a gateway to another world. On our side was the world of delusion; beyond it was the world of enlightenment. As we took off our shoes on the other side, he pointed out the architecture, all of the woodwork done through joinery without the use of nails. “There are three levels of carpenter in Japan. Only the highest level are permitted to work on tea houses. They use only joinery, no nails.” The ceiling was a latticework, plaited strips of wood.
Walking down the narrow tatami hallway, we passed a garden. Damp, as though it had just rained, although a curious look showed me a dark wooden roof high above, protecting the thatched eaves that framed the hall.
A small room. He leaned against one corner, carefully, propping himself up.
“It does not matter what religion you are. Here, we do not try to change your religion. We don’t try to make you a Buddhist. If you are a Christian when you come here, great, you leave a Christian. If you are a Jewish when you come here, great, you leave Jewish. We are not about Buddhism here. Here we do chanoyu, we do tea ceremony. Actually this is the western translation, but it isn’t really right. I like chanoyu, which is more ‘the path of tea’ or ‘the way of tea,’ but even more it is ‘the way of life.’ So we do tea here, we do life.”
We moved into the tea room, and of course all sat seiza. He reassured us immediately that we did not have to, that we could sit with our legs off to the side or crosslegged if we wished. “But not like this,” he said, demonstrating, laboriously moving his legs out in front of him and grinning at us. “The others, they’re fine. Not great, but fine. Like this—that’s really bad.” He pointed out the flowers in the back. “In the tea room, when it’s just you, the only other living thing is the flowers. The flowers are the ideal. They are the ideal because they just are, they are entirely in one moment. The flower doesn’t try to be more beautiful than it is. People should try to be like the flowers.”
About the scroll in the nook: “In a calligraphy scroll,” he said, “there is always a part that is written and a part that is hidden, that is not written. Here, it says ‘bright mirror.’ With the hidden part, it says, ‘make your mind like a bright mirror.’ What it means is, when you are a baby, your mind is clean and bright, like a mirror. As we get older, the mirror becomes rusty and dirty. We need to constantly clean our minds to make them like a baby’s mind again. It also means that you must constantly work on your own self, you must improve it all the time.”
He paused.
“Think about that. For two hundred years.”
He instructed us on when to bow, he told us the reasons for each of the ritualized movements of the hostess as she cleaned the whisk, the bowls, as she passed the sweets and made the first bowl of tea.
“When you get to the bottom, you make a noise—tthrp!—and make sure you drink the last of your tea. When you make this noise, you show your host that you enjoyed the tea. Just like that—tthrp!—to drink the last of the tea. In Japan—“ he laughed. “In Japan we make this noise when we eat noodles. Here in America, you are quiet when you eat noodles. In Japan, you make a lot of noise. Americans are very surprised. But when you make a lot of noise, we say, it makes the noodles taste better. Don’t bother a man when he’s eating his noodles. You go right up to the counter, you order some ramen, and then if you eat them and make a lot of noise, everyone Japanese will be very impressed.”
"They tell me you are all going to Japan. That's good. But it's very confusing there, very confusing. I came to America, I thought it was confusing. If you want to know something, you call and ask me. I'll tell you." He laughed.
Of the pottery: “In Japan, pottery is very important. In America you have painters, their paintings sell for millions of dollars. In Japan it can be millions of yen for a tea bowl. In America, it is really something to have a Picasso. We have bowls like that, they are like Picassos. Now some Americans collect them too. One man, an American, he spent millions of dollars on a bowl by a great master. Now, of course, it is in a museum, you can’t touch it. But when he bought it, he used it! He used it! That’s really something. In Zen, we have impermanence. Everything is impermanent, your body is impermanent, the bowl is impermanent. You use your body every day, but it’s worth more than a tea bowl, isn’t it? But you use it every day, you go out, you walk on the streets. You use a tea bowl, you are careful with it, but one day it will break. Is your body different? Some day it will break. Your body is worth more than millions, but still you use it. That’s impermanence.”
On the final scroll: “This scroll was painted by a great Zen master. I know he was a great Zen master because he taught me. When someone is a great master, you know. It says, ‘water makes dragons.’ Altogether, the expression is, ‘mountains make tigers and water makes dragons.’ A tiger, what is it like? Fierce, brave, strong. But if you take the tiger away from the mountains it doesn’t have these things any more. So it is the mountains that make tigers tigers. Dragons are found in the water, always. Without water, there are no dragons. So water makes the dragons, same as mountains make tigers. Now, the question I ask is, what makes you you?”
He paused.
“Think about that. Maybe for three hundred years.”
The Center is cunningly hidden in a double-carriage house in uptown Manhattan, quiet and unassuming. City life flows past it, unnoticing, uninterrupted. The only identification is the small plaque by the door that identifies it as the Urasenke Chanoyu Center. Inside, we were ushered into a small library, where we met our host, Yamada Hisashi. My first sight of him was an elderly man in a blue kimono, who walked with the careful shuffle unique to the old. His sleeves were somewhat heavy—he removed a folded fan from one, and occasionally a tissue from the other. His voice was scratchy—with disuse, he apologized, having not spoken all day. He introduced himself by name, without title or elaboration and with a small smile. And then he informed us that at the age of 15, he had volunteered to be a kamikaze pilot in WWII. If the war had gone on six months longer, he would not be around to speak to us.
“So it is good that the war ended, don’t you think?”
He told stories and explained everything we encountered in the tea house with an unflagging humor and patience that had all of us laughing. He told us the history of the scroll that hung in the library, painted by a great Zen master. He read it to us, “Have a cup of tea, it says. This is in reference to a story of a great tea master. He went with his servant to the gate and, as each traveler approached, he asked them if they had ever been to the temple before. The first traveler said that he had never been there before, and the master said, ‘have a cup of tea.’ The second traveler said that he had in fact come many times before, and the master said, ‘have a cup of tea.’ It was the same for the third traveler. For every traveler, the master asked the same question, and regardless of the response, said, ‘have a cup of tea.’ Finally the servant could stand it no longer, and he said to the master, ‘Master, you ask every traveler if they’ve been here before, and no matter what their response, you say, “have a cup of tea.” Why do you keep saying the same thing no matter what response you get?’ And the master said, ‘have a cup of tea.’”
He paused.
“Think about that for two hundred years.”
At the entrance hall paved with dark stones, he told us that the genkan, the doorway to the tearoom area, was a gateway to another world. On our side was the world of delusion; beyond it was the world of enlightenment. As we took off our shoes on the other side, he pointed out the architecture, all of the woodwork done through joinery without the use of nails. “There are three levels of carpenter in Japan. Only the highest level are permitted to work on tea houses. They use only joinery, no nails.” The ceiling was a latticework, plaited strips of wood.
Walking down the narrow tatami hallway, we passed a garden. Damp, as though it had just rained, although a curious look showed me a dark wooden roof high above, protecting the thatched eaves that framed the hall.
A small room. He leaned against one corner, carefully, propping himself up.
“It does not matter what religion you are. Here, we do not try to change your religion. We don’t try to make you a Buddhist. If you are a Christian when you come here, great, you leave a Christian. If you are a Jewish when you come here, great, you leave Jewish. We are not about Buddhism here. Here we do chanoyu, we do tea ceremony. Actually this is the western translation, but it isn’t really right. I like chanoyu, which is more ‘the path of tea’ or ‘the way of tea,’ but even more it is ‘the way of life.’ So we do tea here, we do life.”
We moved into the tea room, and of course all sat seiza. He reassured us immediately that we did not have to, that we could sit with our legs off to the side or crosslegged if we wished. “But not like this,” he said, demonstrating, laboriously moving his legs out in front of him and grinning at us. “The others, they’re fine. Not great, but fine. Like this—that’s really bad.” He pointed out the flowers in the back. “In the tea room, when it’s just you, the only other living thing is the flowers. The flowers are the ideal. They are the ideal because they just are, they are entirely in one moment. The flower doesn’t try to be more beautiful than it is. People should try to be like the flowers.”
About the scroll in the nook: “In a calligraphy scroll,” he said, “there is always a part that is written and a part that is hidden, that is not written. Here, it says ‘bright mirror.’ With the hidden part, it says, ‘make your mind like a bright mirror.’ What it means is, when you are a baby, your mind is clean and bright, like a mirror. As we get older, the mirror becomes rusty and dirty. We need to constantly clean our minds to make them like a baby’s mind again. It also means that you must constantly work on your own self, you must improve it all the time.”
He paused.
“Think about that. For two hundred years.”
He instructed us on when to bow, he told us the reasons for each of the ritualized movements of the hostess as she cleaned the whisk, the bowls, as she passed the sweets and made the first bowl of tea.
“When you get to the bottom, you make a noise—tthrp!—and make sure you drink the last of your tea. When you make this noise, you show your host that you enjoyed the tea. Just like that—tthrp!—to drink the last of the tea. In Japan—“ he laughed. “In Japan we make this noise when we eat noodles. Here in America, you are quiet when you eat noodles. In Japan, you make a lot of noise. Americans are very surprised. But when you make a lot of noise, we say, it makes the noodles taste better. Don’t bother a man when he’s eating his noodles. You go right up to the counter, you order some ramen, and then if you eat them and make a lot of noise, everyone Japanese will be very impressed.”
"They tell me you are all going to Japan. That's good. But it's very confusing there, very confusing. I came to America, I thought it was confusing. If you want to know something, you call and ask me. I'll tell you." He laughed.
Of the pottery: “In Japan, pottery is very important. In America you have painters, their paintings sell for millions of dollars. In Japan it can be millions of yen for a tea bowl. In America, it is really something to have a Picasso. We have bowls like that, they are like Picassos. Now some Americans collect them too. One man, an American, he spent millions of dollars on a bowl by a great master. Now, of course, it is in a museum, you can’t touch it. But when he bought it, he used it! He used it! That’s really something. In Zen, we have impermanence. Everything is impermanent, your body is impermanent, the bowl is impermanent. You use your body every day, but it’s worth more than a tea bowl, isn’t it? But you use it every day, you go out, you walk on the streets. You use a tea bowl, you are careful with it, but one day it will break. Is your body different? Some day it will break. Your body is worth more than millions, but still you use it. That’s impermanence.”
On the final scroll: “This scroll was painted by a great Zen master. I know he was a great Zen master because he taught me. When someone is a great master, you know. It says, ‘water makes dragons.’ Altogether, the expression is, ‘mountains make tigers and water makes dragons.’ A tiger, what is it like? Fierce, brave, strong. But if you take the tiger away from the mountains it doesn’t have these things any more. So it is the mountains that make tigers tigers. Dragons are found in the water, always. Without water, there are no dragons. So water makes the dragons, same as mountains make tigers. Now, the question I ask is, what makes you you?”
He paused.
“Think about that. Maybe for three hundred years.”
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iyay ya iyay
Re: iyay ya iyay
<3
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inuit wedding
153 East 69th Street
New York, NY 10021
phone: 212-988-6161
Yamada Hisashi is actually the director of the center.
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My mom told me that sailors used to embroider and make pouches and packs like them by stitching together pieces of their shirts, and had developed a way to make them more durable.
(Well, I just spent a long time describing the satchet, but it's unbelievably...awesome. I need to show you one the next time you come over.)
Mom's love of crafting seemed to reflect the best off the small pouch. She hated something she made to be just looked at -- She would laugh every time I said that there was a place in the world for things like pottery and paintings. She didn't laugh because she didn't like things like that. She would say that it was not her job to make such a thing. Her duty was to create the things that would eventually fade away and be turned to dust.
And yes, call me!!! >_>
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Or something like that. ::only believes in fate sometimes::
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