Chapter 8 Japan 341austere lifestyle of the warrior, the severity of Zen Buddhism, the starkness of
the Zen garden, the typical themes of haiku and sumi-e:
The concept of wabi... was linked to various traditions—classical and
medieval poetry, noh drama, Zen Buddhism, eremitic practices. It was
glossed by a rich, not specifically artistic, vocabulary—by words like chill,
withered, rustic, lonely, pure, austere, lowly, and imperfect. Descriptive of pecu-
liar objects (crudely lacquered caddies, celadons with yellow-brown glazes,
storage or water jars of rough workmanship), it also evoked a mentality.
(Berry 1994:277)
Perhaps the tea ceremony best came to embody wabi, though as Berry has
said, the value permeates Japanese culture. Tea was brought to Japan by the
monk Eisai in 1191 in the form of seeds that he planted on the hillside outside
Kyoto. Tea drinking began in temples and quickly spread in all social direc-
tions, first among the elite at the shogun’s court and soon to the urban mer-
chant class. Tea’s practical function is captured in a legend of its origin.
Bodhidharma (Daruma), the first Zen patriarch, spent nine straight years med-
itating before a blank wall, struggling constantly against falling asleep. Finally
in exasperation he ripped off his eyelids and threw them on the ground. Where
they fell, the first glossy-leaved tea plants grew. Later when his disciples also
had trouble staying awake in meditation, they began making a drink of the
leaves of the tea plant. This kept them awake.
In the chaotic sixteenth century, Berry writes, elite Japanese in Kyoto and
Kamakura began keeping tea diaries to record details of the parties they
attended, the names of the hosts and guests, details about objects in the rooms
(generally works of art from China), and menus of the food served afterward.
Tea drinking became a social passion, which more resembled a modern gallery
opening than our image of the “Japanese tea ceremony.” People milled around,
were served tea by servants, and admired the art. The best known of such par-
ties were those given by military men of highest rank, including the shogun.
But a social transformation occurred in the sixteenth century as tea was
appropriated by commoners and a group of experts eventually founded
“schools” of tea practice and “lineages” of tea masters who carried specific tea
traditions forward in time. Under these experts, tea was transformed from a
vehicle for elite communication and a respite from war to a ritual in which a
host himself humbly prepares the tea in the presence of his guests and serves
them. Special rooms or buildings were created just for the serving of tea in a
standard four and a half mat room. Tea parties became more intimate and less
a show of one’s Chinese paintings than a place to value a few simple, perhaps
even rustic, functional items: a rude kettle, a bamboo whisk, a roughly glazed
cup. Thus the simple act of drinking a cup of plain tea was raised to an art
form, a ritual, and an embodiment of a unique Japanese aesthetic.