#10 What Is The Tea Ceremony

  Through past articles, I have showed you that what is the culture of the tea ceremony. Then, in this , the last article, Lets think about "what is the tea ceremony". It meens that what is the form of culture of the tea ceremony and what is it for Japanese people.

 Originally, the tea ceremony was a culture of foreign country. Then why this culture took root widely in Japan. The reason is not only its attraction but also one's intention.  In the Japanese Warring States Period, the reward of the war to a samurai was the most important matter. Because the reward put up tht motivation of the soldiar. However, the land as a reward was limited. Therefore Nobunaga Oda was going to create new value to substitute for the land. He had his eyes on the tea ceremony which was not prosperous in those days and he protected this culture. His plan succeeded and the tea ceremony as new value was born.

  In this point, the most imprtant matter is this is just "value". Then what is value? Value is a standard which decide something is good or something is bad. It makes a rank. And the rank is one of the human insticts. A thing of the reverse with the mind of the tea ceremony lets, as a result, the tea ceremony prosper.Probably, only as wabi culture, the tea ceremony would not take root in Japanese culture like this. The value made the tea ceremony one of the most famous Japanese cultures. To sum up, for Japanese, the tea ceremony was value which determined one's status, power and "value".

  And I think that there is another one form. Surely, the form of the tea ceremony for Japanese people "was" value. That is a past thing. The spirit of the tea ceremony does not have a mean now. What the present tea ceremony has is a heart to enjoy that. Drinking delicious tea, eatind delicious sweets and seeing a beautiful tea ceremony room and teacups, a heart to enjoy them is essence of the modern tea ceremony.

 These two form of the culture are the tea ceremony. A culture is a creature. It changes its form in any time, any period. What we have to do is protecting a culture which changes fluidly. If you have an interest in the tea ceremony through my articles, please enjoy it.