Despite having started to study the japanese language and culture almost 20 years ago whilst at university in the UK, spending one year as an exchange student in Gunma and another four in the north of England and in London learning all I could about Japanese art history, history and language, it wasn't until the beginning of this year that I left the realm of pure theory and started on the ura-senke tea ceremony path. How ironic that it was to be in Paris, a city that neither I nor my wife come from, that I was to encounter tea properly!
Introduced by my wife, I had already met Takaoka-sensei on a number of occasions, but it wasn't until I assisted at a hatsu-gama party that I was fully won over by the beauty and grace of the tea ceremony. That was six months ago now, and although I have a huge distance to go yet before I can consider myself with any degree of conviction to be an adept, I am content to be at least able to say that I am a tea practitioner, to have become accustomed to the mental calm and physical peace that come from practice, and to feel that I have begun to understand the significance of the tea ceremony.
I have heard it say that cha-do -- be it of the omote-senke, ura-senke or any other school -- is a thing of an era long-gone, an insignificant past-time for the culturally closed-minded, a hobby unworthy of attention. And whilst I have never adhered to that opinion, I admit that I did perhaps unconsciously dismiss tea as a rather effeminate form of distraction, something for bored housewives to entertain their friends with. But with the little time I have spent actually practicing and, perhaps more importantly, observing other practice, I am firmly convinced that I was wrong. I find it hard to believe that it took me so long to find the tea ceremony, that it took me so long to see in the tea ceremony the proof of something I have long felt with regard to traditional culture and art: that the closer each nation adheres to its traditional culture the closer it is to its roots, and that the closer it is to its own roots, the closer it is to the roots of other cultures. With the importance it accords to respect, the skillful way in which it blends discipline and grace, economy of movement and expression of beauty, and the total mastery of the balance of simplicity and complexity, the tea ceremony is undoubtedly one of the ultimate expressions of Japanese culture.
And yet, it seems to me that in being so intrinsically Japanese, in being so thoroughly linked to one place and one culture, the tea ceremony is ultimately universal. Whilst it may at first look very different and seem very foreign, I somehow feel increasingly at home practicing the tea ceremony, more so than I do when, say, visiting a modern shopping store or walking along the street of a large modern city, be it in Europe or the Far East. I may be a peculiar kind of European, and Takaoka-sensei may not be the average teacher, but I am sure that what I feel goes beyond just me, beyond just Takaoka-sensei, even. I suspect that because the tea ceremony is so at peace with itself and so intensely rooted in its own cultural background, that it inspires all those who practice to be at peace with themselves and to take root in their own cultures, and that this is what instills the sense of place and of belonging that comes with practice: and when we have a good base to stand upon, it is only natural that we can see further and more clearly. That then is perhaps why I feel more and more that the tea ceremony enables me to rediscover the roots of my own culture, to see the common points between the traditions I was brought up with and those of Japan, and to feel this sense of time and place at once very specific and universal.
It has only been six months, then, since Takaoka-sensei was kind enough to take me in and to teach me; it is only a percentage of what she teaches that I understand; it is only a small part of what I understand that I can remember; and yet, it already seems so rich, that it amazes me to think of what it must be like to have been practicing ten, twenty, thirty years..! I am happy that Japan has an art form as powerful as the tea ceremony, and happy that I am able to practice it: I thank the ura-senke school for conserving their traditions with such brilliance, and for bringing such an art form through the centuries to the present day, and I thank Takaoka-sensei for teaching me.
Nicholas
