Now, following in the footsteps of our predecessors, we explore the tea ceremony.
Reporter | Zhang Jianjun
The trail in front of you is winding and winding, the trail is not wide, but the stone slabs have been polished, and the moss of early spring is dotted in it, which is more quaint and quiet. There are many bamboo on the mountain, the mountains are all over the field, tall and lush, the road is a journey, the bamboo is a journey, the tea garden with young buds is dotted in between, the afternoon sun shines through the dense bamboo leaves, crushed, falling on the tea tree, the mountain wind strikes, the bamboo forest sways, is the wind moving or the heartbeat?
More than 700 years ago, the Japanese monk Nampo Shōmei also visited Jingshan Temple along this ancient road to study, bringing back not only Zen, but also the Tea Set and Tea Feast Classics of Jingshan Temple, which became the origin of the Japanese tea ceremony.
Zen tea
After walking through the 2850-meter mountain road, to the Jingshan Temple Mountain Gate located in Yuhang District, Hangzhou, it is already sweating, thirsty and dry throat, the tea head monk led us into Songyuan Hall, which is a tea house specially set up for monks, a two-story small building, white wall gray tiles, imitation Song building, arranged comfortably and Zen. Seeing that we were crying thirst, the monk hurried to boil water and boil tea.
The shape of Jingshan tea is different from the flat, straight, uniform shape of Longjing, it is more like a small orchid hidden in the valley, the cord is slightly curly, but it is not like the green snail spring rolled into a silver needle, it is with so casual and leisurely.
The monk didn't say much, and sat precariously at the tea party, holding his breath, lighting water and boiling soup, and moving smoothly and attentively. This aura also quieted us down, focusing on tea, pots, water, and soup.
Water is poured clockwise along the inner wall of the pot, and the small orchids swirl and dance in the pot, gradually churning, stretching, and stretching again, until the tea soup is completely calm, it returns to the original vivid emerald green appearance, and it feels that this tea has completed the restoration of life.
The monks put on the cup of tea, we can't wait to bring the cup to the entrance, the tea soup is sweet and refreshing, just like a thirsty passerby who has encountered a clear spring in the mountains. Sweet is the performance of tea rich in amino acids, and qingjian should be the oral astringent feeling brought about by the long sweetness of the tea soup, and this just right astringent feeling sets off the sweetness of the tea soup.
Then smell the cup, permeated with a hint of orchid fragrance, like a orchid opening in the valley, the bamboo forest swaying, the sun scattered, the fragrance of flowers seems to float by. "Drinking tea is an instant that makes the whole forest pass through your nose." Taiwanese tea man Zhan Xunhua said so.
The companion asked a question that broke the silence: "This tea seems to be lighter than Longjing?" "The monk took care of himself and opened the soup for the second time, silently... When we were given a second cup of tea, he slowly uttered the phrase "Tasteless taste is the supreme taste." Is this "tasteless and tasteless" the head of the monk's words to us? This cup of tea in contemplation naturally has a Zen meaning.
In the first year of Tang Tianbao (742 AD), Zen master Faqin went to Jingshan Jie'an and planted tea trees for the first time, more than 1,200 years ago. In the seventh year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (1137 AD), a generation of Zen Forest Linji Sect senior monk Dahui Zonggao presided over the Jingshan Temple, which was listed as the first of the "Five Mountains and Ten Brakes in Jiangnan".
Linji Buddhism is unique among the five veins of Zen Buddhism, and the Great Wisdom Sect is more adept at using various methods such as "stick drinking" and "talking head" to enlighten disciples, focusing on the importance of electric flint-like comprehension and the enlightenment of the dialogue between the machine and the blade. Tea is the function of monks to meditate and refresh their minds every day, but in the eyes of the monks of the Linji Sect, tea is not only tea, it has been integrated into the path of cultivation.
The most famous is the Tang Dynasty Zhao Zhou's public case of "eating tea and going" from the Zen master. When two monks came to pay their respects, he asked the first comer, "Have you been here?" Answer: "I have been there." From the rumor said: "Eat tea and go!" Then he asked the other monk, "Have you ever been here?" Answer: "Never came." From the rumor said: "Eat tea and go!" The prison court did not understand his meaning, so he asked the teacher: "Why do people say 'have been there' or 'have not been there' and say 'eat tea'?" From the insult to the name of the prison, the prison replied, and Zhao Zhou Zen master said, "Eat tea and go!" ”
The phrase "eat tea to go" deeply implies Zen machines, and since then "Zen tea has a taste", there is tea in Zen, and there is Zen in tea. Mr. Zhao Puchu Shiyun "Seven bowls of taste, a pot is really interesting." Empty holding a thousand, it is better to eat tea." Through the monk in front of us who focuses on tea, we can more or less spy on the corner of Zen that "everything is put down, only to eat tea".
The Way of Tea
During the Kaiqing period of the Southern Song Dynasty, the abbot of Jingshan Temple, The Zen Master of Xuantang Zhiyu, was famous for a long time, and there were many disciples who came to study, and the Japanese monk Nampo Shaoming was a special one. Nanpu Shaoming entered the Song Dynasty in 1259 AD, studied in major monasteries before and after, and finally went up the path mountain, worshiped the wisdom of the virtual hall as a teacher, while participating in Zen, while learning the path mountain tea ceremony, nine years before and after, deeply loved by the Zen master, before returning to China, the master gave him a set of table-style tea props. He brought tea props back to Japan along with seven tea ceremonies, and the Southern Song Dynasty tea ceremony was introduced to Japan, and Namura Shomei became the pioneer of the Japanese tea ceremony.
After returning to China, Nampo Shōmei served as the abbot of Chongfu Temple for 33 years, teaching the Linji Sect Zen Method and the Trail Mountain Tea Ceremony, and more than a thousand disciples, among which the leader Zongfeng Myō-chao founded Kyoto Daitoku-ji Temple, and tea ceremonies and tea props were also introduced to Daitoku-ji Temple. Since then, the legendary monk Yi Xiu Zong Chun studied at The Dade Temple, and counting up, Yi Xiu was the seventh Dharma Grandson of the Xuan Tang Zhi Yu of Jingshan Temple, who admired the Xuan Tang Zhi Yu very much, and often regarded himself as the "Seventh Grandson of the Void Hall", and even the portrait paintings imitated the ancestral master's Fa and called "The Void Hall Comes Again".
Naturally, the descendants of a generation of masters are full of talents, and Murata Zhuguang, the originator of the Japanese tea ceremony, is the disciple who has received the confirmation of Ichigo. Murata Washimoto was originally a monk who studied tea ceremony instead. In order to reform the tea soup, he entered the Daitoku-ji Temple to practice Zen meditation, and after the great enlightenment, he received the proof of Ichigo Indo, which is the ink treasure of the Song Dynasty Zen master who is now in the Tokyo National Museum, and it seems that Ichigo is very recognized by his tea ceremony disciple.
Murata established his own Kusana tea room in Kyoto and hung the ink treasure of the Zen master Yuan wu on the niche to create his own genre of kusana tea. In addition to practicing Zen, Murata Zhuguang must have been inspired by the tea ceremony of Daitoku-ji Temple, and the Zen and tea of Daitoku-ji Temple are in the same vein as the Path Mountain Temple.
What did Murata realize under the guidance of Ichigo? It should be "Zen tea one taste". He integrated more Zen concepts into secular tea affairs, and with tea as the carrier, Zen was truly integrated into the lives of ordinary people.
For example, before Murata Zhuguang, the tea ceremony was fashioned by luxury and circulated among the upper nobility, and he moved the tea ceremony to a grass temple similar to a rural building with only four and a half tatami mats, abandoning all the superfluous decorations. In the simple and narrow space, the host sincerely serves tea, the guests are grateful for drinking tea, everything is centered on tea, and the current popular "break away" is not a derivative of this concept; for example, "equality", abandoning the concept of "noble door" and "nest door", nobles and subordinates are bent from the small door to show that everyone is equal; Murata Zhuguang put forward the concept of "one period and one meeting", and guests are treated as the only tea party in this life every time they get together, to show that guests should cherish the present and focus on tea, which is not Zen's "care for the present" 。
Through the reform, Murata Pearl's tea soup has connotations, containing profound philosophies, tea in the Tao, called the tea ceremony, Murata Pearl is revered as the originator of the tea ceremony.
The Japanese tea ceremony has been basically formed in Murata Pearl, and then through the perfect development of Takeno Shoba, Senritsu is the master of the Japanese tea ceremony. Qian Lixiu left a poem to illustrate the spirit of his tea ceremony:
"First bring the water to a boil,
Add tea leaves,
Then drink tea in the appropriate way,
That's all you need to know.
Besides
Tea has nothing. ”
Art is the art of carrying the road
"Brew the tea!" When asked about the purpose of Chinese tea art, Teacher Zhou Zhixiu answered bluntly. This reminds me of QianLixiu's tea poem "Boiling water to boil tea, it's that simple". Is it really that simple?
Zhou Zhixiu, a national first-class tea art technician and executive deputy secretary general of the China Tea Society, founded the "Zhou Zhixiu Skill Master Studio" at the Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and is a veritable tea brewing master. "So what is a good cup of tea?" I asked again. I thought she would say a set of rules and standards, but I didn't expect Zhou Zhixiu to laugh and say nothing, and then told a story.
Once she went to Guangxi on a business trip to meet with an old leader, and the old man instructed the driver who picked up the guests on the other end of the phone: "You drive to a certain bridge, give me a call." Zhou Zhixiu thought to himself, why did the car have to call a certain bridge? When she reached her destination, a cup of fragrant tea was handed up, the temperature, concentration, and palatability were just right, and after taking a sip, the tiredness of the journey was thrown out of the cloud of nine clouds. The old man explained that the bridge is a 15-minute drive here, I boiled water to make tea, and when you arrived to drink, it was just right. "This is good tea, sincere hospitality, put the heart in the tea, is good tea."
Zhou Zhixiu believes that tea art is divided into two categories, living tea art and demonstrating tea art. Life tea art is more casual, no matter what method you use, just brew the tea well. But there are so many kinds of tea in China, to brew each kind of tea does require skill, then through the tea artist to demonstrate to you, and then combined with the arrangement of the tea party, the choice of utensils, the use of techniques, to bring guests a kind of overall beauty enjoyment. At present, there are indeed some tea art demonstration forms that are larger than the content, but the core of tea art is tea soup, and the last thing that impresses you must be tea soup.
In December 2020, the closing ceremony of the first vocational skills competition of the People's Republic of China was held in Guangzhou, tea art as one of the 23 national competition selection projects, as the chief judge of the tea art project Zhou Zhixiu summed up the comments: tea soup quality competition items, the results improved significantly, the players' grasp of the quality characteristics of tea is more accurate and solid, the redundant actions and performance routines of the fancy techniques are basically extinct; the tea art competitions, the overall level is significantly improved, the players behave properly, the etiquette is standardized, the tea brewing action is natural, Generous, relaxed, smooth, focused, reasonable distribution of utensils, pay more attention to the quality of tea soup; self-created tea art competitions, there are many excellent works, most of the entries have distinct themes, far-reaching intentions, and have a certain degree of originality.
Commented on three points, two of which are about tea soup, which shows that in her eyes tea soup is the first.
When it comes to the difference between Chinese tea art and Japanese tea ceremony, Zhou Zhixiu compares the Japanese tea ceremony to a flower of Youlan, while Chinese tea art is a hundred gardens of zi yan red, and Youlan and hundred gardens have their own love, there is no high. There are six major types of tea in China, thousands of varieties, and it is impossible to have a unified method of brewing tea. "Chinese culture is more subtle and humble, we talk about tea art is to really brew tea well, the Tao is not empty, art to carry the Tao." Zhou Zhixiu said.
Murata Zhuguang proposed "respectful silence" as the spirit of the Japanese tea ceremony, and Senritsu changed a word, with the purpose of "and respecting the silence", which has been passed down to the present. The spirit of Chinese tea culture, from Lu Yu's "fine practice and frugal virtue" to Song Huizong's "To Qing Daohe" to modern Zhuang Wanfang's "honesty and respect", has not been unified, which is not conducive to the spread of Chinese tea art and to the world.
In 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs commissioned the Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the China Tea Society to jointly carry out the research of the "Tea Culture Transformation and Innovation" project, excavating the profound heritage of tea culture and comprehensively understanding the formation and development of tea culture. The Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the China Tea Society have formed a professional research team, of which Zhou Zhixiu is a core member. Recently, the research team proposed that the spiritual core of Chinese tea culture is "harmony, respect, purity, beauty and truth".
"Harmony" is the harmony between people and others, between people and nature, and people's self-body, soul; "respect" is people's reverence for nature, mutual respect between people, respect for the ancestors and respect for the elderly; "Qing" comes from the natural nature of tea, implying honesty and honesty, not forgetting the original heart; "beauty" is the beauty of tea, the beauty of tea tasting, and the beauty of tea ceremony; "true" refers to the pursuit of authentic nature, the sincerity and trustworthiness of treating people and things.
Chinese and Japanese tea culture is originally born from the same root, and the spiritual core is also led by "he". Looking at the world, the various tea tasting methods in human civilization are also "harmonious and different" and "pluralistic integration", promoting the flowers of various human civilizations to bloom.
Tea, the task is heavy and the road is long.
All platform manuscripts of Xinmin Weekly shall not be reproduced, published, adapted, or other acts related to the copyright of Xinmin Weekly without formal authorization.