GINNA NGUYEN
Staff Writer
While I must say I love the chapel, it is on the second floor of the Payson Library that I have found my spiritual haven, in a bamboo and wooden building hidden from the hustle and bustle of college life.
I walk up the stairs and the aroma of incense works its way into my mind, clearing it of any troublesome thoughts. I enter into the tearoom and am centered into the moment by thorough and precise design, by the careful selection of flowers and calligraphy that are hung, and by the warm greeting from my two teachers and classmates. Then we sit down and enjoy sweets and a wonderful cup of tea.
I think my love for tea came from my Vietnamese and Southern roots. Drinking hot green and black teas and sitting out on the porch drinking good southern iced tea are special memories of my childhood. Coming to Pepperdine, I discovered a new kind of tea, one that I am going to share with you its great meaning and urge you to experience for the goodness of your health and the goodness of your soul.
Chado, which some of you may recognize as a class to meet your non-western heritage requirement, is really an ancient discipline involving the making and serving of matcha, or powdered green tea. It is the Japanese Way of Tea that began with Chinese Buddhist priests in the 12th century.
Chado consists of much more than just making a bowl of tea, although it is truly and simply just about making a bowl of tea. In the formal chakai, the host serves his or her guests a meal, a serving of koicha, or thick tea, and a serving of sweets and usucha, or thin tea. The ceremony is very much choreographed — there is a certain order for each preparation.
Every movement performed by a host in a chakai has a meaning and a purpose that communicates “I am here to serve you. Every thing I do, I do with my greatest respect and care. Into this bowl of tea that I make for you I put my heart, that we may spiritually connect to one another.”
Once a person has mastered this art of tea (for it is truly an art), the ceremony moves from a routine to a musical performance. A person can study tea for many years as it is much more than a way of tea — it is a way of life.
If you are looking for Christian ideals, I believe you can find them in the tearoom. It is in through this little bowl of tea that I have found and expressed spirituality more than anywhere else during my three years at Pepperdine. Humility, service, love, care, respect — these qualities are at the root of tea. The example and teachings I reap from the story of Christ washing His disciples’ feet I find similarly lived out in a tea ceremony.
My father said I love the grace and beauty of serving tea, and this is very true because true grace and beauty lie in humbly serving others, as does the heart of chanoyu. When I am serving tea, I am rid of me and for that moment you, my guest, are the center of my world. When I purify the bowl, I clean out my thoughts so that when I scoop the tea my only focus is your heart. When I add the steaming hot water, my mind is as clear as the water I pour and my being is simple, clean and pure as the water I pour into your bowl.
When I whisk the tea, my heart and my mind are focused and energized by nothing other than making the best bowl of tea I can in order to warm and calm your spirit. All the grace and beauty I have in me is given to you, in a hot, aromatic, frothy bowl of green tea.
Tea is truly a spiritual experience. There is a poem by Sen Sotan that, for me, captures an essence of tea – the essence of complete immersion into the experience so as to awaken all the senses to the three-dimensional spirituality that lies behind this simplistic ceremony. It is as if I were to walk into a forest, I would not simply see the trees, but I would feel the wind. I would let go of “myself” so that I might experience what is around me.
If asked
The nature of chanoyu,
Say it’s the sound
Of windblown pines
In a painting.
It is this essence, the “ichigo ichie,” or “one lifetime, one meeting” that the quiet and intimacy of a tea ceremony is achieved, even in the midst of a large gathering of many people and the honto, or helper, running back and forth. It is because this moment is one moment that will never occur again, and so it is received in peaceful joy.
And so, I bid you come by the Japanese Tea House hidden away in the back of the library to experience a wonderful way of life and perhaps have a delicious bowl of green tea. With this in mind, I leave you with a Daoist proverb, appropriate for the experience of tea: Surrender yourself humbly. Then you can be trusted to care for all things. Love the world as yourself. Then you can truly care for all things.
01-27-2005
