Japanese Tea Ceremony

•What is it?•What is done

during it?•Why?

Japanese Tea Ceremony

• Drink green tea from tea bowl as ritual.

• This everyday activity is grounded in spiritual discipline from Buddhism.

• “Every act of daily life is a potential act that could lead to Enlightenment.

Japanese Tea Ceremony• Tea sharpens mental

and physical acuteness and fosters physical and spiritual health.

• Upon entering the ceremony, a spirit of gentleness presides and distinction between self and others vanishes.

• It teaches respect, modesty, discipline, peace, purity, and tranpuility.

Japanese Tea Ceremony

Japanese Tea Bowls

•Describe what you see.•What do they have in common?

Japanese Tea Bowls

• Sabi- lone beauty

• Wabi- simple, unpretentious beauty

Imperfect, irregular beauty

Austere, stark beauty

Japanese Tea Bowls

Simple, unpretentious beauty

How would you feel if everything you owned was taken away and you lived the rest of your life in poverty?

Can you think of anyone who chooses to live in poverty?

Japanese Tea Bowls

Imperfect, irregular beautyThe incomplete is more beautiful than the

perfect

Japanese Tea BowlsAustere, stark beauty

Beauty in age and experienceCold and withered beauty

Japanese Tea Bowls

To those who waitOnly for flowers,

Show them a springOf grass amid the

snowIn a mountain village.

By Fujiwara no Letaka

Japanese Tea Bowl Criticism