The Way of Tea » spirit of tea

Our ugly beautiful world

Blake Harvey — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:00:49 +0000

A scene of the Chapter "SEKI YA"(Gate Hut) of Illustrated handscroll of Tale of Genji (written by MURASAKI SHIKIBU).

BY AMIN GHADIMI – We live in a beautiful world.

Or do we? Every day the evidence to the contrary seems to mount, and to make such a sweeping claim in the face of so much national and global adversity feels fatuous, even callous and perhaps cruel.

But “everyone recognizes beauty / only because of ugliness,” claims the second verse of Jonathan Star’s translation of the Tao Te Ching. Perhaps we can sift through our ugly world and, despite ourselves, despite everything, winnow out all the dross that defiles it.

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What’s really happening during a tea ceremony

Blake Harvey — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:06:43 +0000

HIROSHIMA – by Courtney Coppernoll – There’s an unfortunate misconception going around that tea ceremony is a very serious, very rigid sort of practice. However, there’s a great deal more to the art than the formal presentation most people are familiar with.

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Intricate Japanese tea ceremony meditative, calming

Blake Harvey — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:52:36 +0000

PITTSBURGH – Tea has slowed Sally Schurko down.Mrs. Schurko used to work 80-hour weeks in her job in corporate finance. Now, she spends hours performing a leisurely — almost meditative — traditional Japanese tea ceremony.”I was like a spinning top. This has calmed me down,” she said.

Mrs. Schurko and Yoko Motoyama spread that calm to a dozen eighth-graders recently when the Brookline Regional Catholic School students spent an hour at South Park Library learning the history and etiquette of a basic Japanese tea ceremony. The students branched out from their usual Spanish language class to learn some Japanese language and customs.

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Prague Tea Revolution

Blake Harvey — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:25:51 +0000

A wonderful article from the Czech Republic—a country with very little tea tradition—that tells the story of a group of friends that started a tea room called Dobrá čajovna in Prague. Since opening their first tea room in 1989 the business has expanded to 22 different tea rooms—including 2 in the United States. Even though their story is unique from anything you might find in Japanese tea tradition, their story still radiates with the same Spirit of Tea that we find when participating in Japanese Tea Ceremony.

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Principles of Tea Ceremony

Blake Harvey — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 06:49:39 +0000

Alex Fraser of the Epoch Times recently wrote a 4 part series on the 4 principles of Japanese Tea Ceremony. Here are links to each of the articles.