Teacher Xie Zhizhang is adjusting the tea party
Tea people xie zhizhang, tea has been doing for more than 30 years.
She graduated from the Fine Arts Department of Taiwan Culture University.
When I was a student, I studied with Jiang Zhaoshen, Zeng Shaojie and other famous artists.
Often go in and out of the National Palace museum in Taipei to copy ancient paintings.
"When I was studying to paint, I hadn't yet learned to drink tea.
I'm always eager to go into the paintings.
In particular, he longs for the life scenes painted by Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming and Tang Bohu.
I pondered their lives,
What yards they live in, what trees they plant, how fences they weave,
What tea to drink, a few bowls on the table...
So much so that when I drink tea in the future, I also want to be close to this way of life. ”
Hangzhou Jingci Temple A corner of the meditation tea party under hui ri peak
As the first tea person in Taiwan to combine the environment with the tea ceremony,
Xie Zhizhang likes to hold tea parties outdoors, because this is the closest to nature,
And in the early morning, at dusk,
Even the "meditation tea party" held in the middle of the night and early in the morning,
In her opinion, it was the most interesting.
In September this year, Xie Zhizhang and the abbot of Jingci Temple, Master JieQing,
Held a "Meditation Tea Party Under Hui Ri Feng" at Jingci Temple in Hangzhou,
This was her first meditation tea party on the mainland.
Xie Zhizhang and Master JieQing were at the tea party
"When the dawn first comes in the morning,
The moment the sky turns from darkness to light,
Sit quietly for a while, sip tea quietly,
Smell the incense, this is the return to nature.
In fact, every day there is a sunrise and sunset,
But modern people live in artificial lighting and completely ignore it. ”
Self-description Xie Zhizhang Editor Ni Chujiao
Teacher Xie Zhizhang is helping the tea people adjust the tea party
People tend to the flowers
The dawn first appeared, and the tea smoke gently fluttered and fell
When a film crew arrived at Jingci Temple, more than 50 tea people were nervously preparing for the next day's tea party. The climate these days is very changeable, and tarpaulins to shelter the rain are set aside in case of sudden heavy rainfall. Everyone is worried: Will it rain tomorrow?
Teacher Xie Zhizhang is the most relaxed, she said to go with nature and enjoy this uncontrollable game. She simply took us to the West Lake opposite and walked around.
Jingci Temple by the West Lake
"My grandfather had a house next to west lake, and my mother used to tell me when I was very young: West Lake is beautiful, and in spring, a willow and a peach. The earliest thing to do a tea party was to come to Hangzhou, but at that time, the karma was not sufficient, so we first held a tea party in suzhou's art garden. ”
Because of the typhoon, the wind that day was particularly strong, and the gentle voice of Teacher Xie Zhizhang was often blown in the wind.
Xie Zhizhang and Master Jieqing at the Jigong Courtyard of Jingci Temple
As early as 11 years ago, when Xie Zhizhang was holding a tea party at the Lingyin Temple, he met Master Jieqing. "The Master invited us to come to Jingci Temple for a tea party and talked for 4 years, but my mother passed away two years ago, and I never came out, and we finally came this year."
According to Master Jieqing, jingci temple was built by Qian Hongli, the king of Wuyue Kingdom. Monasteries built by kings are rare in the country. When the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties came to Jiangnan, Jingci Temple was one of the must-visit monasteries. Kangxi left a lot of ink, and Qianlong even specially asked the Ministry of Internal Affairs to build a monument and give it to the Jingci Temple.
As a temple closest to the West Lake, sitting in the temple, you can see the spring dawn of su causeway, Lei Feng xizhao, and hear the evening bell of Nanping. All of this has become the best background for this tea party.
The scene of the tea party at the Jigong Courtyard of Jingci Temple
This time the tea party was held in the Jigong Villa of Jingci Temple, which is a space similar to the Garden of the Song Dynasty, and the ground is paved with old stone slabs, "The whole courtyard is a very independent space, considering that the aura should not be scattered, so the tea party and the tea party are arranged relatively closely, and the ancient well of Yunmu is connected." Xie Zhizhang said.
Furnished tea mat
A tea mat for tea in front of the Buddha
This meditation tea party lasted for a total of 4 days, with two morning and evening sessions every day, a total of 8 sessions.
On the day of the tea party, Xie Zhizhang and the tea people always observed the sky, if it rained, the outdoor tea party could not be done.
From time to time a gust of wind blew a gust of rain, overturned the tablecloth, swept down the flower utensils, and the tea people quickly took out paper towels to absorb water, carefully but quickly saving the scene. No one mentioned Plan B to move indoors.
The ceremony of offering tea in front of the Buddha
Fortunately, the rain did not fall in the end. At 7:00 p.m., after the guests have taken their seats, the tea party begins with a special ceremony – tea is served in front of the Buddha.
"Master Jieqing is inside the Jigong Hall, and the tea people are making tea outside and delivering it to the entrance of the temple. After the master father took it inside, he offered it to the Daoji Zen master and used the ritual to represent our hearts. Xie Zhizhang introduced.
Early morning meditation tea party
Compared with the evening, the morning meditation tea party is more special. "The dawn of the light, the tea smoke gently blows the flower wind", this is Xie Zhizhang's picture description of the meditation tea party, and the second half of the sentence is Du Mu's poem.
Welcome point
Welcome at 4:30am
At 4:30, the welcome began, and the tea guests arrived one after another, drinking some specially prepared thin porridge, and needing to pad the stomach before drinking tea.
4:45 The bell rings in Nanping
At 4:45, the Bell rang in Nanping, a total of 108 rings. Tea people have successively extinguished all the candlelight, allowing guests to enjoy the tranquility of getting along with themselves in the dark.
5:15 Xie Zhizhang and Master Jieqing meditated
In meditation, experience the process of the sky gradually turning blue and the earth turning from dark to light. "In fact, we have sunrises and sunsets every day, but modern people live in artificial lighting, so they ignore it."
5:45 a.m. First seat
When the sky is light, the tea people start to make tea. This time, the tea is mainly based on Taiwan's alpine oolong, and there are also oriental beauties and baozhong tea.
Tea guests sip tea
Tea guests will experience the sound, the sensation of the eyes, then the aroma, the taste, the temperature.
"Hosting a tea party in Japan requires participants not to speak. We don't have such a requirement from start to finish. But our guests were reluctant to speak. In that light, in that kind of nature, there is no reluctance to speak. ”
The following is Xie Zhizhang's self-statement:
A difficult game
Over the years, we have carried tea sets and delicious snacks, and visited many beautiful tea areas, gardens, monasteries... While sightseeing, holding an outdoor tea party and sharing good tea with friends, I want nothing, but I am very happy.
But the outdoor tea party sounds romantic, but it actually has a lot of difficulties. I've always joked that hosting an outdoor tea party is like Brother Tang's Mission Impossible series, an impossible task.
The tea party at Lingyin Temple 11 years ago was held in front of the Daxiong Treasure Hall. One night is to entertain 120 guests, for a total of five nights.
In order to ensure the daily operation of the temple during the day, we can only start the decoration after the temple is closed in the afternoon. The 6 large incense burners in the courtyard asked 6 people to drag it away, and then the tables and chairs were lined up and the tea table was placed. Withdraw every day, swing every day.
Tea people are making tea
At this Jingci Temple tea party, in order to match the various time points of the sky, the sunrise, the Nanping Xiao bell, meditation, and the tea soup, we checked the celestial signs several times, and every once in a while it was different.
Making tea outdoors is a test of kung fu. Oolong tea should be brewed at high temperature and drunk while hot, and the requirements for water temperature are very high. When the wind is strong, we need to set the core of the furnace very high, burn it very strongly, and hold the water temperature. But the wind will stop, the water temperature will be very high again, then it will slow down again.
These need tea people are very responsive, we originally live in nature, is sensitive. We are now less sensitive because we are too far away from nature.
Tea people prepare in the wind
When the tea people practice at home, they will use air conditioning to blow and fan to try to simulate the feeling of being outdoors. But that's different, the outdoor wind is irregular, and it won't make an appointment with you.
Then nature is mutated, and we are really just returning to nature, not controlling the situation, but conforming to it. This requires a lot of ability, good skills, and a soft and sensitive heart, and let go of many of their established ideas or inertia in order to be able to change their strains.
I think the tea people are very courageous and willing to accept such a challenge. What makes the most sense for us is the process of preparation. We prepare this offering very sincerely, carefully arrange flowers every day, and make tea conscientiously.
I sometimes joke with them, "Why are you attending this tea party?" She said, "It's fun." I said, "Wouldn't it be all right if you didn't participate?" She said, "Yes." But then there is no need to play. ”
Doing such a difficult tea party, for a person who learns tea ceremony, this is her cultivation process.
Paintings, gardens and tea ceremonies
I hadn't learned to drink tea when I was studying painting before. I am often eager to go inside the paintings, especially the paintings of the Ming Dynasty.
Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming, and Tang Bohu painted many very human life scenes, and at the same time they were very dusty and clean, which was closer to the traditional Chinese reclusive thinking of the literati life.
I went to observe what the house looked like, what kind of yard it was, what trees were planted, how the fence was woven, how far was its door to the river, how many people were in the house, he was drinking tea, reading, resting, or meditating? I was figuring out their lives, and that was very appealing to me.
When drinking tea, I want to be closer to this way of life, but we live in the city, so we have developed a lot of plants on the tea table, small in the big, imagine it is a small garden. Talking is better than nothing, that is what the heart yearns for.
When I was very young, I liked Shen Zhou the most, and I felt that Shen Zhou was as warm as my father. Later, when I arrived at the Suzhou Garden, it was like coming home. Because the aesthetics of the garden are consistent with the aesthetics of painting.
Wen Zhengming also participated in the Gardening Project of the Humble Administrator's Garden, and he also painted a lot of Humble Administrator's Garden paintings. Now when I look at the landscapes painted by Wen Zhengming, I say that what he painted is not real nature, but urban mountains and forests like the Humble Administrator's Garden.
Therefore, the relationship between the landscape and the urban mountains and forests in our case may be a little closer than the relationship with painting. The painting is flat, the garden is three-dimensional, and the tea party is also three-dimensional, so my own aesthetic ideas are deeply influenced by painting. However, the structure, layout, height, density, and staggering of the landscape on our case are still more of a garden.
The fun at the tea party
The tea party on the table can be complicated or simple. Just like our traditional Chinese art, one is carved with eyes, and the other is the water hibiscus. Beauty is presented in different ways.
Someone used the colors that were very saturated, very oriental, with some embroidery elements.
There are also some students, they are very elegant, and the color of the tea party is very feminine.
When exploring the tea party, don't have any fixed opinions, try to find your own love, and make the kind of beauty you want to yearn for. At first it would feel a little difficult, and I couldn't do what I wanted. It just needs to be practiced slowly.
It is the process of moving from simplicity to complexity and then from complexity to simplicity.
The first "Jane" is a very simple meaning, is not full enough, needs to be slowly to full. Huang Binhong once said that we must have a ability to learn to paint, first learn to draw a full piece of paper, and then seek fiction. I think the tea party is also like this, you first have to have the ability to make a full table, and then you ask for weakness, and then reduce. The last void is not an empty void, but a full void.
I think it's important to design your own tea party by studying art and architecture, and it's important to have a playful mood. You have to be amused, every piece of the tea party is a toy, a small souvenir brought back from where, full of memories.
On the tea party, you can use a stone picked up, or use a piece of mutton fat white jade to match, it depends on how you use it, whether it is used well or not, the color matching is beautiful or not, and whether the whole has reached a change in proportion, color, and level.
The focus is not on the preciousness of individual objects, but on your skill.
I think it is an era of pursuit of appearance, but it belongs to external beauty. I think the inner beauty of the tea ceremony, the specific transmission is tea soup.
Tea ceremonies cannot only have superficial beauty. If the tea soup is not convincing, there is no way to move people, that is the essence.
The tea party for me is the story of my life, page by page, full and beautiful page.
Master Jieqing was in front of the Jigong Hall
Q: One
A: Xie Zhizhang, Jie Qing Master
Jingci Temple with tea
Q: Master Jieqing, how did you invite Teacher Xie Zhizhang to come to the temple to hold a tea party?
Master Jieqing: Holding a meditation tea party is to hope that people can find a tranquility in the agitation of the outside world.
For Buddhism, tea is not only in The Jingci Temple, but also has a tradition.
In Buddhism, drinking tea from Zen Buddhism has always been continuous. Because when meditating, meditating for a long time, it is easy to get drowsy and want to doze off, so you have to drink tea. Slowly it became an artistic and cultural expression.
In addition, I think that tea is also a process of meditation, and I advocate that tea brewing is to pick up, put down, go straight, without embellishment, without performance.
I think tea can be adjusted and can assist you in cultivating your mind. Because we say that everyone can sit here and go to enlightenment, but tea is a convenient method, like the guqin is also a convenient method, like calligraphy is also a convenient method.
These convenient methods finally help you return to the understanding and practice of Zen in the Dharma, which I think is a suitable guide.
Jingci Temple is the closest temple to West Lake
Q: Jingci Temple is close to the West Lake, not only the environment is good, but also the humanistic atmosphere is very strong.
Master Jieqing: From an environmental point of view, Jingci Temple is the temple closest to the West Lake. Sitting at Jingci Temple, you can hear and see several of the ten views of the West Lake. You can see the spring dawn of Su Causeway, Lei Feng sunset light, and hear the evening bell of Nanping.
Then our entire southern line, the whole Nanshan, was called Hunan Buddha Kingdom during the Qing Dynasty, and it had a total of more than a hundred monasteries, of which Jingci Temple was represented. And the mountain where Jingci Temple is located is called Nanping Mountain, so we have the Nanping Evening Bell. The mountain where Lei Feng Pagoda is located is called Xizhao Mountain, so with Lei Feng Xizhao, it has an echo.
In terms of humanities, the Dharma attainments and literary attainments of the ancestors of jingci temple are relatively high.
The first abbot, Master Yongming, is a very representative abbot in the history of Chinese Buddhism. Amitabha's Christmas is based on his birthday.
Therefore, the literati and inkers came more often, leaving a lot of poetry. For example, Yang Wanli's "Xiao out of the Jingci Temple to send Lin Zifang": "After all, in the middle of June in the West Lake, the scenery is not the same as the four o'clock. The lotus leaves are infinitely blue, and the lotus flowers are different red. ”
Su Dongpo also came more and was familiar with Jingci Temple, so some of his writings would write, and even write some poems to describe some abbots of Jingci Temple.
Jigong Villa
Q: The tea party is held at Jigong Villa, can you tell us about this space?
Master Jieqing: There were more than a hundred senior monks in the later period of Jingci Temple. Among them, Jigong has a very great influence on the people. The entire Jigong Hall is a garden space similar to the Song Dynasty, which is just in line with the theme of our tea party "Meditation".
I have always believed that the culture of the Song Dynasty is the most consistent with Zen, because it is about emptiness and simplicity. Therefore, when we rebuilt the Jigong Hall, it was equipped with a minimalist landscape space. For example, the entire water system landscape was propped up with only one stone. The empty is empty, and the full is full.
Teacher Xie and I both felt that this place was the most accessible, so in the end we chose this space.
Statue of Jigong
Jigong is a game man in the folk, but in Buddhism he is still an ancestor. Then, under the circumstances of great karma, someone donated a Song Dynasty Jigong statue, a very small bronze Jigong statue, and with reference to it, we also made a very solemn Jigong statue.
There is an ancient well in the center of the courtyard, which everyone should have seen in the TV series, and after Ji Gong cast the spell, the well kept transporting wood out of the well. This well is right at the axis of our tea party, which is equivalent to a main stage, and there is also an element of following the ancients.
In addition, next to the Jigong Hall is the bell tower, where the Nanping Xiao Bell and the Evening Bell are ringing. The morning meditation tea will have a sit-in session in the middle of the bell, which I have specially designed with the teacher.
When people are not awake, Xiao Zhong wakes everyone up from sleep, from drowsiness, and even from Buddhism, from troubles. When the sky is dark, your eyes open and you feel like you have changed into a living being.
Tea drinkers order tea
The Lord offers tea
Q: Can you tell us about the tea offering before the Buddha?
Master Jieqing: In this ceremony of serving tea, we use matcha from the Song Dynasty, using raw water to beat the tea. Because in Buddhism, the Buddha looks at a bowl of water, eighty-four thousand worms, and there are countless living beings in the living water.
In the whole tea ceremony, there are three people in total, the tea maker, the waiter, and the main offering, and the main offering is actually our monks, who take the tea handed by the waiter in the hall and offer it to the Daoji Zen master.
When we do this ritual, we hope to gather everyone's thoughts into this space through human interaction, and I think it is also a kind of meditation medicine primer.
Q: Master Jieqing, you also drink tea yourself, how do you understand the taste of Zen tea?
Master Jieqing: Many of us are talking about Zen tea, and we take the Tang Dynasty Zhao Zhou Zen master's "eat tea to go" as the label of Zen tea. I think that the real Zen tea is first to come out of the heart, not to make a tea in the temple or Zen tea, that can only be called Buddha tea.
I think Zen, tea and mind, these three are three and one, one and three relationships. The meaning of Zen is to realize the path in silence. The spirit of tea can be epiphanized between tea tasting. Therefore, although Zen tea is different in form and color, the state to which it belongs is one, just like the taste of Zen tea.
The Chinese tea ceremony during the Enlightenment
Q: Teacher Xie, you have held many meditation tea parties before this, and each time you choose to be outdoors, and it is late at night or in the early morning, why is this?
Xie Zhizhang: We have held many meditation tea parties in Taiwan, but this is the first time in the mainland.
We once started drinking tea at three o'clock in the middle of the night at the seashore at the seaside, and it was drinking tea in the moonlight of the sea.
Once at the water's edge, we were drinking tea from dawn to dark and at dusk. The sunset shines on the river, the reeds are beautiful, and there are wild ginger flowers and egrets, and the scenery is different.
We did it twice in the morning. Once it was in Yangming Mountain, and once it was in Xizhi, both inside the mountain. There are a lot of birds calling, and cicadas will follow suit.
Tea guests
The outdoor tea party is the closest thing to nature, and we have to go back to nature. The rhythm of drinking tea is slow, and it is a humanistic activity. Drinking tea soup, smelling incense, and feeling the warmth of the tea soup in the mouth will touch our hearts, making the mind more acute and easier to open to see. It turns out that our world is so beautiful, and the change of natural light is so touching.
Therefore, friends who have participated in the meditation tea party will be very impressed, compared with the general tea party, the atmosphere has an extra layer, and it is closer to the touch of the heart.
This is the first time we have done a meditation tea party in the mainland, and I am so happy. Then do a meditation tea party in the temple, then we are closer to Zen, and we are further away from Zen, because Zen tea is the same.
Q: After this tea party, what are your next plans?
Xie Zhizhang: After we go back, we will hold a meditation tea party by the creek without tables and chairs, also called "Kneeling Lady Tea Party". For only two weeks, the tea people had to practice making tea on the ground, and the angle of holding the tea set would be different, and then some people could not stand up after kneeling, which was even more difficult.
But conversely, the less dependent you have, the more freedom you have. If we don't want tables and chairs, we are the freest, even the tea party is free, because you have no boundaries.
Q: The Taiwanese tea ceremony has always been compared with the Japanese tea ceremony, and this topic has been discussed for many years, what do you think of the current relationship between the two?
Xie Zhizhang: At the beginning, we were also afraid of being similar to Japanese tea mats. However, because the tea is different, all the follow-up procedures are different, including tea set, water temperature, tea aroma, and ritual.
Japanese people drink green tea, and we mainly use oolong tea. The source of oolong tea is Kung Fu tea, and although the Japanese Sencha ceremony is also passed down from Fujian, it is also Kung Fu tea, but they do not have a tea cup. They were directly the method of Guan Gong patrolling the city and Han Xin's point of soldiers.
After hundreds of years of development, their tea ceremony has a very complete form of their own national beauty, and it is in line with this process of green tea's low-temperature tea soup.
China's tea is very rich, each kind of brewing method should be different, there are too many places worth exploring.
The Taiwanese tea ceremony focuses more on the oolong tea. If oolong tea is brewed well, it is not too difficult to master green tea, black tea, Pu'er tea, and white tea. Because oolong tea has many variations in its production process, its time is slightly longer, the fermentation is slightly heavier, or the altitude is a little higher, and the flavor produced will be different.
That green tea is relatively simple for us. Therefore, the ritual sense of the Japanese tea ceremony is relatively strong, and the cultivation of the tea soup itself is relatively light.
The rhythm of drinking Sencha tea ceremony and drinking oolong tea is very different. Because sencha is sometimes brewed at a low temperature of 40 degrees, their tea soup is warm at the entrance, but oolong tea is brewed at high temperature, and it is hot when it is introduced. If we don't drink it right away, its taste will change, its aroma will dissipate, and its freshness will be lost.
In this situation where the temperature difference of the tea soup is so large, I think that oolong tea cannot be carried out in the form of sencha.
Q: The spread of the Chinese tea ceremony spans time, region and even culture, and Hangzhou is also a place with rich tea culture traditions, can you talk about your observations?
Xie Zhizhang: There are three periods in the flourishing period of tea culture in Chinese history, one is the Tang Dynasty, one is the Song Dynasty, and the other is the late Ming Dynasty. I think it's the fourth period, and it's only in the Enlightenment.
I think there are many people who love tea, but the height is not enough, more people need to invest enough effort, after the foundation is enough, it will be brilliant and flower. There are still a lot of possibilities for it now, and we can expect it to mature in the future.
In all art, so far, taste and smell cannot be recorded, it can only be recorded in our minds, it is experience, it is a memory, not a knowledge, a conceptual, a visual thing.
Therefore, whether tea is good or not is more difficult to identify, the cultivation of that discernment is slow, it cannot be obtained by listening to speeches and reading books, it must be through experience, which is the reason why I think the tea ceremony is developing slowly.
Because the tea ceremony is not only the external beauty, the inner beauty is reflected in the rhyme of the tea soup.
Partial photo courtesy of: Jingci Temple
Interview venue provided: Xizi Hotel