Why did Okakura Tenshin introduce Eastern tea art to the West? It was because of the Russo-Japanese War

In 1905, after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the European and American worlds looked at Japan with great admiration, but Japan was now facing questions from Western public opinion. That is, Japan is regarded by the Western world as a belligerent country with only swords. At this time, the Japanese art critic Okakura Tenshin was holding an exhibition in Boston, USA, when newspapers reported on the front page that "Japan defeated the Vladivostok Fleet." The remarks in the American newspapers terrified Okakura, fearing that Japan would henceforth be considered a barbaric country. So he gave a lecture on Japanese culture to Mrs. Gardner, a rich man in Boston, and after sorting out the manuscript, there was the world-famous "Book of Tea". After the publication of this book, not only was it highly respected by Western intellectuals, but it was also selected as a middle school textbook, and it was also famous in Europe, and Okakura Tenshin was considered to be an "apostle of beauty" from the East.

As the name suggests, the content of the Book of Tea is about the culture of tea, and it is worth noting that Okakura Tenshin does not simply write an introduction to tea culture in this book, but focuses on the spirit conceived by the Tao and the art of the beauty it embraces; more notably, Okakura Tenshin's thin booklet of only about a hundred pages contains his dedication to Oriental culture, Oriental thought, Japanese art, and Japanese life. This book not only sorts out the history of the development and spread of tea, but also provides a poetic and philosophical interpretation of the tea ceremony, tea room, and tea art. Okakura Tianxin once traveled to China in 1893, lamenting that China 's "one hand is difficult to support the heavenly pillars, and the chaotic mountains are ownerless and the cuckoo is sad", lamenting That China is "a lonely shadow Pingsha Qin Hanyue, a remnant of the Sun And the Sui and Tang Autumns", and lamenting that China "except for the tombs of heroes and beauties, the Central Plains must be a wasteland". In Okakura Tenshin's view, when the two ancient civilizations of China and India withered away from the tyrannical aggression of the Western powers, Japan became a museum of Asian civilization, and Japan, while continuing its own culture, also became a representative of the elite of Oriental culture, the art history of this is the concentrated embodiment of Asian art history, and Japanese tea culture is the aesthetics of life in the Oriental world, or the oriental art of living or the philosophy of life.

When Okakura Tenshin was lecturing, there was only a volume of Lu Yu's Tea Sutra by his side. The era in which the Tea Sutra was born was when various cultures and consciousnesses collided with each other, Confucianism and Taoism coexisted and coexisted, Lu Yu discovered the harmony and order that existed in all things from the tea affair, and pantheistic thought merged with it. He believes that Chinese tea was liberated from the original rough state under the romantic ingenuity of the Tang people, and has since embarked on the process of excellence. He divided the history of Tea in China into three stages: Sencha in the Tang Dynasty was the classical period, tea in the Song Dynasty was the Romantic period, and Flooded Tea in the Ming Dynasty was a realistic naturalistic period, and since then the Chinese tea ceremony has declined. The Chinese tea ceremony in the Song Dynasty developed to the extreme, drinking tea not only reflects the appreciation of tea, but also reflects the understanding of life. As we all know, the psychology of Zhu Luwang in the Song Dynasty flourished, and the tea party of the literati and scholars was not only an entertainment landscape, but also a spiritual concept of self-realization. In particular, Zen Buddhism, which was deeply influenced by Taoism, created a novel set of tea ceremonies. This elaborate tea ceremony was later introduced to Japan and had a direct impact on the development of the Japanese tea ceremony.

However, with the yuan army going south, the Song Dynasty collapsing, the Yuan dynasty standing, the Mongolian iron hooves breaking through the Central Plains ritual law, the spiritual world of the Central Plains people was also destroyed, and the tea ceremony, as a form of expression of spiritual civilization of the Central Plains people, was bound to encounter spiritual faults. As a result, the flooded tea of the Ming and Qing dynasties was just a drowning thing in the cup, and no longer had cumbersome and formal etiquette regulations. Even when Ming Dynasty scholars commented on the ancient books of the Song Dynasty, it was impossible to say the shape of the tea raft. Okakura Tenshin also uses the fault line of the Chinese tea ceremony to explain that the Western world knows nothing about the ancient way of drinking tea: "The West has always had its first contact with Chinese tea art shortly before the establishment of the Ming Dynasty. "And tea developed to the late Qing Dynasty, it is no longer a luxury enjoyed by the nobility, it has penetrated into the homes of ordinary people, becoming part of the way of life of the Chinese, and tea is completely secularized at this time." Drinking tea, in the concept of Chinese, no longer has the spirit to experience from tea. Okakura Tenshin unceremoniously used the word "Modern" to describe the attitude of Chinese to tea after the Ming Dynasty: "For the Chinese of later generations, tea is only a delicious drink, not an ideal. The long-term catastrophe of the country has deprived people of the pursuit of the meaning of life, and they have become modern people, that is, sophisticated and mature. They lost the dreamy cult that kept poets and ancients in eternal youth. They become eclectic and follow the conventions of the world. They also become cynical and unwilling to condescend to conquer or worship nature. Although the tea leaves of the Ming Dynasty have the aroma of flowers, the romantic charm of the Tang and Song tea ceremonies has been lost in the tea cup. "The decline and ruin of Chinese native tea as a living aesthetic, Okakura Tenshin believes that this is a metaphor for the vulgarity and utilitarianism of Chinese life, because the word modern was a derogatory term before the 19th century, meaning utilitarian reality and market slang.

Okakura Tenshin's interpretation of the tea ceremony is really impressive: "In essence, the tea ceremony is a kind of worship of 'mutilation', a gentle temptation to achieve some possible perfection in a life that we all understand that it is impossible to be perfect. "A hidden and uninformed beauty cannot be obtained without being discovered; a reserved performance can reveal everything; the tea ceremony is such a skill." During the Nara period, Japan began to drink tea under the influence of China, and the tea seeds brought back from China by the Tendai Sect master Mosumi in the early Heian period were planted in Kyoto. Since then, through the Continuous Development of outstanding tea people such as Eisai Zen Master in the Kamakura Period, Nomaru Zen Master, Ichigo Zen Master, and Murata Zhuguang in the Muromachi Period, to the war-torn Azuchi Momoyama Period, Chiritsu pushed Kusanagi tea to the extreme on the basis of inheriting Murata Chuku and Takeno Shoo, and the tea ceremony is not only a spiritual ritual that pursues "peace and tranquility", but also an art that integrates painting, flower arrangement, pottery, calligraphy, and architecture, and Senritsu has thus become a master of the Japanese tea ceremony. In his discussion of the Japanese tea ceremony, he argues: "The harmony and harmony of pure cleanliness, the subtle exchange of guests and hosts, the progress and retreat of following the ancient rituals, and the romantic feelings added to them are all the wordless teachings of the tea ceremony." In his view, the ritual of the Japanese tea ceremony can really let people see the most extreme tea drinking concept. Tea party, with tea, flowers, paintings, tea sets, colors, sounds, gestures, words, and the aesthetic pursuit of simplicity and purity in the tea room, jointly reached a pure and sacred meeting in the secular world. That kind of nature, deference, and elegance is indeed a place worthy of trust. In the wisdom of the East, only the recluses who are hidden in the world are the real Gao Shiyouren, and only they lead the most elegant life posture in the East: "Every tea party is an impromptu performance, interweaving the current plot with tea, flowers and paintings. Colors should not violate the tone of the tea room, sounds should not disturb the surrounding rhythms, posture should not hinder sensory harmony, improper speech should destroy the unity of things and things; every move should be simple and natural, all of which are the goals of the tea ceremony. ”

The Japanese tea ceremony is also extremely particular about the tea room, just as they are particular about tea drinking, deliberately hiding nobility under the simple appearance: "The tea room, with its thatched roof, tells the story of ephemerality; with its slender pillars, it reveals the fragile nature; the bamboo support hints at the slight; with the ordinary selection of materials, the statement is not hindered." Because the beauty is cast in such a simple and simple environment, the wonderful aura can appear in reality, and the so-called eternity can only be pursued in this spiritual world. And the tea room also embodies the overall care of the harmony of things and me: "The real existence of a room is a space enclosed by the roof and walls, not the roof and the walls themselves." The usefulness of the kettle lies in the space in which it holds water, not the shape of the kettle or its raw materials. "The tea room of the Japanese tea ceremony is exquisite, reflecting the humble ambition and acceptance of the concept of tea drinking, and the ideological root of the tea ceremony is Chinese Taoist thought." Moreover, Japanese teahouses are afraid of repetition and symmetry at any time and place, because "conformal composition is also considered to kill the vitality of the imagination"; they prefer to hide deep artistic insights behind the seemingly simple appearance, and they are more integrated with Zen ideas: "Every great tea person is a child of Zen, and tries to lead the spirit of Zen to the bits and pieces of real life." Therefore, tea rooms, tea sets, etc. all reflect the Japanese people's profound understanding of the zen religion. And these, in the local China where the tea ceremony originated, have long been annihilated, and the tea ceremony culture of the tea house today is nothing more than hanging sheep's head to sell dog meat, or "modern" specially used by Okakura Tenshin. Chinese tea people blindly emphasize the taste of Zen tea, but think that in the palatial tea room to place Buddha statues can understand the taste of Zen tea, Okakura Tenshin if he is alive, I really do not know what words will be used to describe Chinese...

In addition to the mutilated beauty of the tea ceremony, Okakura Tenshin also believes that the tea ceremony has emitted a beautiful belief, that is, we often chant "Hejing Qing silence": "As long as you take a sip of the amber tea soup contained in ivory white porcelain, new believers can kiss the sweet silence of Confucius, the strange edge of Lao Tzu, and the fragrance of Shakyamuni's birth." Of course, this aesthetic belief is not expressed in the quiet environment that the current Chinese thinks, it expresses a philosophy of life and life, it embodies the cherishing and love of the small beauty of ordinary life, and has the supreme concept of "empty and all worlds" in the tea ceremony, removing obstacles and reaching the essence: "The tea ceremony master first strives to make himself an art, not an artist." This is the Zen of aestheticism. The Japanese tea ceremony master Senritsu's understanding of the tea ceremony is like his own life and death: "Only those who live of beauty can die of beauty." The end of the great tea people, as shown in the other moments of their lives, is all elegant and moving. Always trying to be in harmony with the tone of everything in the universe, even the unknown world towards death is prepared early. Senritsu shows the "beauty of Yamato" with a tea ceremony, and Okakura Tenshin ends the book at Senritsu's last tea party, which means a lot...

When we wander through the spiritual world of the tea ceremony in Okakura Tenshin, we have to meditate on the birthplace of the tea ceremony, China itself. At present, there are more and more tea houses in China, but they cannot find the spirit of tea, but the tea houses have become a snobbish place: either commercial negotiations, or official and business negotiations, or mahjong chess and cards... Tea houses have gradually become more and more high-profile and luxurious with the development of commerce, and the spirit of tea has become farther and farther away, and the patience and depth of the tea ceremony can no longer be found: "If people can't feel small again about their own extraordinary, most of them will not be able to perceive the greatness of others in the ordinary." Our image is either fanatical and superstitious and unwilling to awaken, or indulging in the lowest sensory pleasures without trying to cheer up. ”