ON SUBSTACK: "Why Japanese Tea Ceremony is Badass"

A new, recurring series on my adventures training in Chado, The Way of Tea

Early on in my Zen training at Chozen-ji, my teacher Sayama Daian Roshi pushed me to learn Chado, the Way of Tea (also known as Japanese Tea Ceremony). But I had come to Chozen-ji with the idea of pursuing "Warrior Zen". That did not include politely serving tea, bound up in a kimono that made it hard to walk and breathe. Why, I wondered, couldn’t I just keep swinging swords in Kendo (Japanese fencing) and moving rocks?

Almost four years later, I've learned that there is much more to Tea than I first expected and I've dived into it as one of the most valuable methods of Zen training for me. Now, I help teach the Tea class at Chozen-ji, which includes a small but committed group of students of surprisingly diverse backgrounds. They are not who people usually think of when they think of Chado: half are male, they're almost all under 40, and their ethnic backgrounds include Thai, Chinese, Mexican, and Japanese. And I'm Korean.

It can surprise people that Chado can be pursued as a way of training in Zen, but this actually matches Chado's historical roots. It was monks who brought powdered green tea back from China after being sent there to learn about Buddhism. And the father of Chado, Sen No Rikyu, was a Zen monk of significant regard.

The Way of Tea is much more than tea service. It's actually a very high-level synthesis of many different aspects of Japanese culture: architecture, flower arrangement, calligraphy, cooking, textiles, lacquer arts, and physical and mental discipline. The last bit makes Chado like both a martial art and a fine art, a hybrid. It has been just as physically challenging, for me, as Kendo. And it has yielded just as much in the way of self-development and letting go of my attachments as any of the other Zen training I've done. Perhaps it's no wonder, then, that one of the things Sen No Rikyu is known for is for having committed seppuku, or ritual suicide, when he was ordered to by his feudal lord. The first time I learned about this was from my Kendo teacher, who emphasized the strength that it would take to commit such an act by saying, "And he was able to do it!"

In training in Chado, I've found that it's necessary to confront some common, biased viewpoints against it. People often think of it as an exercise in mere aesthetics and identify the people who train in it with the harmful stereotype of the docile, submissive Asian woman. Just to be clear, this trope—just as much as its counterpart of the effeminate Asian man—is racist. It emasculates our people and culture. It strips us of agency and power, defined in bluntly white and heteronormative terms. It reduces us to emotionless automatons who cannot think for ourselves, as something alien to be driven out or assimilated.

There's much more to unpack here that I will leave for a later time. But this is the point I want to drive home: there is nothing submissive or demure about Chado. At its core is actually something deeply nuanced but no less radical, countercultural, or liberating—that the purpose of Chado is not just to serve tea, but to enable the host and guest to achieve the true meaning of Zen, transcending the dualism of self and other, of life and death. 

Chado is not just "Tea Ceremony," but a "Way" to realize our True Selves—i.e., to become Enlightened.

It might feel shocking for me to call this series, "Why Japanese Tea Ceremony is Badass". But how else can I pithily put into words how potentially powerful and subversive Chado can be? Chado *is* badass. It requires just as much strength and clarity as zazen and martial arts—just a different kind. It demands more of me than certainly reading Zen books and expounding on them with wit and intellect. It has upended many of my beliefs and attachments—to what it means to be strong, to what it means to be graceful, and to taking care of myself before others.

If I could, I would just show you and then we wouldn't need to waste time on any more words. I'd have you journey to a Tea Room appointed just for your visit, dress myself in a kimono, and serve you a beautiful tea sweet and a cup of frothy green tea. Every aspect of the room, but also every aspect of me—how I move, how I breathe—would be in service to our mutual awakening. 

You might be able to understand it then, not just as thoughts and images in your brain but in every cell in your body: how Chado can change someone so profoundly and how something as simple and mundane as a cup of tea can wake us up.

In the next few months, I'm planning to address a range of topics in "Why Japanese Tea Ceremony is Badass". A few I’m currently thinking about include how wearing a kimono can be like putting on superhero clothes, why sitting seiza is one of the best ways of judging our sincerity in Zen, how Chado can be a great way for a politician or diplomat to train, and how Chado can be a way for all people but especially women to realize their strength. I hope you’ll stay tuned.