D.T. Suziki on Tranquility

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The Buddhist stanza generally found affixed at the end of a Mahayana sutra

reads:

 

All composite things are impermament,

They belong in the realm of birth and death;

When birth and death is transcended,

Absolute tranquility is realized and blessed are we.

 

 

Tranquility, therefore, in the art of tea is a spiritual quality transcending

birth

and death, and not a mere physical or psychological one. This must carefully be

kept

in mind when the tea is spoken of as a step toward devoting one's life to a

higher

level from which one is to view our ordinary world and to live in it as if not

in it.

The following is the view on the tea held by Seisetsu (1746-1820), a Japanese

Zen

master of the late Tokugawa era:

 

"My Tea is No-tea, which not No-tea in oppsition to Tea. What then is this

No-tea? When a man enters into the exquisite realm of No-tea he will realize

that

No-tea is no other than the Great Way (ta-tao) itself.

In this Way there are no fortifications built against birth and death,

ignorance

and enlightenment, right and wrong, assertion and negation. To attain a state of

no-fortification is the way is the way of No-tea. So with things of beauty,

nothing

can be more beautiful than the virtue of No-tea.

Here is a story: A monk came to Joshu, who asked, 'Have you ever been here?'

'No,

Master,' was the answer. Joshu said, 'Have a cup of tea.' Another monk called,

and

the master again asked, 'Have you ever been here?' 'Yes, Master' was the

answer. The

master said, 'Have a cup of tea.'

The same 'cup of tea' is offered to either monk regardless of his former

visit

to Joshu. How is this? When the meaning of such a story as this is understood to

its

depths, one enters into the inner sanctuary of Joshu and will appreciate the

bitterness of tea tempered with the salt of sweetness, Well, I hear a bell

ringing

somewhere."

 

As long as there is an event designated as 'Tea' this will obscure our vision

and

hinder it from penetrating into 'Tea' as it in itself. When a man is all the

time

conscious of of performing the art called tea serving, the very fact of being

conscious constrains every movement of his, ending in his artificially

constructing a

'fortification.' He always feels himself standing against this formidable thing

which

starts up a world of opposites, right and wrong, birth and death, Tea and

No-tea, ad

infinitum. When the teaman is caught in these dualistic meshes, he deviates from

the

Great way, and tranquility is forever lost. For the art of tea is of the Great

way;

it is the Great Way itself.

>From his book "Zen and Japanese Culture"