Treasures

Married for six months, my father went to war. He did not return for four more. My mother was a “Rosie the riveter” building cargo planes at a defense plant that after the war became O’Hare Field. The only details I have of his four year hiatus came late in his life, when the 50th anniversary of the WWII brought a few reminisces from the quiet veteran.

As a kid, my father and I watched every WWII documentary, that is when wrestling was not on. We were especially fond of Victory at Sea. It had a stirring sound track, and impressive black and white footage of large battleships crashing through larger waves, many going to their final battles.

The documentaries moved the time line on and as the war in Europe concluded, depictions of the Far East began. Images of the peaceful Pacific Ocean were intermixed with fierce island fighting. The inevitable images of kamikazes flying through streams of bullets filled our TV screen. Then suddenly all would become quiet, as a lone plane appeared high amongst the clouds over Japan, signaling the end of the blood bath that was WW II.

Usually steeped in the past, in 2005 while preparing for my first trip to Japan I started to read modern Japanese history. The more I read the more heartsick I became as I realized conventional bombing, long before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroyed many of Japan’s larger cities. To think of the lives lost and the culture destroyed on both sides is sobering.

In my travel to Japan and also to Italy I have driven into concrete filled towns, the result of quick post-war construction to replace the devastation of the bombing. Italy and Japan sport an odd conglomeration of buildings due to the destruction during the war. We really do not have an equivalent to this in America.

The hastily constructed buildings of sixty years ago put a human face on to what had been for me images on a screen and words on paper. It is hard not to think of the lost history and of the history that was never made by the soldiers, sailors and airmen who fell under juggernaut of the world war.

My wife has devoted many years to the genealogy of her family: one side Scotch-Irish with a little Heugonaut thrown in, the other Russian-Polish Jews. The former traceable for many generations, the latter disappearing into the pogroms of a world bent on the destruction of every Jewish inhabitant. Again, I think of the lives and culture lost. We will never know who was venerated and what was treasured. It was all annihilated.

Is it naïve, even foolish to treasure objects when millions of souls have been lost? In Chanoyu, the Tea Ceremony, one of the four tenets is respect. It is respect not only for people, but also respect for the objects they produce. We venerate and treasure these objects, not I think for their own self worth, but for the memory of the people that make, name, enjoy and ultimately pass them on.

Tea objects are made of fragile materials, made even frailer by the passage of time. Each has a history that makes them special. It is people’s relationship with these objects that make them note worthy; like finding a few notes of Mozart’s or a sketch of Leonardo da Vinci’s hidden away for centuries. The dogu, as we collectively call them, is a link to the past and a guide to the future.

The tea world is not a stagnate one, conservative as it may seem to the out side world. Gengensai, the eleventh Grand Master of Urasenke, designed a seated chanoyu, ryurei, in response to the growing Western influence during the Meiji period in the late 19th century. This century, the 16th generation Grand Tea Master designed three small side tables that fit together as the famed Russian dolls that cradle multiple dolls into one. The design encourages us, who do not have access to traditional tea surroundings, to actually do tea and not to relegate it to antique status; some thing hid away only to be admired from a distance.

These developments are in response to an evolving world that we hope will be peaceful enough to allow us to continue to respect, treasure and venerate the people and the culture of a another land. I like to think of my twenty-year involvement with Tea as a bridge to another culture. I know I will never fully understand Japan, but the effort allows me to better understand my own up bringing as an Italian-American living in the great city of Chicago.

How is this so. I would be the last to know, but an appreciation of another culture, with all the inherent difficulties helps me focus on my culture. It helps me treasure what I have and what I have lost. This interesting journey, started many years ago as a disenchanted teenager, has come full circle.

It would be nice to think that all these words, over several years of commentaries have helped both Japanese and Americans reflect on their cultures, and strive for better understanding and cooperation in concrete ways. At some point words need to jump off the page into one’s heart and on to the street. I cannot think of a better way to venerate and treasure all that have gone before us.

Perimeter

Recently a new Target opened in my neighborhood. It was long awaited; taking over a year to build at the site of several previously failed big box retailers. As I walk into the store I notice large white columns interspersed with the big red beach balls that have become synonymous with Target’s image. Unobtrusive as they may seem, I still need to negotiate around them and that act brings images of 9/11 to my mind. I instantly redirect my thoughts, but cannot deny their implications.

These barriers have appeared in all facets of my interaction with the environment: while walking past the federal buildings on the way to Symphony Center, in the O'Hare International terminal at the beginning of a long anticipated European trip and in many places where the absence of such barriers I cautiously note.

Living in a large city has taught me to quickly become complacent with most urban fashions and inconveniences. I understand that change is inevitable, but this feels different. The barriers are signs of a troubled world that I have no medicine to prescribe for and I think to myself, “this is a hell of a way to spend one's life.”

Many years ago at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Fly-In in Oshkosh, WI, a stealth fighter sat on the tarmac, glistening in the mid-day sun despite its drab camouflaged paint. The plane was impressive, but the Special Forces troops that set up a perimeter around it were even more so. Despite the hot steamy weather they were in full regalia with weapons drawn.

As far as I could tell there were three perimeters surrounding the plane; each demarcated by a thin rope suspended by thinner poles. You would need to negotiate all three to gain access, but these men left no doubt in my mind that if it came down to the billion-dollar plane or a mere mortal, the mortal would lose out.

But what is a perimeter but a threshold, an entryway into a different world. It may be a forbidden world, it may be there for our protection or for the protection of what lies inside. It requires a journey, be it long or short. It delineates space and as such, time.

Tea gardens (roji) also have perimeters, non-lethal ones of course. Every garden is different. Some are elaborate, leading deeply into the garden through many steps and dwellings before finally coming to the Teahouse (chashitsu). Others have a simple waiting station symbolically substituting for the complexity of the above.

Roji has a complicated morphology. It is a simple path, a passageway from the garden’s gate to the chashitsu. It is the dewy path of the Lotus Sutra, separating us from the reality of dirt and dust, providing a guide to a hermitage of pure spirituality. This path, as with many things over time, has become more intricate.

The roji is divided into two parts: the outer (soto) and the inner (uchi). Let me walk us through this dewy path as best as I can. Although I have been studying Chanoyu for several decades I have only experienced this walk several times. It will be instructive for both of us and will cement the experience in my mind.

In Tea guests arrive early, fifteen minutes is appropriated. It provides time to decompress from the humdrum of the outside world and begin to contemplate an inner one. We approach the roji through a roofed outer gate (sotomon), the most famous of which is the Helmet Gate (kabuto mon) at main entrance of the Urasenke School of Tea in Kyoto.

Water will be sprinkled around the opening as a sign that all is prepared and we may enter. There may be several paths to choose from. Our host has anticipated this and laid a river stone tied with a black cord on the stepping-stone of the trail not to follow, deflecting us in the proper direction.

The garden will also be lightly sprinkled with water as the outer gate was, to provide a feeling of freshness like after a summer thunderstorm.

We walk into the soto roji and enter a small area that is often combined: a porch (yoritsuki) and a waiting room (machiai). This small room is used to shed the dust of the city, change into new tabi and wait for all to assemble. It is here that we leave our worldly possessions.

There may be art objects to view, a tobacco tray and in cooler weather a small hearth with warm water to drink. I hear you saying tobacco, “what in the world is that for?” Well, a long leisurely smoke is not what it is about, but that is the concept. The tray is used to convey the idea of relaxation and contemplation, and is purely symbolic.

Once we are settled, we will be called from the waiting room and move through the garden to a sheltered arbor (koshikake) to await our host (teishu). We have yet to reach the inner garden; the arbor is located between the waiting room and the middle gate (chumon). The chumon separates the outer garden from the inner garden.

Here in the koshikake are small straw cushions (enza) for us to sit on and again we encounter a tobacco tray. Although the distance traveled is short, we are being drawn deeper into the experience. In a formal tea gathering we would come back here to wait during the intermission between the meal and being served tea, but today we will only rest here once.

As we quietly wait for the teishu’s silent bow bidding us to enter the teahouse (chashitsu), we are given a chance to contemplate the nature of the garden: feel wind on our face, smell moist earth and pine, listen to the chirping of birds, and watch insects moving through the dewy moss.

Once beckoned, we walk through the chumon and enter the inner garden (uchi roji); the focal point of which is a stone basin called the tsukubai. If it is a small garden we may have heard the teishu filling the basin with fresh cool water and placing the bamboo ladle that we will use to ritually cleanse our hands and rinse our mouth before entering the chashitsu.

In a final act of humility we will bow low to the ground to use the tsukubai and again as we enter the chashitsu through the small entrance known as the nijirguchi. The perimeter has allowed us to journey far in a short distance and penetrate into the pure world of the Lotus Sutra.

Perimeters delineate space. The bordered land can be welcoming or off-putting, but it is always special. We need not travel far to distant lands to seek enlightenment. We need only to recognize the outer gate. The inner world awaits us.