I think of this as I kneel trying to make a bowl of matcha. Seems simple I know. As Rikyu wrote in his One Hundred Verses (here translated by Gretchen Mittwer), “Know that chanoyu is a matter of simply boiling water, making the tea, and drinking it.” He also wrote, “To become adept at something requires liking it, adroitness, and the accumulation of training. It is the person with all these three who will realize mastery.”
In fact, I often think of the former while entering into the process of making tea only to discover, about 5 minutes into the process, how wrong I am. It is then that the later aphorism starts to resonate in my mind.
But maybe effort is a better word than work. Work implies a reward. I do this for you and you pay me, whereas effort is devoid of the concept of pay or reward. Granted, you may be rewarded for your effort but that is not implicit in the doing.
Effort is an ethical construct. It is something you decided to do because you decide to do it. It provides an internal satisfaction despite the outcome. Effort is done because you want to put in the energy. We know from the laws of thermodynamics that energy is not lost it is just transformed. Though, on a frustrating day at work this is hard to accept. It is probably why the afternoon coffee break was invented. In the hope of using a little biologically active molecule to kick start your brain and body to give a bit more effort towards the cause.
As we are told, the Buddhist priests that brought tea back from China to Japan in the 8th century, 120 miles across the Korean Strait, in fact, used tea for just this purpose. And this purpose provides such an important function that an elaborate culture developed around it. Thus, chanoyu has evolved over at least a half-century.
I think that success in tea, if such a concept exists, is measured in seconds. In the correct placement of the chawan and natsume; in the folding of the fukusa to cleanse the chashaku; in the whisking of matcha into a perfectly foamy lake; in the handling of the hishaku . . .
With all the above performed as the guest looks on resting on the firm foundation of the unseen labor in the mizuja. And that is another aspect of effort. It need not be recognized. When I was young, I wrongly assumed that my contemporaries who were surpassing me academically were somehow more gifted than I. That they possessed an inner trait — in the genes, though who knew about genes back then — that allow them to perform at a higher level. It took me many years to discover that effort was the key to success and that my genes were certainly up to the challenge.
Effort can transform into ease. How will you know, you will know by not knowing. The entire concept will no longer matter. Tea, or whatever pursues you have put your efforts into, will just happen, and seem to the outside world like you were born to do it. I think it is then that you can become a drunken bodhisattvas and wander in the mountains, from hut to hut . . . at ease!
October 2014
