Chado the Way of Tea: A Japanese Tea Master's Almanac is a translation of the Japanese classic Sado-saijiki, first published in 1960. Covering tea-related events in Japan throughout the year, Master Sasaki provides vignettes of festivals and formal occasions, and as well as the traditional contemplative poetry that is a part of the tea ceremony. Each chapter covers variations in the tea ceremony appropriate for a single month, including: Themes and sentiments—tea gatherings at night, under the moon, on snowy days, and many others. Special events—describing major tea festivals such as Hina-matsuri and yasurai-matsuri. Flowers with tea--a list of 250 flowers, divided by season with an explanation of how they are incorporated into the tea ceremony. Cakes—descriptions and ingredients of moist and dry cakes and toffees used in the tea ceremony. Meals for tea—the meal, kaiseki, accounts for almost a third of any formal tea ceremony. This section includes at least two proven menus for each month. Words—seasonal words, poetic names for utensils, and nature words used in the tea ceremony. The book also includes reproductions of almost 100 Japanese paintings produced by the famous tea practitioner Hara Sankei, with over 1,000 Japanese poems, and a glossary of over 500 specialized terms related to the tea ceremony.

Almost a millennium before the perfection of chado (the Way of Tea) by Sen Rikyu (1522-1591), the Chinese scholar-official Lu Yu (d. 785) wrote exhaustively about tea and its virtues. Grand Tea Master Sen Soshitsu begins his examination of tea's origins and development from the eighth century through the Heian and medieval eras. This volume illustrates that modes of thinking and practices now associated with the Japanese Way of Tea can be traced to China--where from the classical period tea was imbued with a spiritual quality.

Tea is the world’s most popular beverage. Yet there are disturbing truths to be faced about our morning cuppa. Priest and social activist Becca Stevens tells the remarkable story of how a local café run by women recovering from abuse, prostitution and addiction is helping to bring freedom and fair wages to the tea industry.

Contains essays on food and material culture presented at the 2013 Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.

By examining chanoyu - the custom of consuming matcha tea - in the Meiji period, Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan investigates the interactions between intellectual and cultural legacies of the Tokugawa period and the incoming influences of Western ideas, material cultures and institutions. It explores the construction of Japan's modern cultural identity, highlighting the development of new social classes, and the transformation of cultural practices and production-consumption networks of the modern era. Taka Oshikri uses a wealth of Japanese source material - including diaries, newspaper, journal articles, maps, exhibition catalogues and official records – to explore the intricate relationships between the practice and practitioners of different social groups such as the old aristocracy, the emerging industrial elite, the local elite and government officials. She argues that the fabrication of a cultural identity during modernisation was influenced by various interest groups, such as the private commercial sector and foreign ambassadors. Although much is written on the practice of chanoyu in the pre-Tokugawa period and present-day Japan, there are few historical studies focusing on the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Gathering for Tea in Modern Japan thus makes a significant contribution to its field, and will be of great value to students and scholars of modern Japanese social and cultural history.

In the twenty-first century, the concept of internationalisation remains a crucial tool for understanding the dynamics of globalising processes. It draws attention to the dimensions of conscious action in inter- and trans-national phenomena, connecting globalisation with individuals’ experience of everyday life. This book explores how internationalisation is imagined, discussed and operationalised in Japan and surrounding countries. The chapters focus on educational, leisure and cultural activities, fields which are often overlooked in favour of economic and political developments in the literature. The conclusion reflects on the concept of internationalisation and assesses how it is likely to develop in Japan in future, taking into account the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011.

This is a multicultural philosophy of art applied to common American and European experience and discussed in relation to Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu, Native American, and African traditions.

An invigorating memoir about a young woman pushed to her limits at a Zen monastery in Hawai‘i, where she learns that the key to unlocking the ultimate breakthrough is igniting her fighting spirit. At twenty-five, activist Cristina Moon faced an impossible task: preparing for the possibility of arrest and torture inside military-ruled Myanmar. Her response? Learning Buddhist meditation. So began what would become a decades-long spiritual path—eventually leading her to a Zen temple and martial arts dojo in Hawaiʻi with a timeless method of warrior Zen training. Offering a bracing account of three years of mind-body-spirit training at Daihonzan Chozen-ji, a Rinzai Zen temple and martial arts dojo, Moon powerfully captures the rigors and realizations that finally shaped her into a Zen priest whose highest directive is to give fearlessness. Told with immersive detail and an unique Asian American female perspective, Three Years on the Great Mountain chronicles Moon's straight-up-the-mountain training regimen at Chozen-ji, conducted every day and often through the nights. Through the spiritual forging of daily Zen meditation, manual labor, swordsmanship, and Japanese tea ceremony, she discovers a newfound conviction that self mastery and spiritual growth can take fierce form. Embraced by local Hawaiʻi and Japanese culture, and a community of discipline, respect, and discovery, she discovers a profound sense of home.

This provoking new study of the Japanese tea ceremony (chanoyu) examines the ideological foundation of its place in history and the broader context of Japanese cultural values where it has emerged as a so called ‘quintessential’ component of the culture. It was in fact, Sen Soshitsu Xl, grandmaster of Urasenke, today the most globally prominent tea school, who argued in 1872 that tea should be viewed as the expression of the moral universe of the nation. A practising teamaster himself, the author argues, however, that tea was many other things: it was privilege, politics, power and the lever for passion and commitment in the theatre of war. Through a methodological framework rooted in current approaches, he demonstrates how the iconic images as supposedly timeless examples of Japanese tradition have been the subject of manipulation as ideological tools and speaks to presentations of cultural identity in Japanese society today.