Rikyû Hyakushu Nr.2

The Learning

Naraitsutsu mitekoso narae narawasu ni yoshiashi iu ha roka narikeri

To learn on and on by seeing and learning;
not to learn is foolish "good or bad" talking

ならひつつ
見て こそ 習へ
習はず に
よし あし いふ は
愚か なりけり		 Naraitsutsu
Mitekoso narae
Narawasu ni
Yoshiashi iu ha
roka narikeri		 Learning incessantly (and discovering The WAY)
Only by seeing and discovering
Not learning (and to miss The WAY):
Talking good or bad
Foolish beeing!

The first of the one hundred Hyakushu tells about the WAY and the getting involved in the way. The second poem tells about the 習 - learning. The verb 習 narai means to learn. But what exactly does to learn mean? For the student of the WAY to learn cannot only mean to learn by heart all the various rules and forms and skills one acquires on the , just as one learns a compendium of laws. In fact the many different forms are very confusing for the beginner. There is Usucha, the weak tea, Koicha, the strong tea, the various ways to lay the charcoal and then all this in different forms in winter and in summer. If one considers the wealth of forms and rules the student has to learn in the Urasenke tradition, learning really seems to take a very long time.

The Sojinboku, a collection of early documents on tea published in 1626, records in its first part the Gyoyo 131 rules that have to be kept by guests and hosts at a tea gathering.
(The name Sojinboku is derived from the form of the character for Cha - tea: 茶. The upper part of the character is the radical for grass - So, the middle one is interpreted as man - Jin, and the radical at the bottom means wood, Moku, read as Boku in the combination.) But this is not all. Gengensai, the grandmaster of the Urasenke in the 11th generation, in 1856 published a book with the title "Hogobusuma" that lists more than 850 ways of Temae - the forms of preparing tea and the various methods.

Learning is one of the highest ideals in a society formed by Confucius, such as the old China - or to a lesser degree Japan. The Confucian civil servant has to be in command of everything of the whole tradition. He has to know the songs, the rites and the old customs and to have confirmed this knowledge in examinations. In later times the samurai also see their task in serving their country in unceasing learning and acquiring universal knowledge and then to hand it down as teachers.
But teacher and student are only two sides of the same play - the "learning-game". The Zhuangzi tells a story about Confucius who is depicted as the forefather of the scholar. He appears almost as his western colleague, who "has studied with fervor philosophy, law and medicine and unfortunately also theology" and who now stands here "a poor fool, none the wiser, and leads his students by the nose".
He who hasn't found the essential himself is now teaching his students. Full of despair he laments that all his knowledge and skill does not help: "Alas, though with the best will in the world, already I feel no gratification coming from heart. But why has the stream to run dry so soon and we have to feel thirsty again?"

In the Zhuangzi (14.5) Confucius says about himself:

I may well claim to have studied the six classics for a long time - the "Book of Songs", the "Book of History", the "Book of Rites (Rituals)", the "Book of Music", the "Book of Changes" and the "Annals of Spring and Autumn" and I know them very well. I have discussed the methods of the former kings with seventy two rulers..."

But nobody wants to employ him and in spite of all his learning and all his knowledge he has not realized the WAY, as he frankly admits master Lao Tan.

At the age of 51 Confucius still had not learned the WAY. He traveled south to Pei to meet Lao Tan (Old '). "Behold, you have arrived!"said Old Rabbit. "I have been told, dear Sir, that you are an honorable gentleman from the North. Have you realized the WAY?" "I have not realized it yet!", Confucius said "How then did you look for it?"asked Lao Tan. "I looked for it in rules and statutes, but still didn't realize it in five years." "And then, how did you look for it?" "I looked for it in Yin and Yang, but after twelve years I still haven't realized it." "That's how it is" said the old master. "If the way could simply be offered, there would not be anybody who didn't offer it to his ruler. If the WAY could be transmitted, everybody would transmit it to his brethren. If the WAY could be handed on, everybody would hand it on to his descendants."

At first Confucius had tried to discern the rules and statutes but after five years he had to recognize that he would never realize the WAY like this. It will be exactly the same if one looked for the essential part of the teaway in the rules. The rules are not an end in themselves, they have come into being through the experiences of the tea-masters while entertaining the guests. The well-being of the guest and the becoming one with it while sharing a cup of tea forms the rules.
In the next step Confucius tries to understand the meaning of the rules and statutes by investigating Yin and Yang. His attempt to understand Yin and Yang starts from the surface of the rules into the profound, the reason for creating the rules and statutes. But even here, after a twelve year long research, he could not realize the way.
But Master Kong is nevertheless a Master, he therefore understands after this long search, that he knows no method to realize the WAY. This is why he sets out to travel south. Now he looks for the WAY by leaving his rigid attitude and going to the old Master '.

Of course the many forms have to be coped with and learned through a tea life. Progress is even confirmed with Kyôjô - the tea diploma. After winning all diplomas one might lean back and rest self assured as "master" in possession of knowledge. But the possession of all these forms is no guarantee for being on the WAY. The true tea-master is not one who is in control of all these forms, perhaps by learning them from books and acquiring them once. The last diploma of the Urasenke states:
"Now that you have learned all, proceed learning with your heart!"
In truth the real learning starts now, the learning with the heart, which means incessant learning, on and on, forever. Rikyu's poem does not speak of "narai - learning" which eventually ends, but of narai-tsutsu. Naraitsutsu means learning that goes on and on and never stops. This kind of learning probably never ends. The whole live is narai, learning. But this learning is of a different quality than the intellectual learning of rules or forms.
Old Master Long Ear knows why Master Kong's - Confucius' - learning has borne no fruit:

"When there is no host (主 Shu) in one's heart to welcome it (the WAY), it will not stay, when there are no outward signals to lead it, it will not 'set out'. If what is coming from inside is not received outside the wise man cannot bring it out. If there is nobody inside to receive it, it cannot be confided by the wise man."

Zhuangzi certainly did not have in mind the teaway writing these lines. But host and guest are very important not only in the teaway. In the teaway this allocation of parts is essential. The host prepares everything, receives the guests and serves the tea the proper way. At a successful party the hearts meet in such a way that the difference between host and guest disappears: MU HIN SHU - 無客主.

This blending of guest and host is already apparent in the Dao De Jing chapter 69:

I do not act the master (host) but am the guest.
吾 不 敢 為 主 而 為 客.

This is the strategic proceeding in conquering a new area. The commander acts in not-acting. If he acted in foreign territory as master he would provoke counter forces and soon be defeated. The expression Shu 主 does not really mean the host as it is later on always used in the teaway but the master, the manager of the household, the employer, the boss. In the convent he is the one who rules and orders the whole life, who decides when there is meditation, what is cooked and eaten, who lives where. But in the Dao De Jing this 'master' does not act like a master but like a guest. Although he really would have the power, he restrains himself and feels like a guest in a foreign country. It is not a question of exercising his power but to listen carefully to what the foreign country with the strange customs and practises of its inhabitants demands. Exactly the same goes for the abbot. He acts not in his own power but in serving the WAY. Out of his own experience of the WAY he can make his decision listening to the WAY and respecting it. In the same way the host in the teaway is the one who prepares everything and carries it through when the guests have arrived. But he does this not to exercise his power or to show that he masters the ritual perfectly. The host prepares everything listening to the WAY in his heart and meeting it in all his acts. He prepares the road for the WAY so that it can run by itself. While preparing a cup of tea together the host vanishes and just the realized WAY appears.

Daitô Kokushi uses the expression 没 賓 主 HIN SHU O BOTSU, disappearing of guest and host, in the poem he writes after resolving the Kôan KAN. In the complete freedom of realization all boundaries and barriers - KAN - disappear as well as the distinction between guest and host.
But the "host" prepares this event by opening himself completely for the WAY. Thus prepared he can set the signs for the way by choosing the flowers and the hanging roll, filling the teapot, getting the water, lighting the fire and - after the arrival of the guests - whisking the tea. Thus the inner attitude finds ist equivalent in the outward appearance.
Hôunsai Daisôsho writes:

If you follow the teaway with your own inner conviction your daily practice will not remain simply an exercise. Your efforts for a certain order in preparing the tea or what you learn as a guest about the order of the gestures will find expression spontaneously in your everyday life.
My predecessor Tantansai taught: "Practice and the actual preparation of tea at a gathering have to be one. Make yourselves aware of what has to be done and act accordingly".

Proper learning requires an agreement of the interior and the exterior. If the heart is not like a host who carefully and expectantly prepares everything for the coming guest, then all the learning of forms and rules will remain futile. If only the heart opens up to the way without realizing itself in the exterior, the way cannot unfold itself. This signifies for the student of the teaway not to learn the forms just as a set of rules and then to stick to them slavishly. But on the other hand he'll not progress on the way if he thinks his inner attitude right but does not master the outward forms. The form and the inner attitude have to go together.

This is also connected with the structure of our brain and the vegetative nervous system. When the slow flowing movements, the steady posture in sitting and the breathing match, the sympathetic nervous system (energy and tension) and the parasympathetic nervous system (relaxation) maintain a proper balance. Thinking and perception diminish or stop completely and the practising person turns into an empty mirror. Master Dôgen calls this state in the chapter Bendowa of the Shôbôgenzo "shinjin datsuraku - dropping mind and body" (Shin: heart, mind, Jin: body; datsuraku: dropping).
Sôshitsu Sen, the 15th. Grandmaster of the Urasenke writes:

Chadô, the teaway, has to be learned via the movements of the body, one's own experience. It cannot be learned by only watching others, by listening to them and then imitating them. The grand master, my predecessor, impressed upon me that the seaway can solely be learned through the movements of my own body, by collecting experiences that are incorporated into the body. At long last the wish to learn the teaway has to arise from one's own heart; nobody else can force it on us.

The constantly repeated movements of one's own body, the sitting on the floor, the accord with breathing, the flow of the movements, imprint themselves deeply into the body and are stored up. As long as a Tenmae, a form, is only recorded in the head, one never experiences the quiet and the peace in one`s heart. Jaku, the quiet, is an experience one can only learn with one's whole body and heart or as Dogen puts it by dropping mind and body. Once this state is attained it does no longer matter to make a mistake.

In Japan there exists the set phrase SHU HA RI - to gain and to acquire, to destroy, to forget. For the beginner it is important to gain the form with the heart and the body, to become one with the form. In the second stage one can do without the correct course according to the rules. Variations are allowed, even the breaking of the rules. In olden times the teamasters were extremely spontaneous. When Rikyû saw something that appealed to him he thought about how to work it into his tea ceremony.
In deep winter one teamaster had the water in his receptacle for cold water frozen and a thin layer of ice had formed. Spontaneously he decided to take the receptacle without a lid into the tearoom. Then he broke the thin layer of ice with the handle of the Hishaku, the ladle, before scooping out the cold water.
Up until Edo-Times everybody was turning towards the guests when coming in or going out of the chashitsu. Once there was an old man making tea. Finally he had to stand up and take out the Kensui with the waste water but his feet weren't so good anymore. So he decided to turn away from the sunken hearth and thus away from the guests to make sure that the water would not be dripping into the sunken hearth, the Ro. Otherwise the Ro would explode like Mount Vesuvius (as Gary Cadwallader - Urasenke teainstructor - said). Today everybody is turning in this manner. This spontaneous decision made a new rule.

It does not mean that the master realizes a completely new never before existing form if he "forgets" the form at the last stage. The firm form has been internalized during the long way of learning in such a way, one has become the form oneself, that there arise only variations. To forget the form is to forget oneself and to go up in "getting the water, lighting the fire and whisking the tea". p>

Mitekoso - Learning by Seeing
Sôshitsu writes one cannot learn by watching others and imitating them. It were important to practice the movements with one's own body and to experience the teaway. But in Rikyû`s poem it says:

Naraitsutsu Learning (and discovering the WAY) Mitekoso narai Only by seeing discovering

Learning is a "seeing" learning (mitekoso narai). Doesn't this look like a contradiction? But "seeing" learning is for the beginner, if at all, only possible in a limited way. The beginner sees only the outward form. Later on it may be possible to see a difference between the beginner and the expert but it is hardly possible to define this difference. For the beginner it is impossible to learn from videos, for example. There are of course students who try to do this. But after some time they realize that they cannot "see". The master in the video does something differently, but what is it? Without the experience with his own body one cannot recognize the exceptional quality of this one harmoniously flowing movement. Sôtan says not without reason that the tea is transmitted from hand to eye, from mouth to ear, but above all from heart to heart, without writing down a single word. Written down notes may perhaps help to remember the complicated proceedings but they can never replace the own experience with one`s body and mind. Seeing is seeing not only with the eyes but also with the heart, the mind. But Master Dôgen believes that the perception remains incomplete even then:

(Even) if we see in union with body and mind a color or hear a voice with united body and mind we always perceive only one part and black out the other part. This is never something that appears completely in the mirror, never like the moon in the water. Only parts of the whole can be seen, even if one looks united with body and mind, not only with one`s eyes. If one looks at the hands while practising the teaway, one might not see the back, if one looks at the movement, one might not see the breathing. If one concentrates on single aspects at an invitation to tea, one might not get the general view. Only after having seen the whole, one can see completely. Many correlations between the complicated proceedings can only be understood when one known the whole.

I can still remember how as a beginner I criticized my teacher when he always taught the whole sequence of events in a Tenmae. I thought it better to practice the separate movements until one understood them in all its meanings. This method seemed to me to be more effective. But in his opinion one always had to practice the whole process. Only by starting from the whole it were possible to understand the separate parts. But anyhow the efficiency of learning were not important in the teaway. Anyway "skills" should not be imparted.
Master Dogen compares the view on the whole with the dewdrop that mirrors the moon:

To wake is like the reflection of the moon in the water. The moon does not get wet, the water remains unspoiled. The light is broad and vast, but nevertheless it is mirrored in a small puddle. There is room in the dew on the grass or in a drop of water for the full moon, more, for the whole sky. In order to plumb the depth of awakening or the height, find out the length and brevity of this moment in oceans and brooks. Watch the expanse and narrowness of the sky and the moon.

You can really "see" only when you see the "whole moon" in this tiny detail, experience the whole ocean of time in this moment. A disparaging assessment of mistakes or well made things is too narrow for the complete experience. That's why it says in Rikyû's poem:

よし あし いふ は 愚か なりけり
Narawasu ni Yoshiashi iu ha roka narikeri
Not learning (and to miss the WAY)
(only) talking good or bad is foolish/p> The chapter "Autumn Floods" of the Zhuangzi tells several times the story of the frog that sits in its well shaft and that believes this well shaft to be the whole world.: "You cannot discuss the ocean with this frog sitting on the ground of his well as he is bound to his realm".

"This is really a good place to be", the frog told a turtle from the Eastern Ocean. " If I want to go for a walk, I hop around on the rim of the well; then I go back and rest in the holes left by bricks broken from the wall of the well. I get into the water until it reaches my armpits and carries my chin. When I wade through the mud it covers my feet and my toes sink in. Looking around I see crabs and tadpoles but none of them are able to match me. Besides all the water in this cavity belongs to me alone and all the pleasures of this broken well are at my disposal. That is the best of all. Why don't you look me up, Sir, and see for yourself." But even before the turtle had put the left foot into the water, it had got stuck in the mud with its right knee. After it had freed itself, it withdrew a bit and told the frog about the ocean. .....When the frog in the decayed well heard about that, it was so frightened that it did not know what was happening.

Zen master Ikkyu whose student according to a legend had been Tea master Murata Jukoo, and who is supposed to have had the idea to practise the tea as WAY, was appalled about the idle and senseless actions of the monks at the Daitôkuji-temple. At this time they had apparently lost sight of the whole and practised zealously the ceremonies and rituals without knowing what for. Zen would have found its fulfillment only, if the practices of Zen had been realized in everyday life. In a poem in which he refers to the story from Zhuanzi, Ikkyu jeers at the whole senseless activity:

Who is used to catch big fish
laughs at the behavior of the frogs.
They burrow in the mud,
self-important, hasty, always busy;
At the bottom of the well they believe
themselves authoritative and big.
Pitiful! -
The world of the priests
is nothing
but a well shaft.

In all learning one must never lose sight of the whole, the realization of the way.

Master Dôgen also speaks about "learning". Chapter Genjôkoan of the Shôbôgenzo says:

To penetrate (to learn) the way of Buddha is to penetrate (to learn) oneself, to penetrate oneself is to forget oneself.

Here Dôgen uses the verb narau - 習, to learn. But learning is not the learning of rules. Learning is not about sitting, lying, eating sleeping in the right way. It is about "learning" oneself, but that means to forget oneself. Although this kind of learning includes the study of the scripts as well, it is, perhaps primarily, the daily practice of the exercises.

Dôgen reports how he himself had studied Zen in China and his Master had told him that practice and experience were not two things following one after the other. Continuous practice is already the experience.

"One should not differentiate between the beginner and the advanced, between saints and normal people.... A master says: somebody who sees the WAY practices the WAY. Remember, that you have to go on practicing, even if you have already found the truth."

Naraitsutsu, continuous learning, lasts the whole life. There is no final goal. The whole life is learning.

Übersetzung:
Paul Podjed

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