Dear Ms. Noriko Morishita,
Last May, when all my work stopped due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I cleared up the clutter around my home, and reorganized my book shelves. I was trying to ease my insecurity towards uncertain future, by moving my body. I found your book, “Every Day a Good Day”, at the back of my book shelf, which had become cluttered from my habit of random reading and stacking, as I am somewhat addicted to reading. I couldn’t help myself, and spent the next few hours among my scattered books and read your book in one go.
A good book evokes new emotions and discoveries, every time one reads it.
“Every Day a Good Day” depicts the life of the protagonist (yourself) through Japanese Way of Tea (Sado). In the book, I sense the same spirit, common to traditional Japanese learnings and culture in general, not just limited to Japanese Way of Tea. A form of learning, training, that is separate from school lessons and social clubs. What the heroine of the book felt at the tea room of her Sado teacher, seems no different from what I felt at my Nihon Buyo lessons. The feeling brings back fond memories of the process of searching for the essence (of learning) over a long time; the passage that is both heartwarming but also tough.
Now as a teacher myself, I imagine it must be difficult to spend a long time learning something, as I have done, given the rapidly changing times of today.
Ms. Morishita, what are your thoughts on culture, times and tradition, as a writer and as a mentor on the trajectory of mastering Japanese Way of Tea?
Yuko Nishikawa
Dear Ms. Yuko Nishikawa,
I was delighted to read your letter. I write my reply, thinking of you picking up my book “Every Day a Good Day” from your bookshelf and reading it in one go.
It has been 45 years since I started taking lessons of Japanese Way of Tea (Sado), at age 20. To be honest, I have no desire to master Japanese Way of Tea. To me, the tea culture is a vital alternate space to rest my heart, that exists in parallel with life.
I say so, because the society we live in seems like torrential muddy streams, which consume huge amounts of information. We are unable to hear the small voices within our hearts, deafened by the ferocious noises. Then, we are lost on how we really wish to live.
Life is filled with doubts and dilemma. Thus, I commuted to my Sado teacher’s tea room for practice, once a week, dragging my worries with me. Once I enter the gate to the tea room, I hear the trickles from the water basin, at the back of the garden. Instantly, the flow of time slows down, and I enter an alternate world of quietness.
Even 45 years later, I still make mistakes in the tea ceremony routines. Honestly, there is still so much I don’t understand about Japanese Way of Tea. However, recently I am able to think how wonderful it is to leave “something I don’t understand, as it is”.
A long time ago, when my teacher taught me how to read a hanging scroll, she simply said “well, just take a look.”, with a smile. She only taught me how to read out the words. To me, who was 20-years old then, I thought the sole point of hanging rolls were in how the words are read and could not even imagine there were other meanings. Thus, I didn’t understand the significance of her words: “Well, just take a look.”
But some ten years later, one day, there comes a perfect moment when a door opens beyond the words of the hanging scroll, and you are able see the universe. I owe such a moment of epiphany to my repeated walks through the gate of the teacher’s tea room, carrying problems and dilemma with me. I am thankful to my teacher, who just said “Well, just take a look,” and no more, and to the passage of time.
How wonderful it is, that you “don’t understand.” The notion seems like a “treasure” that is buried at the root of a pine tree, waiting to be discovered one day.
Learning is not just about mastering skills and knowledge. Learning is also a joyful process of discovering your true way of life, through spending your lifetime cultivating unknown worlds… I am having such thoughts today, through Japanese Way of Tea.
Please take care of yourself in this very cold season.