reicha 礼茶 at Ryosen-an 龍泉庵
Aug. 2nd, 2011 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radhardenedOn July 26, four of us Midorikai students volunteered to help our Zen teacher, Matsunami-sensei, with an annual memorial event at the Daitoku-ji sub-temple where he is the abbot, Ryosen-an 龍泉庵. A few days before we had reported there to do some preparatory cleaning and setup of the tea bowls and felt-matted seating areas. On the day of the event we reported, dressed in our most formal kimono, early enough for some last-minute serving instruction. Our role would be to serve food and tea to the twelve Zen monks who would be Matsunami-sensei's guests. Or rather, that would be the role of my three male classmates, because it turns out women aren't supposed to do that. ::sigh:: Ah, yeah, I have some problems with the role of women in Japan.
The event began with Matsunami-sensei and his guests doing some sutra chanting in the zendo for about fifteen minutes. Then they filed into the hall where we'd be serving them a shōjin ryōri meal catered by Ikkyu 一久. The serving etiquette was rather different from what we've been learning for cha-kaiseki. For one thing, Matsunami-sensei instructed the men to carry in the lacquered meal trays with one in each hand; also, the servers' seated bows to guests were to be forehead-to-the-tatami deep. Most remarkable of all, to us, was the fact that beer was served with the meal, at this solemn Zen Buddhist memorial event. Not that there's anything forbidding Zen monks from drinking alcohol—certainly sake has an important role in Buddhist and Shinto rites—but still. Nothin' like a cold glass of Kirin Lager after meditation. :)
Following the meal was our service of matcha and manjū. Each guest was to be served tea in a tenmoku bowl atop a kinindai, another point that struck me as different from our accustomed way of serving tea. This matcha service is where I could offer the most help from my place behind the scenes, by apportioning tea into the tea bowls, adding hot water, whisking, and passing them off to the guys to serve. But I hadn't counted on the swift pace of the meal, and so my timing was woefully late. Plus, I didn't realize until several bowls in that in this kind of tea service the portions are much smaller than we normally make. Reportedly the guys made plenty of mistakes of their own in the serving part, so we could have done a better job all around. Finally they served little bowls of chilled bancha, and then the guests departed with the same briskness with which they'd arrived and eaten.
I hope we were more help than we were trouble; at least Matsunami-sensei didn't seem upset with us afterwards, when he treated us to our own portions of the delicious shōjin ryōri meal. For us, the experience was an education in a different kind of chanoyu.
The event began with Matsunami-sensei and his guests doing some sutra chanting in the zendo for about fifteen minutes. Then they filed into the hall where we'd be serving them a shōjin ryōri meal catered by Ikkyu 一久. The serving etiquette was rather different from what we've been learning for cha-kaiseki. For one thing, Matsunami-sensei instructed the men to carry in the lacquered meal trays with one in each hand; also, the servers' seated bows to guests were to be forehead-to-the-tatami deep. Most remarkable of all, to us, was the fact that beer was served with the meal, at this solemn Zen Buddhist memorial event. Not that there's anything forbidding Zen monks from drinking alcohol—certainly sake has an important role in Buddhist and Shinto rites—but still. Nothin' like a cold glass of Kirin Lager after meditation. :)
Following the meal was our service of matcha and manjū. Each guest was to be served tea in a tenmoku bowl atop a kinindai, another point that struck me as different from our accustomed way of serving tea. This matcha service is where I could offer the most help from my place behind the scenes, by apportioning tea into the tea bowls, adding hot water, whisking, and passing them off to the guys to serve. But I hadn't counted on the swift pace of the meal, and so my timing was woefully late. Plus, I didn't realize until several bowls in that in this kind of tea service the portions are much smaller than we normally make. Reportedly the guys made plenty of mistakes of their own in the serving part, so we could have done a better job all around. Finally they served little bowls of chilled bancha, and then the guests departed with the same briskness with which they'd arrived and eaten.
I hope we were more help than we were trouble; at least Matsunami-sensei didn't seem upset with us afterwards, when he treated us to our own portions of the delicious shōjin ryōri meal. For us, the experience was an education in a different kind of chanoyu.
