Fuden-an: Leaves from a Tea-journal

　　In Japan, April is the month with the start of which a new administrative year is embarked upon. Thus it is also marked by school- and university-entrance ceremonies, and by those welcoming new employees into the companies that have selected them. Thus, this is the month during which a great number of young people in Japan take their first steps into paths of life hitherto unfamiliar to them.

　　One of the many hanging-scrolls that our family has managed to preserve conveys the following sentiments:

In undertaking to walk a thousand leagues, from the very first step one must advance with entire determination. Above all, one must most humbly keep oneself from slumping into the tempting wastes of laziness.

　　This is a scroll inscribed by the first incumbent of our family mortuary temple (Koho-an), Priest Koun Soryu, but - if I might be allowed to offer my own, personal interpretation of its burden - what this priest was pointing out was (and is) that 'If one's ultimate goal is a journey of a hundred leagues, one's first steps inevitably determine whither they will lead one, and are therefore of the greatest importance. That is to say, whatever project one may be undertaking, one's first approaches to that project will vitally affect one's subsequent progress with regards to that endeavor, and so should be addressed with all the concentration and strength of which one is presently possessed; and, above all, one should endeavor both not to lapse into immobile sloth or to stray from the path that offers the one passage that may lead one to one's true goal.'

　　And, if there is anything that I wish to offer to those presently embarking upon new walks of life, it is the brisk advice recorded in this very scroll.

　　To mention a rather different matter, from this month it happens that the new Japanese magazine, Waraku ('Peace and Enjoyment') has begun to serialize a very extended discussion between my father, the retired previous Grand Master, and myself, concerning 'elegant spareness of beauty , as found in each of the twelve seasons'. Every month, my father and I are to select and then together discuss a particular subject related to this over-arching theme. Even though we both reside under the same roof, and yet (as both are equally busy) find it hard to make full time for this important interaction, whenever the almost-impossible is again at last achieved, I myself find these recurrent encounters most grateful.

　　How might one best express the mutual basis of these discussions? Previous Grand Master vis-a-vis present Grand Master? Son, facing his father? Supreme teacher, addressing his mere successor? Or am I a guest, hosted by my father?

　　What I have however learned is that - case by case, occasion by occasion - any or all of these mutual roles may well become relevant. In terms of format, my own basic position is that of requesting further enlightenment. Well, I greet this as a chance otherwise far from normally offered: one that allows me, as far as I am able, to persuade my father to open several more of the drawers in which he normally keeps to himself his accrued wisdom, and at last share their contents with me.

　　The recording-sessions that become the bases of the series of articles presenting the results of these interactions usually take up five to six hours of the day in question. Five to six hours constitutes a far longer period even than that required for a full Tea Occasion . What I should most like to happen is that my sheer joy at having this here-to-fore unthinkable access to my father's thoughts should prove to be reflected in the articles that result from these transcribed encounters. Though it is only natural that our shared subjects should mainly be both cha-no-yu and our founder, Lord Enshu, if I might be allowed candidly to express the feelings with which I have been left after several rounds of such conversations, those feelings are to the effect that 'there are always further depths, within or beyond the depths of which you have hitherto believed that you were already aware.' For myself, the passage of time becomes quite irrelevant, I never feel that I am hearing some doctrine merely repeated, and my father's discourse does infallibly make me reflect on just how talented and expertly competent a person Lord Enshu himself had in fact been.

　　Finally, I should like to be allowed to write something of even more private a nature. My only son, Masahiro, has at last at last become eligible for primary education. Of course I stood by and looked on, when he was first invited to try on his new uniform, and then to hump onto his exiguous back his pristine, leather, buckled rucksack. As my son is still extremely slight of both body and stature, not one of us could help feeling that the figure he ultimately presented was that of a rucksack walking around independently - and but barely supported by two tiny stalks: and we were all hard put not to embarrass him with our laughter, however friendly in intent.

　　His elder sister is now in her second year at high school, and has become a keen volleyball-player; and his younger (yet senior) sister is now devoting herself to improving her command of the martial art of swordsmanship (kendo). The sheer speed of one's childrens' development constantly catches one unawares. One will be lucky still to be able to emulate that speed; yet, lucky or not, we adults should never just stand by and allow ourselves to stagnate: our children are to us a potential example that we shall be unwise not to essay to imitate, with all the resources of which we remain possessed. [Translated by Kyugetsu-an Soshun (A.S. Gibbs)]