Fuden-an: Leaves from a Tea-journal

　　Summer has finally reached its height; it is forecast that this summer will be far hotter than was last year's, and so we all need to take greatest care over the management of our bodily conditions.

　　From the middle of last May into June, I have found my own schedule unprecedently packed, and that schedule requiring me to move about the country constantly. On May the twelfth, as is done every year there was held at Koho-an of the Daitoku Temple - the mortuary temple of our founder, Lord Enshu - the annual rites service for our founder, and accompanying formal offering of Tea to his soul, and then service of Tea to all those kind enough to have attended these rites; and of course I had to go down to Kyoto to take part in this. I returned to Tokyo on the fourteenth, and then early on the fifteenth set off once more for Kyoto, there to make another formal offering of Tea, as part of the rites held this year at the Daitoku Temple, to celebrate the annual anniversary of its founding, following which I proceeded to Osaka's Itami Airport, whence I flew up to Aomori Prefecture. There, the Hirosaki Branch of our School was this year's host to our annual three-day National Convention, which that Branch brought off in splendid style. Having seen that event to its conclusion, on the twentieth I left for Kyoto for a third time, this time to oversee the preparations for yet another formal offering of Tea, this time at the Temple of the Golden Pavilion (the Rokuon' Temple), and subsequent Tea-meet held there. The twenty-second saw me again back in Tokyo, which I left once more on the twenty-fourth, this time for Fukuoka. Upon landing I immediately set off for the city of Nogata. This coming autumn, the Prefecture of Fukuoka is to be host to the annual Festival of National Culture; as one contribution to this, the Enshu School is having built in Nogata a platinum Tea-reception-room , and I went there to inspect present progress in its construction. Such a structure is something upon which, during all the history of human-kind, not one person has yet set eyes; and, finding that everything in Nogata was proceeding very satisfactorily, I felt that my original dream of eventually offering Tea in such a reception-room had drawn that much closer to becoming a reality. On the twenty-fifth I gave a lecture as guest-speaker to the Senior Convention of the Youth Association of the neighboring city of Iizuka, and on the following day departed for Nagoya, where I was to teach. I managed to get home at last on the twenty-seventh, only to have to leave again on the twenty-eighth, this time for ?saka, again to teach. Back once more to Tokyo on the twenty-ninth, and then, on the first of June, off for a fourth time to Kyoto, on this occasion to attend the annual Korin-Kenzan Tea-meet. Back up to Tokyo on the second of the month, but to leave home once more on the fourth, having been invited to take part in an Anniversary Celebration held in Yashimacho, in Akita Prefecture.

　　Now looking back on managing to complete a schedule of this sort, I confess I find myself dizzied, all over again, by this constant movement about the country. It has indeed left me feeling fatigued; but what has been of indispensable support to me is my family, the unfailing efficiency of the School's administrative office-staff, the empathetic attentions of my own disciples throughout the country, and - above all - my own principle tenet: that of enriching the heart through the praxis of Tea.

　　What I should next like to do is to present a small report, just concerning the one-hundred-and-fifteenth Anniversary Celebration held in the Tachimachi Quarter of Yashimacho.

　　The bond between Yashimacho and the Enshu School dates back to the early Edo period. At that time, the feudal lord of the Sanuki fief , himself of the house of Ikoma, was in 1640 transferred to the Dewa fief (part of which is now Akita Prefecture). The mother of the feudal lord in question (Lord Ikoma Takatoshi) - that is to say, the principal wife of the third house-head, Lord Ikoma Masatoshi - was the adoptive daughter of Todo Takatora As many of my readers will already know, Todo Takatora was a military chieftain who through both his valor and his strategic abilities won great fame during the Civil War period , and was eventually appointed Lord of the fief of Tsu, which afforded him the very large income of three hundred and twenty thousand bushels [koku] of uncooked rice. At the time of this appointment, Lord Kobori Enshu himself married, and his chosen spouse was, yes, another adoptive daughter of Takatora - the result of which alliance being that the bond between the respective houses of Ikoma and Kobori became one of great depth and stability. And, as a result of this still-enduring bond, when twenty-two years ago my father and I together visited Akita Prefecture, we were given the chance to develop a pleasant intimacy with the then-and-present Mayor of Yashimacho, Mr. Sato Sei'in', and the warm feelings thenceforth long maintained on either side - by both the Mayor and his citizens and also ourselves - perhaps achieved fruition upon the occasion of which I am now writing. The formal offering of Tea was held at the mortuary temple of the house of Ikoma - the Ryugen' Temple - founded in the ninth year of the Gen'na [Genwa] era ; and that very year is also that in which Lord Enshu was appointed to the governmental position that he thenceforth held until his death: that of chief magistrate and governor-general of the politically and economically important area of southern Kyoto still known as Fushimi.

　　These numerous overlappings and significant coincidences made of my recent trip to Akita something of, to me, great meaning. And, just when my own service offering formal Tea to the ancestors of the house of Ikoma had been completed, the pride of Akita Prefecture - the mountain of Chokaizan - was suddenly revealed in all its overwhelming and majestic beauty.

　　In response to this unexpected gift, there arose to my mind a poem in classical form :

In response to the 115th Anniversary of the Tachimachi Quarter of the city of Yashimacho, upon having offered ritual Tea at the Ryugen Temple, and then gazing up at Chokaizan:

　　　　　　　allowed thus to maintain
　　　　　a bond that has endured for all
　　　　　　　of four whole centuries,
　　　　　I find an oath not to be
　　　　　betrayed, here to be re-sworn