On 14th February 2015, Kendo Nagasaki performed a Shinto-based ceremony to bless and purify a special new place in the grounds of his Retreat, and the space in which it exists. The ceremony involved the striking of a singing bowl to alert the ‘kami’ deities of nature in the surrounding Hidden Garden, to hear Kendo’s silent invocation to them to bless this new place and all those who come there. The ceremony concluded with the casting of salt.

This special new place is a tea room, and it has very deep significance to Kendo Nagasaki.

The Japanese tea ceremony has always been inextricably linked with Zen Buddhism and the samurai, and the fact that in contemporary Japan it is still regarded as a special and revered practise illustrates its enduring, deep, and timeless links with Japanese culture.

It should come as no surprise that Kendo has long performed the tea ceremony – in this life-time, ever since his spirit first manifested through young Yogensha (the man behind Kendo’s mask), and in previous lives too. Yogensha had been inducted into ‘The Way of Tea’ by his mentor and ‘sensei’, the great Japanese judoka and mystic, Kenshiro Abbe. Abbe had showed this young man how the samurai placed such importance on the precision and harmony of each and every movement in the preparation and serving of the ‘matcha’ green tea, and this experience strengthened the links between Yogensha and the spirit of Kendo Nagasaki, and the rest – as they say – is history.

On the day on which Kendo performed his blessing and purification ceremony, an ‘Event’ was being held at The Retreat, with – appropriately – 13 guests present. They were taken into the Hidden Garden and were the first to see the new tea room. It is what is known as a ‘Yushin’ tea room, a design which has benches and a table, and which represents the most current evolution of the setting for this deeply traditional ceremony; the Japanese themselves have embraced this style of tea room, with only tourists wanting to sit on the floor to drink tea these days!

The creation, blessing, and purification of the tea room were all aspects of Kendo’s own personal dedication of this special place to Kenshiro Abbe. It is a most appropriate memorial to the Japanese master judoka and mystic, who was a man of deep insight and great precision, and whom ‘The Way of Tea’, in all its intricacy and expertise, represents most aptly, and who shared this and so much more with young Yogensha.

For having given so much to one who has given so much to us, we, too, respectfully salute the man to whom Kendo’s ‘Yushin’ tea room is dedicated, Kenshiro Abbe sensei.