{"id":1325,"date":"2015-02-23T19:15:31","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T18:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kendonagasaki.org\/?page_id=1325"},"modified":"2015-02-24T17:56:06","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T16:56:06","slug":"kendo-dedicates-his-new-tea-room","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/blog.kendonagasaki.org\/?page_id=1325","title":{"rendered":"Kendo Dedicates His New Tea Room"},"content":{"rendered":"

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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 \u2018kami\u2019 deities of nature in the surrounding Hidden Garden, to hear Kendo\u2019s silent invocation to them to bless this new place and all those who come there. The ceremony concluded with the casting of salt.<\/p>\n

This special new place is a tea room, and it has very deep significance to Kendo Nagasaki.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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It should come as no surprise that Kendo has long performed the tea ceremony \u2013 in this life-time, ever since his spirit first manifested through young Yogensha (the man behind Kendo\u2019s mask), and in previous lives too. Yogensha had been inducted into \u2018The Way of Tea\u2019 by his mentor and \u2018sensei\u2019, 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 \u2018matcha\u2019 green tea, and this experience strengthened the links between Yogensha and the spirit of Kendo Nagasaki, and the rest \u2013 as they say \u2013 is history.<\/p>\n

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On the day on which Kendo performed his blessing and purification ceremony, an \u2018Event\u2019 was being held at The Retreat, with \u2013 appropriately \u2013 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 \u2018Yushin\u2019 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!<\/p>\n

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The creation, blessing, and purification of the tea room were all aspects of Kendo\u2019s 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 \u2018The Way of Tea\u2019, in all its intricacy and expertise, represents most aptly, and who shared this and so much more with young Yogensha.<\/p>\n

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For having given so much to one who has given so much to us, we, too, respectfully salute the man to whom Kendo\u2019s \u2018Yushin\u2019 tea room is dedicated, Kenshiro Abbe sensei.<\/p>\n

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