December 14 -15/2019: Trãind în ZEN - ceai, arta si simplitatea vietii monastice

O intalnire cu maestrii Templului Ryoko-in din Kyoto

Day One: At His Excellency the Japanese Ambassador, Mr Noda, the Zen Monk Gempo Kobori, Tea Teacher Gabriel Caciula, MNAR Director Liviu Constantinescu and ELI Scientific Director Kazuo Tanaka in Romania, everybody spoke about the conferences and workshops of this weekend. Let us enjoy it!

What happens at a Chaji?

As outside the cherry flowers are ready to display their exploding unique beauty, Tankokai Luminis introduces the audience to the secrets of a Chaji - the mysterious tea gathering.

The location - of course the National Museum of Art and there hidden away from the passing world, our chashitsu, Reikōan - the 'glowing mountain peak abode'.

As always, the one and only Calea Victoriei Foundation was our partner for the introduction of the peaceful harmony and tranquility of a tea gathering. Many thanks to everyone from Calea Victoriei for making this event possible.
We presented the arrival of the guests, the greetings, the reverence paid to the tokonoma, hana and dogu, the serving of sweets and the offering of koicha - an act of sharing.

This time not too much talk. Just photos.
With thanks to all the students who participated and made this demonstration possible. It was an open gate through which the sincere curiosity of the public poured in.

First Part - Introduction to some steps in a Chaji

Tsukubai - waiting for the guests

Paying respect to the Jiku in Tokonoma.  Calligraphy: 'One step at a time"

Aisatsu - the initial salutations

Tea preparation 1

Tea preparation 3

Tea preparation 2

It seems like a string puppet theatre no?

The audience seems to enjoy

Second Part - Practicing koicha tsuki kagetsu no shiki

One hour for a delightful sandwich and a glass of water, a deep breath, the water boiling again, we are ready to practice koicha tsuki kagetsu no shiki. It sounds easy, it is easy, yet hard to get it turn into a natural breathing.

Picking fuda to determine the roles

Preparing koicha for all and joining the group to drink together

And now, the rounds of usucha, tsuki drinks, hana prepares the next tea

The second group who watched patiently is now on the stage. Koicha again!

And the rounds of usucha, tsuki drinks, hana prepares the next tea

The whole team - observing, comparing, learning, asking questions
All possible thanks to the kindness of the National Museum of Art of Romania

Practicing, what else! This time with Japanese friends

By the end of February, when young wild flowers manage to escape the frozen embrace of the still sleeping earth and dare showing their delicate and frail buds through the icy surface of the remains of snow patches, along old wooden fences, Tankokai Romania Luminis had the honour and pleasure  of hosting a simple tea offering at the Reikōan (summit, radiant, hermitage) - the tea room (chashitsū) recently built at the National Museum of Art of Romania.

The guests: His Excellency, the Ambassador of Japan in Romania, Mr. Hitoshi Noda together with his wife, Mrs. Noda and a group from the embassy staff.

We offered okashi and a cup of tea, which we hope was enjoyed by our guests.
After this our guests and our students participated together in a pleasant and provoking exercise: Kazucha no Shiki.
Developing attention and concentration, this exercise also created a pleasant atmosphere of shared learning and laughing (when learning was not so easy) as a united community of tea people.
Later on, we moved to our headquarters and decided to practice Mukogiri usucha and koicha. We do not have the correct setup of our RO but, improvisation is the mother of invention!

Here are some photos from the sessions. A very useful and pleasant time spent together.
We thank our guests and students and hope to see them together practicing. Practicing, what else!

Offering a cup of tea to Mrs. Noda and the embassy staff.

Kazucha no shiki

Kazucha no shiki

A smile to balance focusing and a bit of exhaustion

And back to work

The game comes to its end.

Mukogiri - students find it not 'that difficult'. This is what practice does!

The Romanian Museum of National Art Chashitsu baptised with its first demonstration

"MNAR" - precisely the name of a Viking warrior or an Avatar from the constellation Cygnus Alpha XP-1549.
Well, not really!
This provoking name stands for the Museum of National Art of Romania. But stepping inside, in the belly of the former Royal Palace, gives you the chills of an incredibly touching experience. The sober, glorious and majestic display of confused monumentalism, (trimmed here and there by the presence of ginkgo leaves design metal lacing cage style elevators, silently moving you from a surreal space to another, as you submit slowly to the acceptance of being lost forever), suddenly changes its face, as it spits you inside another universe: a quiet, dust free, temperature controlled white space, a drop of the "impossible" inside of the "possible".

There, on its own, sleeping like a cat, a little Japanese tea house, a Chashitsu with its friend, Roji, the tea garden. The first such construction to ever exist in Romania, grace to an auspicious encounter between the management of the museum, the Japanese Embassy in Romania, a group of remarkably generous sponsors and the talented hands and vision of the Japanese architects and builders.
Never had such a thing been so close to the Romanian public, hands able to feel the texture of the impeccably processed high quality wood, the eyes absorbing the transparency and fragility of the Japanese Shoji paper, the air filled with the smell of freshly washed straws of the tatami. A strange thing, reminding us of the Japan of the XVI century and the birth of the most incredible tradition ever, the Japanese Tea Ceremony. What to do?

What to do? Well, try it out.
We, the Chado Urasenke Tankokai Romania - Luminis Association, had the chance, thanks to the kindness of the museum management and in particular the museum director, Mr. Liviu Constantinescu and Carmen Brad, art historian and the curator of the tea room, to offer a demonstration of a Chaji, (a gathering of tea connoisseurs), for the museum staff who worked with abnegation and joy helping to bring alive this incredible construction - the Chashitsu.

Below, no talk, just images to let you share a bit of our emotions during this brief demonstration. The photos are the results of the presence of the mind and the hand of Andrei Nicolas Stefan, whom I met by pure chance, well in fact by being impressed by his work, who accepted to record this event and whom I strongly suggest you should follow, if you want to be delighted by what we, many times, are ignoring: the beauty of lights, shadows, the eye catching relevance of the detail lost in the sea of the routine and the presence of the human spirit.