The Impact Of Zen On Sado Aesthetics

Sado (The Japanese tea ceremony) is shaped on the basis of tea ritual in Zen Buddhist monasteries which was prevalent in the Song Dynasty of China. At the initial stage, Sado had a very close relationship with Zen. Taking a cue from Murata Shuko and Takeno Jo-o's ideas and experience, Rikyu established an austere tea ceremony with simplified ritual, combined the tenets practicing of Zen and the cultural ceremony of tea ritual. The corn spirit of Sado is Zen. Peace, respect, purity, and tranquility are the four aspects of Sado's spirit. The purpose of the tea ceremony is to cleanse the mind of the concerns of daily life, and to receive a bowl of tea served in a gracious and tasteful manner. The Japanese Tea Masters created a unique way of life by elevating the mundane practice of drinking tea to a spiritual discipline. Especially after the contact with Zen, The Way of Tea was strengthened because the spirit of Tea and Zen became to be seen as one and the same. The central essential of Rikyu's tea ceremony was the concept of wabi. Wabi can be described as a treasured joy deeply hidden under sheer poverty. Zen philosophy takes the positive side of this and says that the greatest wealth is found in desolation and poverty, because we look inside ourselves and find true spiritual wealth there when we have no attachments to things material. The wabi aesthetics idea is embodied not only in the tea Utensils and the tearoom, but also affects the tea master's inner world. Wabi is the most distinct characteristic of the art of Sado, and it has deeply influenced the aesthetic consciousness of Yamato. Wabi is a kind of subjective aesthetics idea, which opposes ubiquitous beauty. The Japanese tea masters reject common beauty and try to discover beauty by themselves. The guiding ideology of this completely-negate-spirit of Wabi is Buddhism. From certain kind of degree, the aesthetics of Wabi is a reflection of the major ideology of Zen on aesthetics. Based on this, by listing the tea set, tea room and tea-drinker in Japanese tea ceremony as aesthetic objects and researching the aesthetic factors embodied in each object, this thesis explores the meaningful factor of Zen reflected in those objects. Besides, this thesis finds the inner spiritual connections among those aesthetic objects which seem irrelevant. The thesis analyses the significance of Zen on Japanese Tea aesthetics from the perspective of cultural study, which is a reexploration of religion aspects of Zen on the concept of Japanese Tea aesthetics.