The Book of Tea: Okakura Kakuzō

Okakura Kakuzō (1863-1913) was an art scholar and critic who defended Japan's traditional art forms against the drive to modernization and westernization. He was one of the principal founders and head of the first Japanese fine-arts academy, the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, opened in 1887. Recognizing the need to preserve Japan's cultural heritage, he travelled to Europe, the United States, China and India, promoting Japanese art and literature to a modern world largely dominated by the West. He was invited by a prominent American collector of Japanese art to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and became the first curator of the Asian art division in 1910.

The Book of Tea (1906), written by Kakuzō in English and published in the United States, is about the connection between Teaism, Taoism, and the aesthetics of Japanese culture. It seeks to justify the importance of tea to Japanese life, not as a mere beverage, but as a ceremonial art form, grounded in Zen philosophy. Kakuzō summarizes Teaism by saying that "it is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life."

The Book of Tea is considered by many to be one of the first books to introduce Eastern culture and philosophy to the Western world and is one of the great English tea classics. According to the philosopher Tomonobu Imamichi, Heidegger received a copy of The Book of Tea in 1919, and the concept of "being-in-the-worldness"--which Kakuzō uses to express Zhuangzi’s philosophy--became the uncredited inspiration for Heidegger's famous notion of Daisen.

The Book of Tea:

• ebook: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/okakura-kakuzo/the-book-of-tea
• Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000JQUVMC/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_PTJ7KZ6N60D83BRRYREM
• Google books: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Book_of_Tea/AMlHAAAAIAAJ?hl=en
• Gutenberg: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/769
• Librivox (two versions): https://librivox.org/author/4273

Extracts:

"For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything." (M-D, 32)

"...we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending." (M-D, 12)

"...I suggested to Peggy, one of the girls who had waited upon us, that a cup of tea would be a nice thing to take; and I would thank her for one. She replied that it was too late for tea; but she would get me a cup of “swipes” if I wanted it." (Redburn, 28)

"...prized by that most radical of men, the farmer, to whom wild amaranths in a pasture, though emblems of immortality, are but weeds and anathema..." ("Clover Dedication")

"And would spirits haunt a tea-table?" ("The Apple-Tree Table")

"...all mortal greatness is but disease." (Moby-Dick, 16)

This meetup is part of a series on Japan Unbolted.