DRP Literature review

강지훈

DRP Literature review

‘Five thousands years history’, is the phrase which numerous historians interpret when describing the history of Korea. History of tea ceremony in Korea is not that different. Although ancient Koreans have not drank tea for five thousands years, it is believed that they have been drinking tea for more than two thousands years. However, it is believed that Japanese have started to drink tea since Nara period, which is during the eighth century A.D., meaning that history of tea in Korea is longer than that of Japan. It can be said that the history of tea is equal to history of tea ceremony, since ancient people regarded tea as a medicine for mental health. In this paper, I would like to analyze the tea ceremony of Korea and Japan, compare and contrast the history of the two, and think about some ways to globalize the tea ceremony of Korea. To do this, I have read and analyzed five sources in this paper, including three books and two journals.

The first book, Way of Tea, was focusing on history of the tea and significance of drinking tea in one’s life. From this book, I was able to find out the origin of the tea, Korean history of tea ceremony and spirit of drinking tea. According to this book, people have been drinking tea for more than 4700 years. It is believed that tea has been first drunk by Shennong-Yandi(炎帝神農), a legendary ruler of China, whose name literally means Divine Farmer(神農) and Flame Emperor (炎帝), during BC 2700s. He is called Yandi(炎帝), Flame Emperor, because he is believed to first teach people how to boil the water using fire. He also taught the people how to cultivate. In order to commemorate him, the people prayed for him using the newly harvested tea leaves every spring, and that tradition is still continued these days.

Tea was first transmitted to Korea in 48 A.D., by the princess of Ayodhya, an ancient empire which existed in modern day northeastern India, according to Memorabilia of Three Kingdoms(三國遺事, Samguk Yusa). From the seventh century, tea was started to be used in the palaces, royal families and the temples. However, habit of drinking tea and tea ceremony was popular mostly in the southern part of the peninsula, since the northerners were nearly impossible to get access to the tea, due to its cold weather which was not suitable for growing tea. The Goryeo(高麗) dynasty, which lasted from early tenth century to the late fourteenth century, was the golden ages for tea culture in Korea. Along with the wide spread of Buddhism throughout the country, habit of drinking tea also spread widely throughout the country. The tea was so popular, that there was a bureau which specialized in cultivating tea in the government, and the public was easily able to get access to the tea, due to numbers of tea cafe, just like how modern people buy alcohols in the pub.

However, the tea culture in Korea suddenly becomes unpopular as the Goryeo falls in 1392. Public hardly had chance to drink tea, but was only enjoyed by the royal family, nobles, aristocrats and bureaucrats. People started to use alcohol rather than tea when performing a ancestral rites. There are still debates going on between the scholars for the reason of sudden collapse in tea culture of Korea. This is one point I should be researching throughout this paper, but there are some plausible reasons for this decline. In Chosun(朝鮮) dynasty, the government promoted Confucianism, specifically the Zhu Xi(朱子) school of Neo Confucianism. On the other hand, the government suppressed the Buddhism. This is because the Buddhism corrupted during the last years of Goryeo dynasty, greatly burdening the public by collecting taxes. And Chosun arose with the commitment of improving the life quality of the public. Therefore, they had to suppress the corrupted Buddhism and adopt a new philosophy, which is Cheng-Zhu school(程朱理學). However, it is still questionable to explain the decline of tea as the decline of Buddhism, because Zhu Xi suggests to drink tea during the spiritual exercise, and Zhu Xi himself was born in a town where is famous for tea. The reason I believe is that since the tea was mostly consumed by the temples and its production was also led by the Buddhism temples, the production of tea naturally declined due to decline of Buddhism. Because tea culture in Korea was only enjoyed by minority for more than six hundred years, I believe that this is the main reason why most people around the world think of Japan more than Korea when coming to the field of tea ceremony, although the history of Japanese tea is shorter than that of Korea.

The second source, Chanoyu(茶の湯), the Japanese Tea Ceremony, was giving general informations for the history of Japanese tea and tea ceremony. By reading this article, I was able to find out some general history of Japanese Tea. According to the article, tea first came into Japan in year 805, brought by Saicho(最澄), a Heian(平安) period monk, from Tang of China. However, tea culture fails to get settled in Japan in this period, and was forgotten for more than four hundred years. It is the monk Eisai(栄西) who again brought tea into Japan from Song in the year 1191. It is believed that tea started to gain popularity among the samurais who tried to train and soothe their spirit by drinking the tea, during the Kamakura(鎌倉) period, which lasted until fourteenth century. During the Edo(江戸) period, the Daimyos(大名), the regional aristocrats in Japan, started to drink tea and therefore domestic demand of the tea increased greatly. In the Meiji(明治) period, the tea cultivation lands, which were originally placed in mountainous regions, came down to the plain areas, led to increase in tea cultivation land and increase in tea production. From this period, improvement of breed was lead by the government, and Japan now produces top quality black, green, and fermented tea.

From the source, it can be seen that popularity of tea in Korea and Japan was similar until the late fourteenth century, but tea culture in Korea declined due to collapse of Goryeo in 1392, while Japan continued to maintain tea industry due to fixed demand from the nobles and the regional aristocrats. However, the reason for the global popularity of the Japanese tea and tea ceremony would not be just its long history and popularity in domestic market. In this paper, I would also like to focus on observing the past effort of Japan that contributed to popularization of their tea ceremony, analyze, improve and apply it to tea ceremony of Korea, so that tea ceremony and tea culture of Korea can also be popularized globally.

The third source, Story of Tea, Story of Zen, focuses on spirit immanent in Korean tea culture. The book mainly writes that the spirit of tea is the truth of all things in the universe. He describes how to practice asceticism by drinking tea. He basically applies the buddhist performances of practicing asceticism, Samatha(शमथ) and Vippasanā(विपश्यना) into tea. Samatha(शमथ) is a practice of calming your mind, by practicing single-pointed meditation through Anapanasati, which means ‘mindfulness of breathing’. On the other hand, Vippasanā(विपश्यना) means an insight into the true nature of reality. He explains Zen(禪) as performing both Samatha(शमथ) and Vippasanā(विपश्यना). He explains the main spirit of Korean tea ceremony as applying this Zen into tea, because it is believed that a tea drinker can find the true meaning of life from the taste and the scent of the tea when applying Zen into tea. In Korean tea culture, it is believed that one can gain merciful heart, enlightenment and law of cause and effect from drinking tea. To be more specific of Zen, in the meaning of Korean tea, is a peace and quiet in body, mouth and sense due to calm in your mind. Here, mind is not a mind that is contrary to the body, but the nature of space itself is the mind. To be simple, this mind is Zen. The purpose of applying Zen into tea is to get out from suffering of life and death, and lead to nirvana of immortality, and sharing the hardships of the others and leading to nirvana together.

To summarize, spirit of Korean tea has a strong emphasis on Zen, which is basically calm state of mind. Since the idea of Zen is originally a idea in Buddhism, it can also be inferred that Buddhism in closely related to spirit of tea in Korea. Like Buddhism, tea spirit of Korea also explains the ultimate goal as nirvana, just like Buddhism. Moreover, tea spirit of Korea is more close to coexistence and harmony between people, rather than happiness of individuals. The Korean tea spirit also seeks for the truth of the space. For Koreans, tea is not just simply an act of drinking tea, but also has a meaning of spiritual pedagogy.

Fourth source, The Way of Tea: A Symbolic Analysis, explains a basic spirit of Japanese tea. Japanese tea is also greatly based on performing Zen. However, the interpretation of Zen in Japanese tea in slightly different from that of Korea. In Japanese Tea, Zen is explained as an emphasis on mundane as a sphere of action and a source of beauty. In other words, Zen in Japanese tea is to find pleasure and beauty from daily life. On of the most important practice in Japanese tea ceremony is the Chakai(茶會), which is the tea gatherings. The most important aspect of Chakai is the ritual of the interaction between the host and the guest. Therefore, Chakai is regarded as formalized action of social interaction in Japanese culture, and is a proper way to express one’s feeling of hospitality effectively.

To compare and contrast the spirit of tea in Korea and Japan, it can be found out that both Korean tea culture and Japanese tea culture were greatly affected by Buddhism, but the effect on society was quite different. As I have written above, Korean tea and Japanese tea both involves the idea of Zen, which is originally a performance of Buddhism. Moreover, historically, cultivation of tea was led by temples and the rise and fall of tea shared track with the rise and fall of Buddhism in Korea. In Japan, tea was imported by the monks who studied in China, and was greatly consumed by the Buddhist monks. However, there is big difference between spirit of tea in Korea and Japan. That is, the basic ideas of drinking tea. Although both cultures emphasizes Zen, both interpretes the Zen differently. In Korea, Zen is a calm state of mind, and its purpose is leading to co-existence between people and nirvana. However, in Japan, Zen is finding beauty from daily life, and emphasizes the harmony by drinking tea. To analyze, Koreans and Japanese both emphasizes the peace of the community, love between the individuals, but Koreans try to practice asceticism individually, while Japanese try to practice asceticism with the other people. There is no distinct reason for the cause of this difference, but it can be deducted that the popularity of drinking tea in both nations creates this difference. To be specific, in Korea, many people enjoys drinking tea, but meditation through tea is usually performed by very minorities, including the buddhist monks and ascetics. Therefore, they are more likely to focus on personal training rather than group practices. Therefore, individualism would be more focused, but seek for nirvana of majority, since the greatest happiness of greatest numbers is one concept of Buddhism. On the other hand, in Japan, majority have seek for meditation from tea, since more than centuries ago. Therefore, drinking tea would have been a daily activity for the Japanese. As a result, Japanese would focus on finding happiness in daily life, and feel the harmony in community by drinking tea together. To summarize, the difference in popularization of meditation through tea led to the difference in spirit of tea in Korea and Japan.

To conclude, it is undeniable fact that history of tea in Korea is longer than that of Japan. Spirit of tea in both Korea and Japan was greatly affected by Buddhism and look for benefit of the mass. However, decline in tea culture in Korea led to Japan having relatively popular tea culture, and this led to Korea and Japan each having unique spirit of tea, which is discipline and harmony.

References

1. Anderson, Jennifer L. An Introduction to Japanese Tea Ritual. N.p.: SUNY, 1991. Print.

2. 이기윤. 다도. N.p.: 대원사, 2000. Print.

3. "CHANOYU: THE JAPANESE TEA CEREMONY." India International Centre Quarterly 3 (1976): 159-61. Web. 20 May 2014.

4. 석명정. 차이야기 선이야기. 부산: 극락호국선원, 2008. Print.

5. "The Way of Tea: A Symbolic Analysis." Man 20 (1985): 287-306. Web.

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