The Zen Tea Record: Modern Japanese Text with English Translation

Product Description

A landmark bilingual edition of Zencharoku (Record of Zen and Tea, 1828), a classic that challenges ostentation in tea practice and re-centers the ceremony on Zen: simplicity, self-awakening, and the living exchange between host and guest. Celebrated by Soetsu Yanagi as essential reading for every tea practitioner, it offers timeless guidance for modern readers.

With the original text, a clear modern paraphrase, and a complete English translation by Yoshino Hakuun and Yoshino Ako, this volume illuminates key themes: tea as a Zen path, training, the meaning of tea, utensils as vessels of purity, wabi that embraces constraint, suki beyond harmony, the roji and tearoom, body and function as one, and “no host, no guest” hospitality. Ideal for students of chanoyu, Zen, design, and Japanese aesthetics worldwide. Bilingual Japanese-English. ISBN 9784862850935.