Categories
Front Page

Greeting from Oiemoto Zabosai

Greeting from Oiemoto Zabosai

June 19, 2020 — Urasenke has a strong history of activity outside Japan, and of supporting the study of Japan’s comprehensive traditional culture of chado by international researchers and students.

From the mid-1960s, we began to see a rising number of those desiring to study at Konnichian, and so Daisosho, who was Iemoto at the time, established an official class for them in 1970, which in 1973 he named the Midorikai, a name suggested to him by his wife, my mother. The number of people who have studied in the Midorikai program for a year or more has surpassed five hundred, and if those who have studied in it for shorter periods are included, the number is even greater.

All of you students from abroad who have studied at Urasenke, no matter your ethnicity, are chajin, “tea people.” I am eager for the UMAA, which was formally established in 2002 through the efforts of a handful of you, to flourish as an organization that links all Midorikai alumni in your ongoing pursuit of chado.

Categories
Front Page

Greeting from Daisosho Hounsai

Greeting from Daisosho Hounsai

June 19, 2020 — It has been seventy years since, carrying with me some tea utensils, I took my first trip to America in 1951, before the signing of the UN Peace Treaty with Japan, hoping to bring global peace among all humanity by means of Japan’s peaceful chado culture.

I have been to over sixty countries since then, places in every region and on every continent, promoting my message of “Peacefulness through a bowl of tea.” This phrase has happily become Urasenke’s international catchphrase, expressing the idea that chanoyu engenders both personal and societal peace.

Even though our languages and customs may differ, our experience sharing in a bowl of tea brings our hearts together. Urasenke chado students around the world understand this well. Those of you who have ever spent time in the Midorikai program in Kyoto, I urge you to keep up your involvement with chado, and to share the ethos of “Peacefulness through a bowl of tea” with many people.

Let us overcome Covid-19 with a bowl of tea! Let us keep up our spirits and do our best! At a time like this, how about trying ittei ikkyaku (one host, one guest) tea, which involves just two people?