RAKU CHA RYU

What we leave behind Fallen barks, dead trunks, decrepit walls and forgotten bags are strewn all around Awaji. Coming here, I was given the keys of Mujuan , a tea pavillon as abandoned as the island. The 1995 earthquake has seriously shaken the two tea rooms and gigantic garden. A young beginner like me should not claim to open his own tea pavillon, but what master would settle in someone else’s house and, furthermore, a let down house ? Aguste Comte said that « the dead rule over the livings ». They are the cause of our birth, our world is the result of their actions. We are born in ruins — palaces and forests that our ancestors shaped. Someone else grew what we are harvesting today. Yet, we like new things. We like when an item is made for us. We like to be its first owner, its only recipient. The more I go, the more this mindset seems strangely vain to me. Ceramics I like will survive me for thousands of years. I am merely one of their guests. I do ...

Focus The nape stiffens up, the eyelids get closer, the eyes converge on an invisible dot. Right there is the bowl to prepare. The back stiffens up, the vertebras align, the arms relax and I walk straight. The way to the pavillon is ahead. When a great event approaches, these sensations can start occurring several weeks in advance. All my body focus. There is no room for confidence nor doubt. Confidence is the enemy of perfection, doubt is the enemy of action. All that is left to do is to tie the bow, looking straight at the target. Too much tension and the arrow will spring before the game starts. Not enough and the hand will shake like a needle. A tea ceremony is a seasonal matter. There is no pleasure to strawberries if they come all year long. To accept that seasons pass, that pleasures change along the year, is the very first step toward the acceptance of our own fragile condition. At my young age, there are already pleasures that I will not kn...

Some notes before I go to Awaji island. Since at least Napoleon III in France and the Jesuit missions, Japan has attracted the westerners’ eyes. It is also a country that likes to be looked at. One rarely meets a German that always say « Now that is very German ! ». Meanwhile, there is always some Japanese person (or a « Japafan ») that keeps on saying stuffs like « That is very Japanese, this is the real / true Japan ! ». To all these adepts of the land of the rising sun, one should not only learn Japanese, but also learn Japan . The myth of a knowledgable Japan In What is called thinking ? , Martin Heidegger wrote :  «  What does it mean to learn ? It means that what we are doing and not doing is the echo of the revelation each time of the essential. We learn thinking by noticing what needs to be kept in the thought.  »  (fair warning : it’s my super rough translation form French here.) Long story shor...

Pay respect to the place Almost two years ago, I started to study the tea ceremony. More than a study, it became a practical, aesthetic and even ethical question. I practiced in my tea master’s pavillon but also in many places without any tools : in the Parisian subway, in a park of Omotesando or even at the top of a temple in Ayutthaya, Thailand. One of the very first versions of the tea room Soon, my room in Paris was emptied of any superfluous thing. I put some mats on the floor and then tatamis. A woodboard served as a tokonoma (alcove), some other woodboards were there to hide a plug in the wall. I had the leisure of thinking every single detail in the place.  Now, I would like to pay my respect to this space. It is the room where I grew up and never quite felt at home. I tried to make it into a personal space, one in which I could welcome my friends as I would like them to welcome me. No place had me question so much what « to inhabit ...