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All our great tea-masters were students of Zen and attempted to introduce the spirit of Zennism into the actualities of life. Thus the room, like the other equipments of the tea-ceremony, reflects many of the Zen doctrines. The size of the orthodox tea-room, which is four mats and a half, or ten feet square, is determined by a passage in the Sutra of Vikramadytia.

"It is the room for the chanoyu, the tea-ceremony," said her cousin. Inside, the walls were daubed with earth; and a round window barred with bamboo sticks gave a view into what was apparently forest depths. "Why, it is just like a doll's house," cried Asako, delighted. "Can we go in?" "Oh, yes," said the Japanese.

The feast over, he was next invited to the tea-ceremony room to drink a cup of tea. When the young crab had conducted the monkey to the tearoom he left him and retired. Time passed and still he did not return. At last the monkey became impatient. He said to himself: "This tea ceremony is always a very slow affair. I am tired of waiting so long.

We Japanese do not think art is just to be able to do things, showing off like geisha. Art is in the character, in the spirit. And the tea-ceremony teaches us to make our character full of art, by restraining everything ugly and common, in every movement, in the movement of our hands, in the position of our feet, in the looks of our faces.

The first independent tea-room was the creation of Senno-Soyeki, commonly known by his later name of Rikiu, the greatest of all tea-masters, who, in the sixteenth century, under the patronage of Taiko-Hideyoshi, instituted and brought to a high state of perfection the formalities of the Tea-ceremony.

But she is not treated as an equal or as a companion by her menfolk, who are taught that marriage is for business and not for pleasure, and consequently that home-life is a bore. She is supposed to find her own amusements, such as flower-arrangement, tea-ceremony, music, kimono-making and the composition of poetry.

We have already said that it was the ritual instituted by the Zen monks of successively drinking tea out of a bowl before the image of Bodhi Dharma, which laid the foundations of the tea-ceremony. We might add here that the altar of the Zen chapel was the prototype of the Tokonoma, the place of honour in a Japanese room where paintings and flowers are placed for the edification of the guests.

III. Taoism and Zennism The connection of Zennism with tea is proverbial. We have already remarked that the tea-ceremony was a development of the Zen ritual. The name of Laotse, the founder of Taoism, is also intimately associated with the history of tea.

The monks gathered before the image of Bodhi Dharma and drank tea out of a single bowl with the profound formality of a holy sacrament. It was this Zen ritual which finally developed into the Tea-ceremony of Japan in the fifteenth century.

Our pottery would probably never have attained its high quality of excellence if the tea-masters had not lent it to their inspiration, the manufacture of the utensils used in the tea-ceremony calling forth the utmost expenditure of ingenuity on the parts of our ceramists. The Seven Kilns of Enshiu are well known to all students of Japanese pottery.