Zen Culture Part 18

_And yet . . . And yet . . .14

Issa's rustic, personal voice was not a style to be copied, even if the city poets had wished to do so, and Haiku seems to have fallen into the hands of formula versifiers during the mid- nineteenth century. In the waning years of the century, the last of the four great Haiku masters rose to prominence: Shiki (1867-1902), whose life of constantly failing health was as adversity-plagued as Issa's, but who actively took up the fight against the insincere parlor versifiers then ruling Haiku. No wandering poet-priest, Shiki was a newspaperman, critic, and editor of various Haiku "little magazines." The Zen influence that ruled Basho's later poetry is missing in Shiki, but the objective imagery is there-- only in a tough, modern guise. Shiki's verse is an interesting example of how similar in external appearance the G.o.dless austerity of Zen is to the existential atheism of our own century. (This superficial similarity is undoubtedly the reason so much of Zen art seems "modern"

to us today--it is at odds with both cla.s.sical and romantic ideals.) Thus a completely secular poet like Shiki could revolutionize Haiku as a form of art-for-art's-sake without having to acknowledge openly his debt to Zen.

_Hira-hira to

_A single b.u.t.terfly

_Kaze ni nigarete

_Fluttering and drifting

_Cho hitotsu

_In the wind.15

With the poems of Shiki, the influence of Zen had so permeated Haiku that it was taken for granted. Much the same had occurred with all the Zen arts; as the dynamic aspects of the faith faded away, all that was left were the art forms and aesthetic ideals of Zen culture. The rules of the ancient Zen masters were there as a theme for the modern arts, but mainly as a theme on which there could be variations. Zen culture as an ent.i.ty was slowly dissolving, becoming in modern times merely a part of a larger cultural heritage.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Private Zen: Flowers and Food

_European food--

Every wretched plate

Is round.

_ Traditional j.a.panese poem

THE SPREAD OF ZEN culture from the mansions of the _samurai _to the houses of the bourgeoisie meant ultimately that Zen aesthetics would touch even the most routine features of daily life. Nowhere, perhaps, is this more noticeable than in j.a.panese cuisine and flower arranging. As we have seen, the tea ceremony was the great preserver of higher Zen ideals of art, but this ceremony, for all its pretensions to refined poverty, is essentially the province of the prosperous. It requires s.p.a.ce for a garden, a special--and frequently expensive--house, and utensils whose properly weathered look can be obtained only at a price.

Even a simple Zen garden is hardly available to a modern j.a.panese living in a cinderblock apartment building.

Everyone, however, can practice the cla.s.sical art of arranging flowers in a manner reflecting the precepts of Zen. A flower arrangement is to a large garden what a Haiku is to an epic poem--a symbolic, abbreviated form whose condensed suggestiveness can encapsulate the larger world.

Similarly, the Zen ideals of _wabi_, or deliberate understatement, and _sabi_, the patina of time, can be captured almost as well in the display of food--in both its artistic arrangement on a plate and the tasteful ceramics employed--as in the arts and ceramics of the tea ceremony. Thus a properly conceived serving of seasonal and subtly flavored foods accompanied by a Zen-inspired flower arrangement can be an evervday version of the tea ceremony and its garden, embodying the same aesthetic principles in a surrogate form just as demanding of Zen taste and sensibility.

It will be recalled that Zen itself is said to have originated when the Buddha silently turned a blossom in his hand before a gathering on Vulture Peak. The lotus blossom was one of the foremost symbols of cla.s.sical Buddhism for many centuries; indeed the earliest j.a.panese flower arrangements may have been merely a lotus floating in a water- filled vessel set before a Buddhist altar. To the ancient Buddhists, the flower was a symbol of nature, a momentary explosion of beauty and fragrance embodying all the mysteries of life's cycle of birth and death. The early j.a.panese, who saw in nature the expression of life's spirit, naturally found the flower a congenial symbol for an abstract philosophy like Buddhism. In the years preceding Zen's arrival in j.a.pan, a parallel but essentially secular taste for flowers permeated the aristocratic court civilization of the Heian, where lovers attached sprays of blossoms to letters and eulogized the plum and cherry as symbols of life's transient happiness. Indeed, it is hardly an exaggeration to describe blossoms as the foremost symbol of j.a.pan's great age of love poetry.

Exactly when the j.a.panese began the practice of arranging

flowers in pots for decorative purposes has never been satisfactorily determined. Perhaps not surprisingly, the first well- known exponent of floral art seems to have been the famous Zen aesthete Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1435-1490), builder of the Silver Pavilion. However, Yoshimasa merely popularized an art that was considerably more ancient.

Ikebana, or flower arranging, had for some time been transmitted as a kind of secret cult by a line of priests who had called themselves Iken.o.bo. Just what role Zen and Zen art theory played in this priestly art is questionable, for early styles were florid and decorative. At first glance, it may seem strange that the flower arrangements of the Iken.o.bo priests should have captured the interest of Yoshimasa and his circle of Zen aesthetes during the high age of Zen culture, since the Ikebana of this period, far from showing the spareness characteristic of Zen garden arts, was an exuberant symbol of the world at large, rather like a complex mandala diagram of some esoteric sect wherein all components of the universe are represented in a structured spatial relationship.

This early style of formal flower arranging, now known as Rikka, was later codified into seven specific elements, each symbolizing some aspect of nature--the sun, the shade, and so forth. There were three main branches in an arrangement and four supporting branches, each with a special name and a special aesthetic-symbolic function. As with most art forms preceding the modern age, the distinction between religious symbolism and purely aesthetic principles was not well defined, and artists often preferred to use philosophical explanations as a means of transmitting those rules of form they instinctively recognized to be most satisfying. Not surprisingly, given the Zen ideals of the age, Rikka-style flower arrangements were asymmetrical and intended to suggest naturalness as far as possible. Although complex, they were by no means artificial, seeming instead a happy accident of nature. As with Zen gardens, great artifice was used to give the impression of naturalness.

Since the elaborate Rikka style was supported by an equally

elaborate theory and required total discipline, flower arranging acquired many of the qualities of a high art. Certainly the arrangement of flowers in the West never approached anything like the formality and rules of technique surrounding j.a.panese floral displays, and for this reason we sometimes have difficulty in accepting the idea that it can be considered a genuine art form. But then we have never seriously considered the flower a primary religious symbol--a role that, to the Eastern mind, automatically makes it a candidate for artistic expression. The religion of Zen, with no particular G.o.d to deify, turned to flowers and gardens as symbols of the spirit of life.

The influence of Zen on the Rikka arrangement was more implicit than direct, and a wholly Zen flower style had to await the coming of the famous tea-ceremony master, Sen no Rikyu. Rikyu predictably found the Rikka style entirely too lavish for understated _wabi _aesthetics and introduced a new style known as Nageire, which was informal and spontaneous in appearance. Since it was for display at the tea ceremony, it was called _chabana_, or tea flowers. Instead of an elaborate seven-point design, the teahouse Nageire-style consisted of one or two blossoms stuck in a pot without any hint of artificiality.

The Nagiere was not, of course, an undisciplined art--it was merely intended to seem so. Great care was taken to position the bud and its few surrounding sprigs into a perfect artistic composition that would seem natural and spontaneous. The _chabana _version of the Nageire style is the ultimate Zen statement in living materials. Pared down from the Rikka style, it became a powerful, direct expression of Zen ideals. The difference has been well expressed by Shozo Sato:

_Rikka arrangements grew ultimately from a philosophic attempt to conceive of an organized universe, whereas Nageire arrangements represent an antiphilosophic attempt to achieve immediate oneness with the universe. The Rikka arrangement is an appropriate offering to be placed before one of the many icons of traditional Buddhism, but the Nageire arrangement is a direct link between man and his natural surroundings. One style is conceptual and idealistic; the other, instinctive and naturalistic. The difference is similar to that between the arduous philosophic study a.s.sociated with traditional Buddhism and the direct enlightenment of Zen Buddhism. _(_The Art of Arranging Flowers_. New York: Abrams, 1965). _

_

Although the Nageire is still the preferred style for the teahouse, it is a bit too austere, not to mention demanding, for the average j.a.panese home. The rising middle cla.s.s of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries sought a compromise between the Rikka and Nageire, and finally developed a simplified Rikka style known as Seika, which made use of only the three main stems of the full Rikka arrangement.

Today various styles flourish, together with experimental modern schools which permit rocks, driftwood, and other natural materials in their compositions. Yet throughout all the schools--and they number in the thousands--the idea remains that flowers are a shorthand representation of man's connection with nature. Zen ideals are never far distant, even in the most abstract modern compositions.

If the j.a.panese att.i.tude toward flowers differs from that of the West, their approach to dining differs even more. The almost universal Western att.i.tude toward j.a.panese cuisine was voiced many centuries ago by the European visitor Bernardo do Avila Giron, who declared, "I will not praise j.a.panese food for it is not good, albeit it is pleasing to the eye, but instead I will describe the clean and peculiar way in which it is served."2 Beauty counts as heavily as taste at a formal table, and to say j.a.panese food is "served" is like calling the members of a string quartet fiddlers. The j.a.panese devote more artistic resources to the rites of food than any other people on earth. Entire magazines are devoted to supplying housewives with the latest culinary creations: not new recipes but new ways to display dishes created according to well-known formulas. A new condiment is not sought so much as a new color, and a new sauce is of less interest than a new saucer.

Indeed, a fine restaurant may prize its ceramics almost as much as its chef.

Yet for all its beauty, the food seems to be oddly deficient in p.r.o.nounced flavors. This characteristic a j.a.panese will be the first to admit, but with pride rather than apology. Strong flavors are to a modern j.a.panese what bold colors were to the Heian aesthetes--unrefined, obvious gratifications for those lacking in cultivated discernment. A connoisseur is one who can distinguish the subtle difference in taste among various species of raw mushrooms or different fermentations of bean curd. A cultivated j.a.panese can tell you not only what species of raw fish he is tasting, but the number of hours it has been away from the sea. A conscientious j.a.panese chef would no more think of serving a vegetable not scrupulously fresh than he would drown it in a heavy sauce. Furthermore, he would most prefer to serve it entirely raw, thereby preserving intact all its subtle natural flavor and texture.

j.a.panese cuisine, which is a water-based art as compared to the oil- based cooking of China or the b.u.t.ter-based dishes of France, is now known and appreciated worldwide. Dining in a j.a.panese restaurant in the far-flung corners of the globe can be as formal as a fine Continental meal or as expedient as a grilled-chicken-and-noodle emporium. However, whether formal or casual, it will lack the air of solicitude that a really discerning j.a.panese host can bring to a specially planned banquet. Since dining at his own home would do no honor to you, the guest, chances are he will entertain you at an inn or restaurant where he knows the chef, but he will still plan the meal, working out all the finer details with the cook. There will be few surprises on the menu, for the food is governed by the season. Only the freshest vegetables-- preferably those ripening to their finest that week--and the primest sea fare will be permitted.

Upon entering the dining room you will know you have been selected as the guest of honor when you are requested to sit with your back to the art alcove, or tokonoma, a practice dating from rowdier days of the ambush when this represented the one location in a paper-walled room sure to be backed by a solid wall. After seating formalities are resolved, the host will call for tea. If the season is spring, the variety selected may be _shincha_, a dainty green brew steeped from the freshly plucked early leaves of the j.a.panese tea bush. When you realize that even your beverage has been brought fresh from the fields, you begin to understand the subtleties of seasonal tastes in store. Indeed, in late spring and summer the table will present delicacies only hours from the soil.

First to arrive may be a tray crowded with ceramic saucers, no two alike in shape or glaze, each offering a condiment or plant of the season. Slices of dark, pickled ginger, the traditional astringent, may be arranged on a diminutive round plate of blue and white porcelain, which stands adjacent to a rough-textured, gray square bowl heaped with slivers of fresh cuc.u.mber, its brilliant green contrasting with the splash of vellow from a bouquet of its own blossoms sprinkled across one corner of the dish. These may be joined by tender bamboo shoots from the hillside. (Slowly you begin to notice that the color and texture of each dish has been chosen to contrast and complement those of its contents.) Added to this fanciful course may be a pale brown dish of lotus-root slivers, each garnished with a mound of green horseradish. Next at hand might well be a pale yellow saucer holding sheets of dried seaweed alongside a thin slice of the porous white j.a.panese turnip, sliced so thin as to be transparent. If the season is fall instead of spring, there could be a thin rectangular dish with a crinkled black glaze containing a single maple leaf, on which might be displayed thinly sliced raw mushrooms skewered with pine needles and set in a display of gourd strands.

Next may come a cold omelet, whose fluffy strata of egg have been wrapped like a cinnamon roll around layers of dark seaweed. The omelet's exterior will have been glazed to an almost ceramic polish and garnished with a white radish sauce, light and piquant. After the omelet may come fish, raw sashimi in a plethora of varieties from freshwater carp to sea bream to the (sometimes lethal) fugu. The subtleties in taste and texture between the many species available are to the j.a.panese what fine wines are to the Western connoisseur. Yet the chef's real genius has gone into the careful cutting and display of the fish. The red back meat of the tuna must be cut into thick slices because of its tenderness, but the fatty pink meat from the belly can be cut into thin strips. The size of the slices governs how they are displayed. The display and garnishing of the sashimi is an important testing ground for the chef's artistic originality. After all, the fish are raw, and beyond making sure that they are fresh and of high quality, there is little to be done about the flavor. Therefore the chef must become an artist if the sashimi are to be memorable.

The banquet may continue with soup, often created from fish stock and fermented soybean paste called miso. The soup arrives in closed lacquer bowls, on the lids of which will be embellished a design of the season, perhaps a bamboo shoot or a chrysanthemum blossom. Beneath this lid is a tranquil sea of semitransparent marine broth, tinted amber and seasoned with delicate green scallion rings and cubes of bland white soybean curd. The bottom of the bowl may shelter a family of thumbnail- sized baby clams, still nestled in their open sh.e.l.ls. The soup hints of the field and the sea, but in delicate nuances, like an ink painting executed in a few suggestive strokes.

The parade of tiny dishes continues until the host's imagination falters or your appet.i.te is conquered. Green beans, asparagus, lotus root, carrots, tree leaves, legumes . . . the varieties of plants will seem virtually endless. Each taste and texture will be slightly different, each color subtly orchestrated. Yet it all seems perfectly natural, as though the world of mountain and sea had somehow presented itself at your table to be sampled. You become acutely aware of the natural taste of the plants ripening in the fields outside at that very moment. But to enjoy this cuisine you must sharpen your senses; no flavor is allowed to be dominant, no spice overwhelming. You must reach out with your sensibilities and attune yourself to the world around you.

The haute cuisine of j.a.pan is known as _kaiseki_, the name of the special meal served with the Zen tea ceremony. _Kaiseki _is the great preserver of cuisine aesthetics in j.a.pan. The tea ceremony, the supreme transmitter of Zen culture, also happens to be the preserver of j.a.pan's finest ideals in the realm of food. The governing principle of _kaiseki_ is that the foods served should be natural, even as an unpainted traditional house reveals its fresh woods. Whereas artificiality would draw a diner's spirit away from the real world, naturalness brings him closer to it. The colors, of both the foods and the ceramics, are meant to suggest nature. The servings are simple, never elaborate or contrived, and the foods chosen must never be obviously expensive. A host is expected to display his skill and imagination in combining delicate flavors, not his wealth or extravagance in being able to buy the most expensive items he can find.

Again it is the Zen idea of _wabi_, a deliberate turning away from the ostentatious.

But to speak of Zen dining in terms of flavor is to miss a good part of the pleasure. The display of glazed ceramic dishes on a j.a.panese table is carefully orchestrated by color and shape to form a unified, naturalistic, asymmetrical aesthetic whole. The sensitive j.a.panese regards the Western weakness for marshaled arrays of matched china as a demonstration of limited artistic vision. All the concepts of beauty developed in the tea ceremony have been transmitted to the j.a.panese formal dining experience, and a dimension has been added: in a formal meal the ceramics are decorated with foods; the various foods are positioned, down to the last bean, with care almost worthy of the stones in a Zen garden, and the color and texture of each is attuned to the color and texture of its dish. Thus dining becomes a display of art and design that tests the aesthetic discernment of both host and guest.

Perhaps in no other land is the serving of food so manifestly both a form of art and an expression of philosophy. But it seems less incredible if viewed merely as the last convolution of Zen culture.

From monks to modern housewives, Zen culture has touched every aspect of j.a.panese life. There are, of course, other voices and other rooms in the complex world of j.a.panese cultural history, but when you think of the finest moments in j.a.panese civilization, more often than not you find yourself thinking of Zen.