Wind in the Pines: Classic Writings of the Way of Tea as a Buddhist Path

Chanoyu, widely known as the tea ceremony, developed in Japan in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In it, such ordinary acts of daily life as serving a meal and tea to guests have been raised to the status of religious discipline. Wind in the Pines is a collection of writings that seek to illuminate the nature and aesthetics of chanoyu as a Buddhist path. Beginning with works on the art of linked verse (renga) that directly influenced the development of the way of tea, this book includes documents that are associated with the central figures in the formation of chanoyu in the spirit of wabi--the unsullied poverty of the hermit's thatched hut--and that have been treasured by practitioners down to the present.