Tea and Zen Buddhist in Japan

Tea and Zen Buddhist in Japan

Samurai and Zen Buddhist are very important when discussing Japanese tea ceremony and with the custom of tea becoming popular. The reason for importance to the Monks is they deemed that to achieve enlightenment one must meditate on a constant basis.

Buddhism originally came from India. The religion traveled from China and into Japan. The important of this religion transformed the Japanese people. They took Buddhism and made it into their own religion. For their interpretation of Buddhism, they believe there must be a direct transmission from mind to mind or by seated meditation to achieve enlightenment. This way of achieving enlightenment attracted the samurai class.

There was a practice with Buddhism that was brought over by two Chinese Priests. This practice was called Shingi. In this, the Shingi was established. The Shingi were rules that were established on a basis of form that dealt with the everyday activities of a priest. These rules preached what to do from the time they rose in the morning to the time they went to bed.

Shingi spread to the other temples in Japan in the mid- fourteenth century. There were rules that were developed for drinking tea by the Chinese coming over. They were called Sarei or would later be called Chanoyu or to the western world as the Japanese Tea Ceremony (Tea in Japan, 14).