Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/280

 author of the philosophy that grew up about it, was Shukô, a prelate of the Zen sect of Buddhism. Shukô being an ardent believer in the rite of religious meditation which his creed prescribed, his affection for tea, prepared according to the new method, seems to have been primarily derived from its property of promoting wakefulness, and thus assisting him to practise the rite through long intervals. Gradually this adjunct of his reverent exercises became associated in his mind with the moral conditions they produced. He conceived that a great influence for good might be exerted by employing the Cha-no-yu as a vehicle for the direct promotion of a system resembling that of religious meditation and introspection, and for the indirect inculcation of the virtues attributed by the Zen creed to such exercises. It was thus that he elaborated for the practice of tea-drinking a ceremonial of the most minute and formal description. From an Occidental point of view perhaps the most intelligible explanation that can be given of Shukô's cult is to call it the Free Masonry of Japan. Free Masonry has for its sole object the inculcation of the most beautiful and comprehensive of all virtues, but its rituals, its rites, its ceremonials, its mysteries, its paraphernalia, and its costumes hide from the outside public the true spirit of its aims. The Cha-no-yu has fared similarly. Its esoteric philosophy has been obscured by its exoteric observances. The