Last month I reached out and made a new friend, Patricia Ryan Madson after reading her delightful book, Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up. You should read it! There’s a whole lot of wonderful in the discipline of improv and Madson adds a layer of insight from her studies in Japan:
“Those who study the Japanese tea ceremony learn the concept of “tea talk.” Guests know that inside the teahouse one must speak only about what is inside the house. Even polite discussion of the news, social or political events, or personal issues is forbidden, including complaining about the heat or mentioning any discomfort. Instead, the guest is invited to pay attention to the detail of what is present at that moment—the scroll in the alcove, the flower in the vase, the kind of sweet that was chosen to be served along with the bitter, frothy green tea. What is spoken is meant to be a reminder of the unique character of the event. The tea saying Ichi go, ichi ei means “One time, one meeting.” This particular gathering will never happen again. Live it now. Savor the detail.”
Only what’s inside the house
Notice that during tea time you’re not supposed to talk about the news, social and political events, or even personal issues. The focus is solely on what is present to us Here and Now.
Contrast that to the Internet and social media world: all news, social and political events and personal issues.1 In the digital world, we constantly are thinking about things not-Here and not-Now.
The digital world gives us complexity. And we’re wired to crave complexity; we believe that more information is more control. But more information is more control simply isn’t true in the modern world. You can get infinite amounts of information. Staying constantly stimulated with fear, outrage, excitement is simply bad for your nervous system. Evolutionarily, danger and hyperarousal were not constant. But the news cycle has moved from historically occasional, to daily in the last century, to now constant.2 It is demanding an attention that is a mile wide and an inch deep:
“Social media is a giant machine for getting you to spend your time caring about the wrong things, but for the same reason, it’s also a machine for getting you to care about too many things, even if they’re each indisputably worthwhile. We’re exposed, these days, to an unending stream of atrocities and injustice.” - Oliver Burkeman
In the meanwhile, we’ve lost something precious and ineffable. MIT professor Alan Lightman talks about the need for information/Internet as an addiction that makes us “prisoner(s) of the wired world… Little by little, our world, we have lost our silences, the needed time for contemplation, the open spaces in our minds, the privacies we once had.” According to Professor Lightman, the ability to hear one’s inner self is “true freedom,” a freedom we’ve lost in a digital world that constantly demands, and then sells, our attention.
An invitation to depth
Instead, the guest is invited to pay attention to the detail of what is present at that moment—the scroll in the alcove, the flower in the vase, the kind of sweet that was chosen to be served along with the bitter, frothy green tea. What is spoken is meant to be a reminder of the unique character of the event. The tea saying Ichi go, ichi ei means “One time, one meeting.” This particular gathering will never happen again. Live it now. Savor the detail.”
20th century rabbi Abraham Heschel says that we all need a “sanctuary in time” (how he describes the Jewish Sabbath) where we can “stand still and behold” wonder, awe, and reverence. Heschel wrote that “Awe is the beginning of wisdom,” and “what we lack is not a will to believe, but a will to wonder… the world in its grandeur is full of a spiritual radiance.”
I believe the Japanese tea ceremony is trying to provide this sense of wonder in the present moment, the slow, gradual realization of awe of beauty in the Here, a sense of radical amazement that none of our own effort can provide. Capitalism, or any type of human labor, for all its power, cannot produce its simplicity and depth of grace.
Take a moment in your daily routine to do Japanese tea time for yourself. It doesn’t have to involve tea. It may be brewing of your morning coffee, walking to pick up your children from school, or eating a silent meal.3 Savor the detail of the moment, with strict disregard to the political news, the social gossip, or even your personal worries and anxieties. There is a depth and power in the simple silence of the present moment.
The 20th century English mystic Evelyn Underhill wrote, “For lack of attention, a thousand forms of loveliness elude us everyday.” What we give our attention is our experience of life. Radical amazement is available to us all, at all times. Reserve some time to bask in wonder.
Haha imagine a Twitter account that was solely “the scroll in the alcove, the flower in the vase, the kind of sweet that was chosen to be served along with the bitter, frothy green tea.”
And is what’s news the same as what’s important? If you’ve ever spent a stretch of time without news (a long backpacking trip, a meditation retreat etc) you realize that you haven’t missed a thing. The important truths are never news. This is when you realize that the “news” is really a form of entertainment, run by for-profit companies that have learned that keeping you anxious is the easiest way to monetize your attention. Look at any news site, like the NYTimes, and you’ll see that 80% of news is designed to produce anxiety. Your intelligence, your time, and your attention span are all finite. And precious. Other people pay billions for it. Literally.
For me, I say itakimasu and try mindfully eating my cereal every morning: finding gratefulness for the cereal, the milk, the bowl, the spoon, the sunlight, the home. Try is the operative word. But it’s a daily try.
Thank you so much for sharing, Douglas! I found this one really grounding and relaxing, kind of like a typed tea ritual. :)