What is the actual reality behind the so-called “Tea Ceremony”? What motivates and underlies it, and why have so many tea practitioners devoted themselves to this Way? In hopes of de-constructing popular misconceptions, let us directly examine the underlying “Heart” in the rich local styles of the “Way of Tea” in China, Korea and Japan. Let us see beyond the exterior of tea etiquette to focus on the inner cultivation of the Asian values of “Harmony, Purity, Respect, Tranquility”, forming non-verbal bonds between host and guest which stretch far beyond the humble tea hut. This deep inner dynamic has raised the practice of the Way of Tea to a form of enlightenment and spiritual fulfillment, as often heard in the maxim, “Tea-Zen-One-Taste”.
After taking degrees from Roosevelt (MAT), and DePaul (MA Eng) while teaching in Chicago, Mr. Toomey taught arts and humanities for the US Department of Defense Overseas Dependents Schools in Japan, Korea and Germany. After studying Far Eastern Art at Sophia in Tokyo, he studied Japanese and Korean languages and took teacher’s certificates in Japanese and Korean tea. He became the only foreigner ever to be appointed as head of a tea school in the Far East (Seoul, 2000). In 2005 he retired from teaching to make a modest tea complex and tea garden near Bangkok.
พระบรมราชูปถัมภ์
