Two National Living Treasures having a tea ceremony [video]

[tingjunkie]

Filmed by my friend Bradford Keeney, this video shows Japanese National Living Treasure's Ikuko Osumi (master of an energy practice called Seiki Jutsu) hosting a tea ceremony conducted by National Living Treasure Professor Kato (scientist, university professor, and apparently tea and calligraphy master!).

Not sure when this video was originally shot (sometime in the mid-late 90's I believe), but both Osumi Sensei and Kato Sensei have since passed on.

I really appreciate the reverent, yet casual atmosphere going on. Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79lQrl3o6e8

[Poohblah]

Amazing.

[chingwa]

That was great. The first half of the vid they are doing a koudou ceremony... japanese incense... I've actually never seen a video of it before

[tingjunkie]

Yeah. I'd like to know what the incense was. Any practitioners here on the forum who can recognize it? Splinters of kyara perhaps?

[Poohblah]

I thought that might have been incense... but I wasn't very sure.

Also interesting that they had a samurai doll and empty vase in the tokonama. I am used to seeing a flower arrangement and scroll or painting.

[TIM]

Aged Aloeswood. Thanks for sharing T.

[chingwa]

so many NY'ers in this thread... anyone know where to go in this city to participate in a koudou ceremony? (it's probably impossible...)

[kyarazen]

that is mon-koh, or "listening to incense", where a piece of fragrant wood is heated gently, in this case, it can be anything ranging from sandalwood, to agarwood.. or kyara..

[ClarG]

Thanks for posting the video.

[David R.]

Don' try to put the Russian subtitles with an english automatic translation...

[Puerlife]

The man's kanji writing with a brush is spectacularly good, up there on the living national treasure level I imagine. Does anyone know what was on the pieces of paper the woman kept putting beside him as he was writing. Was he improvising a poem?

Edit - Doh, now I read the title of this thread and see he actually was a living national treasure.