Zen monk
Eisai
栄西 · 1141–1215 · Heian to Kamakura period
Eisai (栄西) was the Buddhist monk who first brought both Zen and tea to Japan in a serious way. Two things the world links most closely with Japanese culture today are Zen practice and the cup of green tea. Both owe a great deal to Eisai's journeys to China and back.
The monk who brought Zen home
Eisai trained as a monk in Japan, but he felt that something was missing. So he made the dangerous sea voyage to China to study. There he learned the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism, which focuses on meditation and sudden insight. Back home, he founded temples to teach it, among them Kennin-ji in Kyoto. He became the man who planted Zen firmly in Japanese soil. In the centuries that followed, Zen shaped everything from painting to swordsmanship to the tea ceremony.
Tea as medicine
Eisai also brought back tea seeds and the habit of drinking powdered green tea, matcha. Monks drank it to stay awake and alert during long hours of meditation. Eisai wrote a book, Kissa Yōjōki, or "Drinking Tea for Health." In it he argued that tea was good for both body and spirit. Many call it the first Japanese book about tea. Tea began in the monasteries and slowly spread outward. Centuries later, it grew into the tea ceremony.
Portrait: Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons
