一期一会 ichigoichie Each Moment Only Once

Word for word, 一期一会 is one lifetime, one meeting. In the tea room, host and guest give one gathering their whole attention, each knowing the day will not come again. The word has grown past tea to any meeting that happens only once, and the dictionaries carry both senses. Our title, Each Moment Only Once, is our own English for it. In English books it is also spelled ichi-go ichi-e or ichi go ichi e.

The four-character word 一期一会 is first known from the preface to Ii Naosuke 井伊直弼's tea manual Chanoyu ichie shū 茶湯一会集, drafted by 1848 and finished in 1858, which says the gathering of host and guests at tea is called by that name and glosses it with the older Edo idiom 一世一度; the thought behind it is a sentence on the guest's conduct in the sixteenth-century tea record of Yamanoue Sōji 山上宗二.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 一期一会.

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