Eri's Choice · VD5J
Eri's Choice is a design that does not keep strictly to one style; it is Master Takase's own artistic choice.
喫茶去
kissako
Have Some Tea
Do have some tea: words of the Zen master Zhaozhou, the same answer to everyone.
by Master Eri Takase
Born and raised in Osaka, Japan, Eri Takase received the rank of Shihan, master, from two calligraphy societies, the Bokuteki-kai and Bunka-shodō, and won best-of-category awards in all-Japan national competitions. She has created calligraphy for people around the world for more than thirty years, and with your order she will be creating calligraphy for you.
In a ritual as old as calligraphy itself, Master Takase prepares the ink, meditatively rubbing the ink stick against the stone until it reaches the perfect consistency for the paper. Then, properly loading the brush with ink, she brushes your scroll. And only when the scroll is just right and meets her approval, she signs it and affixes her seal, completing your original scroll.
12 1/4" × 43" (31 × 109 cm) Japanese Scrolls
The scrolls have woven damask borders and special layered Japanese paper (washi), designed to last generations by a scroll maker in Gifu, Japan, with whom we have worked for over two decades.
Gift-Ready
Your scroll arrives boxed, with a printed insert describing the words in detail.
Sending it as a gift? Add your message at checkout and we will include it with the insert.
Ships in 1-3 days from Washington State
Your scroll is brushed when you order it and completed within 1 to 3 business days.
Your scroll ships from Master Takase's studio in Washington State. Shipping is calculated at checkout. We ship worldwide.
30-day money-back guarantee
Every order is covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee. If your scroll arrives damaged, or we made an error, we replace it or refund you in full, including shipping.
Explanation
Iriya Yoshitaka, a scholar of the Zen records, noted that the words are often seen hanging in tea rooms, usually taken to mean well, have a cup of tea. He read them otherwise, as a rebuke: go to the tea hall over there, drink your tea and come back again. The gentle reading, he wrote, confuses the words with sit a while and have tea, and Japan has handed that reading down from long ago. We read them as have some tea, said alike to everyone, and hold Iriya's go and have your tea beside it; the welcome is not lost if a reader hears the dismissal in it too.
The Zen master Dōgen wrote the story of Zhaozhou's 喫茶去 into his Shōbōgenzō, in a chapter titled Everyday, dated 1243. He closed his comment on it: so the everyday of the buddhas and patriarchs is only drinking tea and eating rice. Nanpo Shōmyō, asked by a monk where Zhaozhou's meaning lies in telling both alike to drink tea, answered: only the one who drinks it knows.
The monk Baisaō, who sold tea in Kyoto, wrote in a verse, as Norman Waddell translates it: I emulate old Chao-chou / "Have a cup of tea!" A tea book of 1852 begins the Zen lineage of tea from Zhaozhou's 喫茶去.
A legend in print by 1898 has the Zen monk Ikkyū smash the tea bowl of Jukō, the tea ceremony's founder. In a telling of 1902, Ikkyū does it as Jukō raises the bowl to drink. As Jukō leaves, Ikkyū asks him about 喫茶去, and Jukō answers: the true face of the green willow and the red flower.
D. T. Suzuki rendered the words Have a cup of tea in 1934. Miura and Sasaki's book of Zen phrases of 1965 gives Kissako! Go drink your tea!
Ordinary speech in the Chinese Zen monasteries of the ninth and tenth centuries, made 趙州's (778–897, as 衣川賢次 gives them) by a story: the oldest telling found for this history, in the 祖堂集 of 952, has him say it to three monks; by the time 汾陽善昭's record was compiled, before 1040, the third is the temple steward, and the 五燈會元 of 1252 fixed the form most often quoted.
Learn More About These Words
We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 喫茶去.
