喫茶者方知 kissa no mono masa ni shiru Only the One Who Drinks the Tea Knows

In 喫茶者方知 kissa no mono masa ni shiru, 喫茶 kissa is the drinking of tea, 者 mono the one who, and 知 shiru to know. Before the knowing stands 方 masa ni. Among its senses a dictionary of characters lists only then, the sense our English carries.

A monk asks Nanpo Shōmyō about the Chinese master Zhaozhou: Whether one had been here before or had not, he told him alike, go and drink tea. Where was his meaning? The master says: Only the one who drinks the tea knows.

The monk goes on: I have just now arrived here. What will you do for me? The master says: At mealtime, go and eat. Tea and a meal side by side is a pairing with its own history in our library.

The story the monk asks about is told in a note of 1921. Zhaozhou asked a monk newly arrived whether he had been there before; he had, and Zhaozhou said go and drink tea. He asked another, who had not, and said the same. When the temple's steward asked why, Zhaozhou called his name, and when he answered, said it again. That story has its own history in our library.

Nanpo answers in the same form at least twice more in the record of his years at Sōfukuji. Asked how the buddhas listen to the dharma a flame preaches, he says the one who listens knows. On an old answer about a year-end meal that can end the hunger of ten thousand kalpas, he says the one who has eaten knows.

Nanpo Shōmyō went to China in 1259, received the transmission of Xutang Zhiyu, and came back in 1267. He taught for some thirty years at Sōfukuji in Dazaifu, then in Kyoto and Kamakura. The year after his death, the retired emperor Go-Uda gave him the title of National Teacher.

A full-text search of the CBETA edition of the Chinese canon finds the line in no text. Later translations read it in other words: one of 1938 kissa suru mono wa masa ni shiru, and Araki Kengo's of 1978 and 1994 cha o kisshitaru mono ni shite, masa ni shiru beshi. Our history read those three in the National Diet Library's full-text index, not at the page. Each writes 方 with に, though our history did not see their reading marks; our romaji is the reading our history signs.

An older Chinese saying has the same shape: like one who drinks water and knows for himself whether it is cold or warm. It stands in the Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp of 1004 and the Gateless Barrier of 1228. No witness our history read ties the two, so the saying is a neighbor, not a source.

Our history reads 喫茶者方知 as an answer that declines to put Zhaozhou's meaning into words. The master does not explain the tea; he sends the monk back to it. The meaning is in the drinking, and the one who drinks has it.

The answer of the Zen master Nanpo Shōmyō 南浦紹明 (1235–1309), in a sermon on the first day of the fourth month at Sōfukuji in Dazaifu, recorded in his sayings, the 圓通大應國師語錄, printed in Kyoto in 応安 5 (the Japanese year 1372); in the Taishō canon the words 喫茶者 stand only in this record. The translation of 1921 reads the line 喫茶の者方に知る; the print of 1674 marks 方 with ニ and, probably, joins 喫茶 as one word.