Trinity and Tea Ceremony in Tang Dynasty
郭靖
（山西财经大学 山西省太原市 030006）
It was several years ago, i happened to see the post video of the movie Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame（《狄仁杰之通天帝国》）. I was really shocked as it comes to the Sacred Capital of Luoyang in bird's-eye view. A giant figure of the Buddhas, which is called Tong Tian Fu Tu, was towering over the other ant-like things in the city -- it just seems like something simply imagined by the editor of the movie in order to show the great moment during that time. However, it seems that such a creature was figure out in this movie on the basis of truth -- once the Express Wu has ordered to build a giant tower called TIAN TANG used for buddhism ceremony, which is a wooden building reaches 150 meters high in our estimation. Although such a building only exist for 7 years and at last came to the end in a fire, the reference showing the existence of that creature still came into our view through the long history.
The cite of this here only aims to show the openness of the Great Tang Dynasty. Although the government announced that its official religion is Taoism, the religion of Buddhism was not ignored or banned and it also became much popular than before. Even more, it is said that the Express Wu also came into power and at last became the Emperor in the help of Buddhism. Added Confucianism, which is the traditional philosophy among the state of the scholars, it shows that a trend in which these three thoughts interact with each other in an internal level, and are slightly integrated as a whole. The trend, which is also called Trinity in the research today, has inspired various cultural product in different forms, including ceremony, philosophy, etc. During this phase tea activities also get integrated and became a system, which can also owe to the internal interaction among the three religions.
It is in late Han Dynasty that the tea was connected with Taoism, during which the trees of the tea was cultivated by the Taoist priest living on the Meng Ding Mountain as a way to enrich their moral character, where experience the development until now and became a tea plantation served for the royal. And in their opinion, the tea liquid is the elixir which will make them ascend to heaven and become immortal, as the growth environment of the tea tree is always the mountain which is so high that skirted by clouds, corresponding with the ideal silent environment for these clerics to cultivate their own moral state. And it is in Tang Dynasty which is said descended from LI Dan, the founder of Taoism, that the tea culture developed much more than before in compliance with the popular of Taoism among people . On the prospect of the stove designed by Lu Yu, the author of the Classic the Book of the Tea, we can found he used the five elements in order to emphasise the view that one can be in health with the elements in his body being in a harmony, which cited from the Taoism.
Although Buddhism was later introduced to the Chinese comparing to Taoism, based on the popularity and research during the Jing Dynasty and the period of local governments with independence. It successfully localised before the Sui Dynasty, and one of its local sects called Chan, advocated to take advantage of tea as a mediate to meditate on the statues of oneself and running of the world.
While for the officials and scholars devoting to Confucianism, they also addicted to tea. What's more, they view the tea ceremony and so on as a channel through which they can make the acquaintances of people in various religious sects, academic schools, or trades. And then, on the basis of this, they can do research on academy, culture or literature to their liking, including the two religions above. After all, as a series of thought and theme but not religions and conviction, centred on the essence of being harmony, Confucianism can be more inclusive. Concerning this, the tea activities even become a node which react to the development of trinity.
Once the professor Zhu Haiyan, who teaches in Hunan Agricultural University, put forward that the tea ceremony should be cantered on four essential elements, which is called respectability, tranquility, purity, and harmony ( in Chinese we called it '敬静净和' ), the first three notions are respectfully the essence of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, while as for the last one, it is not only used to refer to the harmony between people and the environment but also means our attitude to be all-inclusive to participants and their thought, just as the tide once taken by Trinity that all the ways they see the world in difference will reach the same goal. by realising this, all our activities will be of nature, all our comment will become as objective as possible.
Reference
[1]佛、道、儒三教对唐代茶文化发展的影响 任新来
[2]三教合一 百度百科
[3]湖南农业大学公开课：中国茶道 朱海燕 网易公开课