Open Workshop: Touching the Zen Spirit of T-Groep  2007

T-Groep / T- Room

Walking into the lobby of T–Groep building, unexpectedly I saw an unique tea room ‘Zian’. His pure round floor space, his characteristic open stairs leading somewhere up there, and the super bright glass ceiling allowing a direct dialogue with rains, stars and clouds passing by. It is a beautiful spiritual space, open and rising. How wonderful if here can reverberating a special tea music, and vertically?

Performance of a Contemporary Chinese Tea Ceremony : “A cup of Zen”

Curator : DINGZI&YIZI studio ( London/Antwerpen )

Artists : Dingzi and Yizi ( China )

Location : Open lobby space of T-Groep

Duration : 2 - 3 hours ( late afternoon )

Materials : two roll of 20meters long white paper hanging from the top floor to ‘pure’ the space.

Tea music : Zen.

Tea assistants : two students, female, Chinese, helping preparing the water and keep orders.

Tea party : in dining hall, a cup of green tea is provided free for everybody with white paper teacup.

Purpose:

-          To change everybody there into a tea person, back to nature for a moment.

-          To connect T-Groep with content of Contemporary Chinese art.

-          To enrich T-Groep with a Zen colour and eastern philosophy.

-          To introduce a new way of human communication – beautifully quiet.

-          To create an international culture environment where uniqueness becomes normal.

Audience as participating tea friends :

Everybody is warmly welcomed to join and enjoy a cup of tea together, yet one tea friend in a while. Each tea contact is around 15-20 minutes. Tea together means having a beautiful moment together. Every minute of these moments is the only one of our life, so we treasure and share it together.

Philosophy of Chinese Contemporary Tea :

Contemporary tea is a free tea with free souls. Everywhere can be a tea room, and everybody can be a tea saint. A tea ceremony is now set free through going out of a traditional tea room. Thus, T-Groep is also a Tea-Room from the Zen point of view, because it is open, direct, active and advanced. By transforming T-Groep lobby into a T-Room, we ‘paint’ our heart green with nature freshness and Zen enlightment. With such a new heart which remembers nature where we all came from, we care to complete our spiritual return. Meanwhile T-Groep is given a brand-new Chinese characteristics – ‘HE’. HE in Chinese means ‘Absolute Harmony’. It is the basis of all positive possibilities and energy. Without HE, life is an hopeless chaos, our human world, too. So at this extremely violent moment of our world where war and terror occurs by days and hours under any simple excuses, we stress this HE again and again to be strongly against the wars and sincerely wish that our Utopian will once help.

DINGZI@YIZI

There is no Buddhist tree at all,
And there is bright mirror nor.
Now there is nothing at all,
How could be dust any more?

Taste Zen in Tea

Basic Spirit of Chinese Tea Tao

What's the Tea Tao?
Tea Tao is subject to east culture. The difference between east and west cultures is hardly to define east culture with a scientific and precise measurement. It could be sensed and understood by personal savvy only. But I am sure the Art is a good way to communication.

"Tea Tao" could date back to Chinese Tang Dynasty, Tea Tao later spread to other countries from China.

Some eastern scholars defined the Tea Tao:   

“Tea Tao is different from tea art, it doesn't pay attention to the form, in stead the deep and profound meanings.”                                                                                                 

“Aesthetics of the Tea Tao", Tea Tao is an art by using one's behavioral action as a medium.

”Tea Tao is an integrating cultural system by considering drinking tea as a turning point, covering arts, virtues, philosophy, religion, and other culture-related aspects, its core is Zen.”

“A cup of Humanity”

Dingzi & Yizi: A CUP OF ZEN