World Symposium on Zen and Tea in Ningbo

From 24th to 26th April， 2010， the Fifth World Symposium on Zen， Tea and Cultural Exchange was held in Ningbo， a key port city in eastern China’s coastal Zhejiang Province. The Ningbo International Tea Culture Festival was concurrently held in Ningbo. The three-day event attracted nearly 200 representatives from home and abroad， including experts， scholars， and religious personages.

The previous four symposiums had been held respectively in Hebei， Taiwan， Jiangxi and Fujian Provinces. A few years ago， some experts and monks visited Ningbo and suggested that Ningbo could host such a symposium in future. The city government was all for such an event. The local religious and cultural circles began to work toward this objective. It took the Ningbo Center for East Asia Tea Culture Studies and the Seven-Pagoda Temple in Ningbo a long time to get ready for hosting the symposium.

The symposium was attended by tea professionals and religious figures from provinces on the mainland as well as Taiwan， Hong Kong and Macao. Also present at the symposium were prominent scholars and Buddhist monks from Japan and Korea. Some read their dissertations at the symposium whereas others submitted papers. These dissertations explore the origin and early developments of Zen tea， relations between Zen and tea， impact of such a combination on cultural development in China and overseas.

Historically， Buddhist monks contributed a great deal to the growth of tea farming and Zen tea. In very ancient times the Tiantong Temple now in a suburb of Ningbo was surrounded by tea farms and Buddhist monks planted tea bushes and had the precious beverage to themselves. In the Tang Dynasty (618-906)， a Zen Master named Huaihai served as the abbot of Jin’e Buddhist Temple in Ningbo. It was during his service that he formulated a complete set of rules about tea sipping and Zen. Tea sipping and Zen discussion later became inseparable in rules observed at the temple.

Ningbo in ancient China had strong ties with Japan. The Chinese monk Jianzhen， who tried six times to reach Japan from China， ran into difficulties five times. Thwarted， he stayed in Ningbo after his third failure. Also during the Tang Dynasty， the Japanese monk Saichyo (767-822)， came to China with envoys of Japanese government. The monk brought tea seeds back to Japan and had them planted in Shiga County， Japan. It is the oldest tea plantation in Japan.

Japanese Buddhist monk Esai (1141-1215)， presumably the first ever Zen master of Japan， introduced tea seeds to Japan from Ningbo in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The tea cultivation in Japan started on a large scale due to his promotion. One of the monk’s promotional activities was a book he wrote to explain why tea was beneficial to health. He shipped 100 timbers from Japan to Tiantong Temple in Ningbo in honor of Zen and Tea at 1，000-Buddha Hall at the temple.

Japanese Zen Master Dogen (1200-1253) studied in Tiantong Temple and went back to Japan bringing with him tea seeds. These seeds were planted near the temple where he presided. Now the area is one of the main tea producers in Japan.

The three Japanese monks mentioned here are all milestone figures in the history of Buddhism in Japan. It was no accident that they all brought tea seeds back to Japan.

The ancient Ningbo had ties of Buddhism and tea with Korean peninsular. The remaining physical evidence is the ruins of a hotel for Korean envoys in Ningbo today. In the Song Dynasty (960-1279)， a Korean monk practiced Buddhism in Ningbo for twenty years and， after his death， was buried in Ningbo. In 1087， a Korean Buddhist monk came to Ningbo and put together a Buddhist sutra of 4，600 volumes.

The Seven-Pagoda Temple in Ningbo was built 1，152 years ago in 858 AD during the last years of the Tang Dynasty. For the following millennium， it was one of the four major Buddhist sanctuaries around Ningbo.

In April 2010， the temple was the venue of music， tea， and Zen presentations for two nights for the guests from all over China as well as Japan and Korea. Taiwan musicians and tea professionals conducted an eye-opening tea ceremony.

On April 25th， a ceremony was held at the Seven-Pagoda Temple to unveil a stone stele in honor of the symposium on tea and Zen held in 2010 in Ningbo. The 628-character inscription on the stele honors the natural beauty of Siming Mountains in Ningbo where tea growing goes back to 6，000 years， traces the history of Zen and tea going abroad via Ningbo， commemorates strong cultural ties between China and other countries， and celebrates the symposium in 2010. □q