One of the things that is a little frustrating to me is that I do not speak Japanese, nor do I read. I have a number of books in my collection about Chanoyu that are written in Japanese and I hunger to read and get the information from them. All that knowledge and I can’t get to it.

But I have not yet learned Japanese and so the frustration I am feeling is of my own making. If it was really important to me to read these books, I’d be learning Japanese and hauling out my dictionary to help me understand what is written in them.

So many times we get frustrated with life, and rail against all the things stopping us from getting what we want. When in reality, like my frustration with reading and learning more about Chanoyu, it is a frustration of my own making. I have been studying tea for 30 years and I could be very fluent in Japanese and reading and translating these texts if I had been studying the language for 30 years as well. Sensei says, “If it is really important to you, you will know what to do and how to get what you want.”

For those of you, like me, who do not speak or read Japanese, I have compiled a reading list to get you started in English. Want to know more? I suppose you could learn to speak and read Japanese.