Japan's life lessons in a cup of tea

I have spent decades steeped in Japanese culture, and yet I still marvel at the complexities of the traditional tea ceremony.

On a recent visit to Nison-in, a temple at the foot of Mount Ogura in Saga, Kyoto, created in the ninth century by an order of Emperor Saga, I was served tea in a room moved from the Imperial Palace that had once been the powder room of Princess Yoshiko, a daughter of Emperor Gomizunoo.