The haute cuisine of Japan is known as _kaiseki_, the name of the special meal served with the Zen tea ceremony. _Kaiseki _is the great preserver of cuisine aesthetics in Japan. The tea ceremony, the supreme transmitter of Zen culture, also happens to be the preserver of Japan's finest ideals in the realm of food. The governing principle of _kaiseki_ is that the foods served should be natural, even as an unpainted traditional house reveals its fresh woods. Whereas artificiality would draw a diner's spirit away from the real world, naturalness brings him closer to it. The colors, of both the foods and the ceramics, are meant to suggest nature. The servings are simple, never elaborate or contrived, and the foods chosen must never be obviously expensive. A host is expected to display his skill and imagination in combining delicate flavors, not his wealth or extravagance in being able to buy the most expensive items he can find. Again it is the Zen idea of _wabi_, a deliberate turning away from the ostentatious. But to speak of Zen dining in terms of flavor is to miss a good part of the pleasure. The display of glazed ceramic dishes on a Japanese table is carefully orchestrated by color and shape to form a unified, naturalistic, asymmetrical aesthetic whole. The sensitive Japanese regards the Western weakness for marshaled arrays of matched china as a demonstration of limited artistic vision. All the concepts of beauty developed in the tea ceremony have been transmitted to the Japanese formal dining experience, and a dimension has been added: in a formal meal the ceramics are decorated with foods; the various foods are positioned, down to the last bean, with care almost worthy of the stones in a Zen garden, and the color and texture of each is attuned to the color and texture of its dish. Thus dining becomes a display of art and design that tests the aesthetic discernment of both host and guest. Perhaps in no other land is the serving of food so manifestly both a form of art and an expression of philosophy. But it seems less incredible if viewed merely as the last convolution of Zen culture. From monks to modern housewives, Zen culture has touched every aspect of Japanese life. There are, of course, other voices and other rooms in the complex world of Japanese cultural history, but when you think of the finest moments in Japanese civilization, more often than not you find yourself thinking of Zen. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Lessons of Zen Culture _It is not surprising if the religious need, the believing mind, and the philosophical speculations of the educated European are attracted to the symbols of the East, just as once before the heart and mind of men of antiquity were gripped by Christian ideas. _ Carl Gustav Jung_, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious _