Ichi go ichi e

The tea master there told me of a phrase the sixteenth-century Japanese tea master Sen no Rikyū taught his students to keep in the front of their minds as they conduct the ceremony: Ichi-go ichi-e. The master told me it roughly translates to “one meeting, one moment in your life that will never happen again.” She explained further: “We could meet again, but you have to praise this moment because in one year, we’ll have a new experience, and we will be different people and will be bringing new experiences with us, because we are also changed.”