Kodo: The Way of Calm

The elegant incense ceremony Kodo has a long, colourful history in traditional Japanese life, but remains little known in the West. This beautiful and informative book comes with several different kinds of incense and two incense holders. Kodo includes all the tools a reader needs to understand and experience first hand the exquisite pleasure and calmness of a ceremony that continues to have a powerful resonance in ancient Japanese culture and history.

Kodo – 'The Way of Incense' – takes readers step-by-step through performing your own Kodo ceremony and offers an overview not only of the different incenses and incense materials used in the ceremony but what it means to 'listen to the incense'. The book also outlines the highly formalised games to tests of the sense that are associated with the ceremony. Kodo explores the history, development and influences upon this ceremony as it brings the remarkable Kodo ritual into Western homes for the first time.