4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "It was very hard to decide between this and the first answer. The first one has seemingly better references (including a Japanese blog post about the connection of the tea ceremony to Buddhism), but I'm not sure if they fit here logically, since "simplicity" and "devoted efforts" don't really stick together in my head. This answer fits my view, but it wasn't convincing enough. In the end, I am choosing this simply because it has more points and not awarding points to anyone would be disrespectful to the effort of the answerers. I'd like to thank both you and cinefil for your useful help, since it looks like I'm unable to award points to both of you."