The floor is lower than a chair. That is most of the difference.
Sitting on the ground changes how you sit. Your back does the work the chair was doing, your legs fold instead of hanging, and there is nothing behind you to lean into. People who sit on the floor to drink tea are not being quaint about it. They have removed the piece of furniture that lets you stop paying attention.
Put it where you make the tea and sit on it to whisk. Or put it where the incense is, and sit on it afterwards with the bowl empty and the window open, for as long as the stick lasts.
A disc of cattail, woven by hand around a cotton filling. The colour is the plant's own — nothing has been dyed.
What it is
29.5 cm (11.6 in) across, 6 cm (2.4 in) thick.
Cattail and cotton. Hand-woven. Cotton filling.
On sitting
Six centimetres is enough to keep your ankles off a hard floor in seiza, and enough to make a wooden floor somewhere you would choose to sit.
It is not a zafu. For a long cross-legged sit you want something twice as thick. This is for sitting to whisk, sitting to drink, and sitting still for the length of one stick of incense.
Care
Keep it dry and air it outdoors now and then. Spot clean only. Long hours in direct sun will make the fibre brittle.
