I have written several commentaries concerning Sen Rikyu in the past and focused primarily on Rikyuki, the commemoration of his death. Rikyuki is not our usual tea ceremony demonstration. No running commentary is provided and this lack of theatrics engenders a more introspective attitude amongst both the guests and the participants.
Each year when I sit down to review my notes; I get the chance to revisit the telling of Sen Rikyu’s tale. This inspires me and I spread all my books out on the kitchen table to see what else I can learn about his time in history. Inevitably my scholastics lead me to delve deeper into Japanese culture to get a better understanding of the man and the world he inhabited.
This March while giving the introduction to Rikyuki at the Japanese Information Center, a little voice at the back of my mind quietly said that it takes ten years to do any thing well. As I continued to speak I could not help but think of the relevance that statement.
Granted we consider ourselves experts long before a decade has past, but if we persist with our studies, the realization of just how little we knew at the start of our endeavors comes as a shock.
This conceit is necessary of course, for how else would we ever find the confidence to begin: to make the first bowl of tea, to see the first patient, to hold the first scalpel, and to suture the first head wound.
So with that said, I present a short history of Sen Rikyu and ask your forgiveness for my ignorance. I hope that his story will inspire you to spread your books out to journey back into medieval Japan. I look forward to writing next years commentary when I will doubtlessly be better informed.
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Sen Rikyu passed by his own hand in 1591, being ordered to do so by Togotomi Hideyoshi, the military dictator who unified Japan and for whom he served. Rikyu was the head tea master for Hideyoshi, a position akin to being a cultural minister.
When Sen Rikyu’s popularity began to out shine that of Hideyoshi’s he was ordered to commit ritual suicide. Once Sen Rikyu was dead, Hideyoshi is said to have anguished over his death for many months and refused to appoint a successor.
Rikyuki is the commemoration of the 416th anniversary of Sen Rikyu’s death. The Urasenke tradition of tea commemorates him because he is the founder of our school of chanoyu, as tea is referred to in Japan.
Sen Rikyu is also remembered for the transition to the practice of “soan tea”, otherwise known as “tea of the thatched hut”. This is opposed to “shoin tea” or tea of the Golden Pavilion, which served as a vehicle to display one’s power and stature.
Sen Rikyu was the product of several tea masters. They attempted to change the corrupted practice of tea in the early 16th century and ultimately succeeded, but not without the tragedy of Sen Rikyu’s death.
Juko, who lived from 1422-1502, is considered the father of the tea ceremony and is attributed to have said, “I have no taste for the full moon.” By this he meant that the moon, half hidden by clouds, is more moving than it’s full round image.
Tea at that time was centered on the use of Chinese objects rather than Japanese. Japanese crafts were considered inferior to their Chinese counter parts. Juko supplanted tea centered on an appreciation of Chinese objects, to tea based on Japanese utensils from the provinces.
He led to the rediscovery of art objects that are not completely perfect or ideal. A very popular author even today, Okakura Tenshin, in his 1906 book, The Book of Tea, describes this as “a worship of the imperfect.” We call this sensibility wabi.
Juko also instituted the tradition of using a 4.5 mat room for chanoyu and this practice was built upon by another tea master known as Takeno Jo-o who lived from 1502-1555, and who eventually became Sen Rikyu’s teacher.
Jo-o altered the tearoom to include the plain clay walls, bamboo-lattice ceiling and the use of unfinished wood for the tokonoma that we are familiar with today. Jo-o changed tea from a formal style to a style that reveals the informal beauty of the natural world. This concept, along with Okakura Tenshin’s “worship of the imperfect”, is known as wabi-sabi.
Sen Rikyu was the son of an affluent merchant who went on to study tea and became Jo-o’s disciple in 1541. Rikyu’s style, derived from both Juko and Jo-o, was in opposition to the gaudy tea practices at that time. His tea reflects the natural environment as opposed to the cosmopolitan one that had influenced tea before and during the 16th century.
Rikyu created tearooms smaller than 4.5 mats and these rooms, being impractical spaces, had no other purpose than tea. The tiny tearooms incorporated a crawl-in entrance that forced the participants, no matter how distinguished, to bow low and crawl into the tearoom.
Sen Rikyu molded chanoyu into a spiritual discipline (chado, the way of tea) and this may be what ultimately sealed his fate. Rikyu and his predecessors created tea as it exist today, whether we are in a secluded natural setting or a large conference room.
Without Sen Rikyu none of this would have existed. His sons and today, the present 16th generation Grand Tea Master Zabosai Oiemoto, carry on the tradition of tea he started.
Sen Rikyu left the following verse at his death:
Over seventy years of life,
What trouble and concern,
I welcome the sword which,
Slays all Buddha’s, all Dharmas!
The sword which has ever been
Close at hand,
Now I throw into the sky.
Translation by Rand Castile
