Wabi-sabi 101 PART III: Sen no Rikyu, the tea master and the wabi sabi guru
Jujo’s beliefs were passed on to another Tea Master, Takeno Joo (1502-1555), and wabi-cha saw its culmination with the emergence of Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591), the greatest Tea Master of all time. Sen no Rikyu was an exceptional director in setting up a wabi-style tea gathering, from choosing a place, taking care of the garden, collecting tools and artworks to picking flowers for display. Everything he chose was extremely simple, with no-frills and leveraged what was available in his surrounding environment. But there was coherent beauty in what he chose, so people later called it 利休好み (Rikyu-taste) and tried to mimic his style.
Left: Rikyu had a local craftsman make hand-molded tea bowls using locally available clay, when affluent people were busy pursuing expensive Chinese products. Rikyu’s then-unknown craftsman later became known as 長次郎 (Chojiro), the founder of 楽焼 (raku-yaki), which became one of the most sought after brands of tea bowl.
Right: Rikyu also made tools on his own. One of his best-known creations were flower vases he made using bamboo from a nearby bush. When it turned out that one of them had a crack in it and leaked, Rikyu said the leak was what made the vase special.
Rikyu is also known for his almost impossibly small chashitsu called Tai-an, which was only 2 jo (about 3.6 m2 – less than half of Juko’s 4 1/2 jo format). It was just large enough to house two people (one host and a guest) sitting face-to-face. Not only that, Rikyu eliminated many architectural details that would otherwise have given the space substantial aesthetic order, a sense of stability and protection. For example, structural details (which were intentionally made light and thin) were buried inside the mud walls, and the low small windows allowed only a very little dim light to enter.
Tai-an replica at the exhibition “Japan in Architecture: Genealogies of Its Transformation” held at the Mori Art Museum in 2018.
Japanese architects including Arata Isozaki and Kengo Kuma recalled that the Tai-an felt like “clothing” when they sat inside it. Kuma wrote that “When I was closely surrounded by the earthy, frail materials with dim light, I felt as if Tai-an as was part of my body.” It must have felt like a cockpit that integrated the body with the outside world, inviting you on a journey to explore your inner self – a vast universe. Maybe Rikyu was in search of his own Nirvana when he created the Tai-an. Or maybe Tai-an was a spaceship that carried Major Tom in David Bowie’s song “Space Oddity,” a lone astronaut in his one-man spaceship sailing into a vast universe. What if Rikyu was seeing what Major Tom was seeing, who, at some point in the song says: “I sitting in a tin can, far above the world. Planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do…” Major Tom eventually steps out of his spaceship, leaving people on Earth behind.
Maybe the gist of wabi-sabi is about the moment when you are finally embraced by the overwhelmingly large universe by leaving everything behind, and becoming as fundamental as you can. It may feel scary to feel that “there’s nothing I can do,” but such realization is exactly what Nirvana is about. By stepping out of his spaceship, maybe Major Tom was freeing himself from all kinds of sorrow and pain to be completely embraced by the vast universe. “Space Oddity” is a painfully beautiful song.
One interesting fact: Rikyu tried to strip away every excess to pursue his sado, but he also kept the then-shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) as his boss/patron. Hideyoshi was born in a peasant family to become a national ruler, and was hungry for power and money. As he spent a lot of money for luxury, he even commissioned a golden chashitsu, and some believe that Rikyu created it for Hideyoshi.
黄金の茶室 (golden chashitsu), replica at the MOMA Museum, Shizuoka, Japan
No one knows for sure if Rikyu actually designed the golden chashitsu. If so, it’s the extreme opposite of what wabi-sabi represents. But then, greed and the race for money were always close neighbors of wabi-sabi. Or rather, wabi-sabi emerged as the shadow where wealth and power were the light. Maybe Rikyu was ready to accept the conflicts, duality, and inconsistency that humans expressed. Eventually Rikyu took his own life – in the same way that Major Tom stepped out of his spaceship – because of Hideyoshi ordered him to commit seppuku.
Wabi-sabi appreciates the whole cycle that makes this universe – from birth to death, to good and and bad. After absorbing all kinds of conflicting duality, what’s left is a quiet, calm and boundless space that embraces and accepts all of us. Whether we were good and bad. That’s wabi-sabi. That’s Zen and that’s Nirvana.
