Sen no Rikyu: a 16th-century man who moved the world with his tea ceremony

Happy holidays everyone! In the midwest, the days are getting shorter and nights are getting colder. As a non-native to the midwest, I’ve always been quick to whine about the cold. Over the past couple of years, though, to my surprise, I think I’m starting to get accustomed to it! I keep myself entertained with activities like reading, cooking hearty soups, and drawing/painting.

Today’s book is a popular Japanese historical fiction that got famous after it won some awards in Japan a few years ago. The main character is a man known as Sen no Rikyu, a name likely familiar to most everyone who grew up in Japan. He worked as a “Sado”, or a “tea ceremony leader” (for lack of better translation…), in 16th century Japan. The Japanese islands at the time, still too fragmented to be called a country, was in turmoil with numerous military clans across the islands fighting to reign at the top for nearly two hundreds of years.

The Sado was an occupation in charge of providing the military leaders with rejuvenating tea breaks, which often included designing the tea house, decorating the rooms, preparing food, selecting rice wines, and of course, preparing the matcha green tea.

Putting a face to the name

Even though Rikyu’s name was tattooed onto my brain from childhood history classes, I knew little about what kind of person he was, or even what he actually did to become such a big name in tea ceremony. I knew he pretty much developed Japanese tea ceremony as we know it today, but honestly, what does “develop” mean in this context? Spending time with him personally for an entire book (albeit fictional, based on a true story!) really brought the Rikyu figure to life in my mind.

Something that left a particularly strong impression was his sharp and intense obsession with beauty. His obsession appeared akin to something like an all-consuming faith - a compulsive drive that he could not let go of if he tried. Sine I thought of Japanese tea ceremony as something that’s serene, peaceful, and warm, I had subconsciously associated this kind of image with Rikyu as well, prior to reading this book. To my surprise, Rikyu in this novel is extremely pointed, stubborn, and self-confident, emitting a mysterious energy that most people can’t grasp. I really enjoyed this humanly portrait of Rikyu that I never would have guessed. In hindsight though, perhaps it naturally takes a headstrong folk like him to change history the way he did.

A look into the sense of beauty at the time

Another part I really enjoyed throughout this book is the glimpse into the aesthetics of the time, which is quite different from the somewhat westernized sense of beauty we have in Japan today. The aesthetics put emphasis on giving out a natural, effortless, and spontaneous sense of beauty (although the relentless pursuit of this beauty itself is often the opposite of effortlessness). It’s a stark contrast between western values, which I feel like often value unapologetically calculated order. In the novel, designs that evoke calculation were something that Rikyu hated the most. Learning such differences helped me put our current cultural values into context, as well as remind myself that what we often consider a “given” in our current society is often pretty arbitrary.