The Zen movement developed hand in hand with the arts it was inspiring. And it was Takeno Joo who, having received instruction in the ways of tea from Shuko and Jotei (the reputed son of Ikkyu), then transmitted his teachings to Sen no Rikyu.

There was even, at one point, a narrowly defeated vote on whether the Japanese should keep their own language or switch to English. Fortunately, the language was kept, and it has continued to function as a link between the past and the present.

a sense of desolation, employing such visual images as reeds that had been withered by frost. This pattern of use increased, as did the spirit of utter loneliness and finality implied by the term, and it went hand in hand with the Buddhist view on the existential transience of life known as mujo. The concept of mujo, taken from the Sanskrit anitya

A life of poverty was the Zen ideal for a monk seeking the ultimate truth of reality, and so from these negative images came the poetic ideal of a man who has transcended the need for the comforts of the physical world and has managed to find peace and harmony in the simplest of lives.

wabi sabi rarely strays from the boundaries of subdued colors and lighting, for it is through these that the atmosphere of intimacy can be transferred.

he would then make a theme for the machia, or meeting, so that the event is held together by the glue of consistency.

A million miles from the “love hotels” and the uncontrolled urban sprawl, tucked away in the back streets of Kyoto, one can find the Tawaraya Hotel, an oasis for the seeker of the quintessential expression of Japanese hospitality. One could be forgiven for not even noticing the low-level building, as there is little on the outside to suggest the

The fusion of Taoism with Buddhist ideas is thought to have been inspired by the arrival of the eccentric monk known as the Bodhidharma (referred to as the Daruma in Japan).

Design criteria: Disregard for conventional views of beauty An aesthetic pleasure that lies beyond conventional beauty Beauty in the smallest most imperceptible details