On Rikyu’s Tea Ceremony

Senno Rikyu 

Dear Brother, 

I just wanted you to know that I was able to watch the movie! It was awesome, but quite a bit different than the books and documents I've seen on what was going on during Sen no Rikyu's life. I know it was a drama, and it aspired to a certain understatement and serenity, but it could also lead one to a wrong view of what was actually going on... One of the greatest periods of change and conflict in Japanese history (if that's even possible)! 

We know that the tea ceremony was originally brought by Zen missionaries from China in the 13th and 14th centuries, from a mysterious point of origin in the writings of Lu Yu, the 9th century poet and artist. Lu claimed to be drawing on a combination of rituals passed secretly through Esoteric Buddhism and his personal passion for tea drinking. When it came to Japan, it languished until a combination of cultural factors resurrected it, not the least of which was the Japanese aesthetic reflections on the Christian ceremony of the Eucharist that they observed in close quarters. 

Rikyu claimed Christianity as a source of inspiration for his tea ceremony, and many of his family and disciples (and some say his wife) were Christians. I believe the reason he put two and two together is that the Zen Buddhist use of tea in a ceremony with one cup and one cake, offered first to Buddha, and then shared by everyone in common, was the 7th Century Chinese Buddhist reaction to exposure to Eastern Christianity, as shown by the other symbols and rituals that they adopted at this time (Salvation by faith, Pusa theory, baptism, ICXC hand symbol for Meitreya Buddha, and the Mass for the Dead). Prajna, Xuan Zang, Kobo Daishi, and Shingon are all tied together in the process of this transmission, and their connection to Christian Missionaries can now be easily documented from both Buddhist and Christian sources. 

Rikyu, being the brilliant artist and scholar that he was, immediately saw the connection between the Buddhist practices and the Catholic Christian rituals, and formed a new expression of the Japanese soul from that juncture that fit the needs of his day... A time of confusion, strife, and religious persecution. 

It is a remarkable film. I am so grateful that you let me see it!

Bp. Joseph 

(Ancient Church of the West)