Origins and training
Sen no Rikyū was born in 1522 in Sakai, the most prosperous port city in Japan, comparable to what Venice was to Europe in the same period. His family name was Tanaka, and their business was fish storage. He took the name Sen and the art name Sōeki, before retirement gave him the one he is known by: Rikyū.
He learned the art of tea from Kitamuki Dōchin from the age of 17, and later from Takeno Jōō (1502-1555), the master who most shaped his aesthetic view. From Jōō he took the idea of wabi as the central principle of the ceremony, but he pushed it until it became entirely his own.
Master in the service of the powerful
In 1579 Oda Nobunaga, the warlord then unifying Japan, made Rikyū his tea master. The post carried enormous influence: a tea master did not only make the drink, he advised on art, architecture, diplomacy and social strategy. Tea gatherings (chakai) were where alliances were sealed and enemies were sized up.
After Nobunaga was assassinated in 1582, Rikyū entered the service of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who completed the unification of Japan. The relationship was a complicated one: Hideyoshi loved spectacle and gold, while Rikyū argued for restraint. In 1585 he took part in the Great Kitano Tea Ceremony, the largest event in the history of chanoyu, staged by Hideyoshi to display his power.
Death by seppuku
On 28 February 1591 Hideyoshi ordered Rikyū to take his own life. The exact reason has never been settled. The most cited version involves a statue of Rikyū placed at Daitokuji temple in Kyoto such that Hideyoshi would have to «pass beneath his feet», read as a grave disrespect. Political and commercial rivalries are also suggested.
Rikyū was 69. He took leave of his disciples, wrote a final poem and performed seppuku at his residence in Kyoto. His grave, at Jukō-in temple within the Daitokuji complex, remains a place of pilgrimage for practitioners of sadō.
Legacy: the three schools
Rikyū had several children. His adopted son Sen Dōan and his biological son Sen Shōan continued the line. His three grandsons founded the three schools (sansenke) that still exist: Urasenke, the most international, Omotesenke and Mushanokōjisenke. The current grand master of Urasenke is Zabōsai, sixteenth in the direct line from Rikyū.
The idea of ichi-go ichi-e (一期一会, «one meeting, one chance»), which Rikyū put into practice without coining the phrase, is perhaps his most universal legacy: that every encounter is unrepeatable and therefore deserves full attention. A principle that goes far beyond the tea ceremony and has soaked into Japanese culture as a whole.