There is an interesting tradition about a room called Shoin-no-ma, or drawing room, located to the northeast of Hojo.
This room once was a tea house called Suisho-shitsu, where the grand tea master Sen no Rikyu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi once enjoyed taking tea together.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi is the man who unified Japan in the Warring States period in the 16th century.
It is said that while enjoying a cup of green tea, Toyotomi Hideyoshi all of a sudden ordered Sen no Rikyu to carry out a flower arrangement on the spot.
Using his imagination, Sen no Rikyu responded to the request by using a stone that lay in the garden as a vase and placing flowers in the stone.
Seeing this quick response, Toyotomi Hideyoshi praised Sen no Rikyu’s innovative idea of placing the flowers in such a simple vase as an example of out-of-the-box thinking.
However, the close relationship between Sen no Rikyu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi didn’t last long.
Later, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered Sen no Rikyu to commit seppuku—an act of ritual suicide more commonly known as hara-kiri among English speakers—after he supposedly took offence at Sen no Rikyu’s creation of a second floor in the San-mon gate of Daitoku-ji where an image of Sen no Rikyu was enshrined.
It is said that Toyotomi Hideyoshi was furious because the notion of passing under the feet of Sen no Rikyu, his inferior, was a deep humiliation for him.
However, the real reason for his order remains a mystery.
What do you suppose they talked about in this tea house 400 years ago?
It is interesting to speculate what could have happened in this small room at that time.
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