The book of tea - Daitoku-ji, which lead to tea master Rikyu's death

Daitoku-ji is the large temple complex belonging to Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism, located in the north of Kyoto. It has been contributing to the development of tea-ism, which Okakura Tenshin used to describe tea culture of Japan instead of commonly used phrase of "tea ceremony". Okakura's view is that a cup of tea is not only mere cultural activity but similar to "ism" in its significance. Ironically, the greatest of the great tea master Rikyu was ordered ritual suicide of "seppuku" because he was said to build the great gate there, which angered his patron of samurai leader Hideyoshi.

Daitoku-ji has been familiar to me since my childhood, as the graves of my ancestor is in one of the sub-temple of Daitoku-ji temple complex. But it had been just a temple and no more than that when I was young.

A couple of sub-temples is open to the public, and all of them have splendid gardens, most of them being dry landscape garden. Ryoan-ji's rock garden is widely known as the greatest dry landscape garden so it is always crowded. But Daitoku-ji's garden is not crowded except in the autumn foliage season, and yet their beauty is equal to Ryoan-ji's rock garden. To me, their world view is best appreciated in the cold days in the winter. There is no heating appliances, you have to take off your shoes, and you have to face the garden squarely.

Today, I visited Zuiho-in inside Daitoku-ji complex. There were only a couple of visitors, but just that. So I could occupy the whole space. If you like to experience a dry landscape garden, I strongly recommend to visit Daitoku-ji. Always open to the public includes Ryogen-in, Zuiho-in, Daisen-in, and Koto-in. Daisen-in hosts za-zen session on the weekend, so it would be of interest to you if you like to try za-zen.

Dry landscape garden of Zuiho-in, 10-Jan-2015

Tea room of Ansho-ken of Zuiho-in, 10-Jan-2015

Further north of Daitoku-ji, there are a couple of good temples and retreat. One of them is Genko-an, which belongs to Soto school of Zen Buddhism. Two window, one is circular, the other is rectangular,  are said to represent the enlightenment and doubt respectively. Window of enlightenment uses circular shape to symbolize Zen and circular path, while window of doubt uses rectangular shape to symbolize man's life of birth-aging-sickness-death.

Circular window and rectangular window in Genko-an, 10-Jan-2015