ABSTRACT
In Sen no Rikyu's theory and practice of tea intentional imperfection was the leading design strategy to encourage the participant to contemplate the meaning of life. To understand the significance of Rikyu's way of tea, called wabi-tea, this chapter explains his ethics/aesthetics in their historical and social context before considering the implications of his theory beyond his specific historicity. In Rikyu's wabi tea one can find two different strategies to draw attention to the everyday conduct of life. The first is the rejection of the exclusivity and competition based on the materialism for expensive and rare goods and supplies, in an effort to make the practice relevant to and reflective of mainstream society. To prevent the approachable from becoming mundane, Rikyu's second strategy was to keep the practice elevated with sophisticated ethics and aesthetics. With the use of the incomplete, imperfect, and impermanent, Rikyu accomplished the appreciation of the everyday.
