Mushakōjisenke

Mushakōjisenke is one of the three lines of the Sen family, along with Urasenke and Omotesenke. Sen no Rikyū’s grandson, Genpaku Sōtan had four sons. One of them left the house, thus three successors continued Rikyū’s legacy establishing three tea ceremony schools: Kankyuan, Fushinan, and Konnichian. Omotesenke was called Fushinan, Urasenke was called Konnichian, and Kankyuan was called Mushakōjisenke referring to the location. The founder of Mushakōjisenke, Ichio Sōshū built their own tea house and dedicated his entire life to tea.

Mushakōjisenke emphasizes the value of being a “perfect host”, who is supposed to make the ceremony the most comfortable and memorable. Mushakōjisenke is closer to Omotesenke in spirit as it aims to be natural, and it is the least formal among the three lines.

The head of the school now is the 14th generation “Iemoto”, Grand Master Rikyū Kōji. Let us summarize Musakōjisenke’s philosophy in his own words: “our aim is to harmonize the modern spirit with the traditional way of tea, in hopes of broadening the previous idea of the way of tea. In other words, we believe that “tradition is the accumulation of innovation.” So we have objectively recognized the way of tea in today's society, without rigidly sticking to the elements of the past. As head masters, we have tried our best to achieve our aim involving a certain amount of flexibility, which has become an essential trait to our school.”