This past week, I had the joy of hosting Machiko Hoshina in Helsinki. Machiko is a friend of 36 years, a tea master of the Urasenke tradition in Tokyo, a researcher at the Tokyo University of the Arts, and the founder of a cultural restoration project in Austria. Her lineage is extraordinary: she descends from a daimyo family of the Edo period, with deep connections to Japan’s samurai class, to the Tokugawa shogunate, and even to the imperial court.
To spend a week in her company was to encounter a living bridge into centuries of Japanese cultural history.
At my invitation, Machiko guided a small circle of guests through a traditional tea ceremony in the tearoom maintained by the Chado Urasenke Tankokai Association on Suomenlinna. It was an unforgettable experience: a moment of stillness and refinement in the heart of a Northern fortress island, where East and West seemed to meet in the quiet sound of water boiling and tea being served with precise, humble gestures. That ceremony became a natural doorway into the many conversations we shared throughout the week, conversations that revealed not only the art of tea but also the deeper philosophy that sustains it.
Historically, as Machiko explained, the tea ceremony did not begin in simplicity. In its earliest form, it was an arena of status, with wealthy elites displaying imported utensils and elaborate rituals. Yet in the 16th century, a quiet transformation unfolded
The philosophy of wabi-sabi emerged, cherishing simplicity, imperfection, and the patina of time.
This turn was crystallized by tea master Sen no Rikyū, who shaped wabi-cha – a form of practice that celebrated humility, ordinariness, and authenticity. What mattered was not rarity, but the ability to find beauty in what was already at hand.
In our conversations, Machiko described wabi as the beauty we can create ourselves, even without abundance, and sabias the beauty revealed by age and imperfection. Together, they form a way of seeing – a discipline that trains us to notice what is already present. “Without such awareness,” she observed, “the value does not exist. You must develop the antenna to catch it.” Even something as ordinary as the sound of simmering water becomes meaningful. In the tea room, that sound is called matsukaze, “the wind in the pines” – a metaphor that transforms a fleeting moment into a reflection of the universe’s elemental harmony.
In our hyper-connected age, when information overwhelms and attention is scattered, we risk losing sight of the very experiences that make life meaningful.
This philosophy feels especially relevant today. The tea ceremony offers a counterpoint: it invites us to slow down, to attend to the flower that blooms for a single day, to notice the light at dawn, or to appreciate the breath of morning air. These are simple experiences, yet they are also profound reminders of life’s transience and value.
For Machiko, the tea ceremony is not a religious rite but a pedagogy of presence – a training of aesthetic sensibility and self-discipline, comparable to meditation or martial arts. Over her four decades of practice, she has seen how engagement with tea can leave participants more confident, grounded, and joyful. The ritual is not only about beauty; it is about cultivating humility, hospitality, and attentiveness, qualities that translate directly into everyday life.
As I reflect on this past week, I realize that what Machiko has shared with us extends far beyond knowledge of a cultural tradition. It is an invitation to reconsider how we live: to re-learn the art of noticing, to cultivate gratitude, and to discover fulfillment in what is already before us. The tea ceremony, in its quiet simplicity, teaches us that contentment does not arise from accumulation, but from presence. And that may be one of the most urgent lessons for our times.