After the second cup of tea, the formal part of the ceremony is completed, and the guests are at liberty to relax, enjoy sweets, and discuss Zen aesthetics. The focus of conversation is usually the tea bowl, which is passed around for all to admire in detail. Comments on the flower arrangement are also in order, as is a bit of poetry appropriate to the season. What is not discussed--indeed, what no one wants to discuss--is the world outside the garden gate. Each guest is at one with himself, his place, and the natural setting. Values have been subtly guided into perspective, spirits purified, appreciation of beauty rewarded; for a fleeting moment the material world of dualities has become as insubstantial as a dream. The tea ceremony is the great parable of Zen culture, which teaches by example that the material world is a tThef depriving us of our most valuable possessions--naturalness, simplicity, self-knowledge. But it is also much more; its underlying aesthetic principles are the foundation of latter-day Zen culture. It is a perfect blending of the three faces of Zen. First there are the physical art forms themselves: the tea ceremony deeply influenced architectural tastes, bringing into being the informal _sukiya_ style to replace the rigid _shoin _formulas of the _samurai _house; the art of flower arrangement, or Ikebana, owes much to the floral arrangements required for the ceremony; painting and calligraphy were influenced by the understated decorative requirements of the _tokonoma_ hanging scroll; lacquer ware developed in directions designed to complement the artistic principles of the ceremony utensils; and, finally, the growth of Japanese ceramic art from the fifteenth century onward was largely due to the particular aesthetic and practical needs of the tea ceremony. The second face of Zen, tranquility in a troubled world, found its finest expression in _cha-no-yu_, which demonstrates as no sermon ever could the Zen approach to life. The third face of Zen is that of aesthetics. By becoming a vehicle for the transmission of Zen aesthetic principles, _cha-no-yu _has preserved Zen culture for all times. It has given the people at large a standard of taste, guaranteeing that certain basic ideals of beauty will always be preserved against the ravages of mechanical civilization. And it is in this connection that we must examine the special features of the tea ceremony introduced by Hideyoshi's tea master, Sen no Rikyu. To the ancient Zen ideas of _yugen _and _sabi _he brought the new concept of _wabi_.