The influence of Zen on the Rikka arrangement was more implicit than direct, and a wholly Zen flower style had to await the coming of the famous tea-ceremony master, Sen no Rikyu. Rikyu predictably found the Rikka style entirely too lavish for understated _wabi _aesthetics and introduced a new style known as Nageire, which was informal and spontaneous in appearance. Since it was for display at the tea ceremony, it was called _chabana_, or tea flowers. Instead of an elaborate seven-point design, the teahouse Nageire-style consisted of one or two blossoms stuck in a pot without any hint of artificiality. The Nagiere was not, of course, an undisciplined art--it was merely intended to seem so. Great care was taken to position the bud and its few surrounding sprigs into a perfect artistic composition that would seem natural and spontaneous. The _chabana _version of the Nageire style is the ultimate Zen statement in living materials. Pared down from the Rikka style, it became a powerful, direct expression of Zen ideals. The difference has been well expressed by Shozo Sato: _Rikka arrangements grew ultimately from a philosophic attempt to conceive of an organized universe, whereas Nageire arrangements represent an antiphilosophic attempt to achieve immediate oneness with the universe. The Rikka arrangement is an appropriate offering to be placed before one of the many icons of traditional Buddhism, but the Nageire arrangement is a direct link between man and his natural surroundings. One style is conceptual and idealistic; the other, instinctive and naturalistic. The difference is similar to that between the arduous philosophic study associated with traditional Buddhism and the direct enlightenment of Zen Buddhism. _(_The Art of Arranging Flowers_. New York: Abrams, 1965). _ _ Although the Nageire is still the preferred style for the teahouse, it is a bit too austere, not to mention demanding, for the average Japanese home. The rising middle class of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries sought a compromise between the Rikka and Nageire, and finally developed a simplified Rikka style known as Seika, which made use of only the three main stems of the full Rikka arrangement. Today various styles flourish, together with experimental modern schools which permit rocks, driftwood, and other natural materials in their compositions. Yet throughout all the schools--and they number in the thousands--the idea remains that flowers are a shorthand representation of man's connection with nature. Zen ideals are never far distant, even in the most abstract modern compositions.