The smallness of the room and of the entry forced the guests to enter
bent and to spend the ceremony on their knees, humbling them so that all
become social equals stripped of any rank they have in the outside world. The
size also contrives to bring the guests close together in natural social unity that
belies false social divisions, and to achieve an informality and naturalness in
behaviour that might not occur in a grander more formal architectural space.
To contemplate the vastness of the real infinite world, the smallness of the
tearoom forces men to retreat within themselves, the centres of the room and
of the ceremony. The vastness of the void is revealed as a negative of the
smallness of this enclosed space.
Within the tearoom, two niches augment the space within the
room, screening parts of it from one’s view. One is the tokonoma, a picture
recess that originates in altar alcoves of Zen temples, and the other is a teapreparation
space behind the central post made of a rough tree trunk. These
niches provide hidden corners, which layer the space and contain elements of
the unknown that generate interest; the hidden areas are the invitations for the
mind to participate in contemplating their mystery, completing the incomplete.
As the result of this spatial composition, the space is bending and dividing;
he spatial composition is analogous to the idea of mutability, which in turn
illustrates a Buddhist concept of the transience and changeability of life.