Sen no Rikyū was born in 1522 in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. He chose not to be a fishmonger, but rather a man of wisdom. Eventually, he came to develop the philosophy of wabi sabi and a pioneer of the chanoyu (traditional symbolic tea ceremony). Sadly, aristocrats came to see his emphasis on minimalism and his rejection of materialism as mockery, and he was ordered to commit harakiri on April 21, 1591.