Daisen-in, one of many small buildings in the Daitokuji complex, is located in northern Kyoto near Kinkakuji. Although the Daitokuji complex in general is rarely open to the public, Daisen-in is open to public visits for its major role in Japanese late medieval history. Daisen-in is a famous tea house surrounded by one of the premier rock gardens in the world. The rocks in the garden reference a whole array of literature and mythology from Chinese classics, sacred mountains, auspicious animals, and Zen philosophies. In addition to the gardens, the tea house was known to be one of the primary meeting venues for legendary samurai Toyotomi Hideyoshi (ruled the Momoyama period in the late 16th century) and his tea master Sen no Rikyû, the inventor of the Japanese tea ceremony.

For the casual: 5, for the educated: 10.

I'm not sure this building can properly be understood without some understanding of basic Chinese classics, cultural motifs, and the influence of Sen no Rikyû. It's a complex issue of a rock looking like a thing which references a certain type of theory proposed by a famous philosopher from a famous school of thought which relates to an icon who's meaning was brought to Japan by another famous person which changed the nation in this way to make the nation like that. Sadly, I actually was thinking of an actual stone when writing that previous statement, and unlike Ryôanji which only has 15 rocks, Daisen-in has roughly 50. For this reason I'm just not comfortable proposing this as a must-see for casual viewers, although I do not in any way wish to imply that casual visitors would be unable to pick up some of the significant references which make the tea house so important. If I had the time I would be more than happy to explain the significance to each and every one of you, but there just isn't enough room.

That being said, if you have taken general Japanese history and/or Japanese art history, you should be able to understand a fair bit.