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Japanese Gardens: Buddha's Gardens
Natural Wanders…
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Buddha's Gardens
by Linda Lee Rathbun
When I was a little girl, my mother had a Japanese garden. It began as a stream at the top of the hill behind our house, and spilled like liquid silver from one hypnotic pool to another, hesitating beside a cluster of bamboo here, swirling past a pruned evergreen there. The main feature of the garden was a tea house, and here our stream ended underneath a mossy stone bridge, gurgling like a contented baby as it played around an artfully placed boulder. My mother must have had a touch of Japanese in her; she understood the need for a place devoted to calmness, and she spent a part of each day in her garden, just thinking. In today's world, going by at a million meaningless miles an hour, we could all use a place for contemplation.
Japanese gardens have inspired landscape designers worldwide, and have been created in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, across Britain, in Canada and throughout the United States. One of the most touching gardens is in Cowra, Australia; on the site of a former W.W.II Japanese POW camp. Japan, of course, has many gardens, and the most famous are in Kyoto where landscape architects come from around the world to study the art. Though there are several styles of Japanese gardens, they all have a few things in common: they are landscapes that reproduce the perfection of nature, and they are places where one goes to find both inner and outer peace.
Gardens have been associated with Zen Buddhism in Japan since 1200 AD. The word Zen means meditation, and in this branch of Buddhism, finding oneness with Buddha is achieved through inward contemplation. Rational thought and conscious reason lead us to analyze the diversity of the world, and this distracts us from the Buddhist belief that all life is one unified entity. Only the non-rational part of the mind, the intuition, can allow us to achieve the enlightenment that is within each of us. Gardens are created as a place for meditation, they reflect the perfection of nature which is a part of Buddha; by placing yourself in nature, you too become a part of it, and one with Buddha. Gardens are an essential part of Buddhist temples where monks can sit in front of the landscape and meditate. Zen monks created some of the finest gardens in Japan.
The way the garden is designed creates the landscapes needed for meditation. This is done by the careful use of foreground, mid-ground and background, creating a false perspective that is in perfect balance. Horizontal lines are preferred over vertical, even pagodas are made with sloping roofs to de-emphasize their height. Because it is a natural scene, it is never symmetrical, and plants or rocks are always placed in odd numbers. Trees are pruned to look windswept, shrubs are shaped to look like boulders, every single thing is in harmony with the other.
Water is an essential element of the Japanese garden, it signifies cleansing and purity, and it is the spirit of the garden. Often there is a main pond which is the heart of the garden. Even when it is not possible or desirable to have water in the garden, it can be represented by sand or crushed stone. At the Ryoan-ji Temple in Kyoto, the garden is nothing more than five strategically placed rocks sitting in an expanse of raked white sand, recalling islands in the ocean. The empty space is as important as the filled space, for this is where the imagination has room to wander.
Many Japanese gardens are very small, especially the private ones, but they serve the intended purpose. Even a bonsai tree set into a miniature container covered in moss is considered a landscape where the mind can be with nature. There simply is not room for everyone to have a 'yard', since 75% of the population live on 3% of the land. The tiniest courtyard can be turned into a natural view with rocks representing mountains and a pond standing for the ocean. These bantam gardens, or diminutive landscapes are in the Tsukiyama style. Sansui gardens are also shrunken scenes from nature: they have elements that symbolize mountains, and they will always have water, even if only a small pond. Larger Sansui gardens may have a rock in the pond that represents the isles of Blest where immortal spirits live. There may be paths leading to various views, and stone bridges covered in mosses, and even several waterfalls. Ornaments in the garden are limited to stone lanterns in traditional styles, stone bowls for cleansing, and perhaps a stone tower as a memorial to Buddha.
The classic Zen garden is known as the Karesansui style, or dry garden. White sand, or crushed stones signify a body of water; and rocks or boulders are hills or islands or even ships. The sand is raked to express how nature is always changing, and even the strata in the rock plays a part in how it is set. One is only meant to enter these gardens with the mind. The garden is not made for the observer, it is made for Buddha.
Other gardens, like the Chaniwa (tea garden), is designed for walking in. It is a transition from the main house to the tea house where one puts ones mind to rest, preparing for the tea ceremony which is also a meditative ritual. There may be stepping stones leading to the tea house, or a bench beside a waterfall, or any number of symbols used in other styles of gardens. All these help to shed the burdens of the outside world and enter a place of tranquillity. The tea house is always a simple structure no larger than four and half tatami mats (each tatami is 6 by 3 ft). The walls are sliding doors that open onto the garden, and the only furnishings are large cushions called zabuton and a low table for the tea implements.
Tea ceremony is an important ritual, and was perfected by Buddhist monks who used the green tea to stay awake during long mediations. Even the way the tea implements are placed on the table is critical, for tea ceremony is an escape from the pressure and rush of life. Perhaps we, with our Lipton tea bags dunked in a microwaved cup of water and then flung in the sink to drain, are missing something here.
It is easy to see why Japanese gardens have inspired landscape designers everywhere. Here in Southwest Florida, some landscape architects are eager to apply the principals. Theresa Artuso of Burner & Company in Ft. Myers finds that many aspects can be translated to our gardens. The garden can be a miniature landscape, especially when designing courtyards, and the use of asymmetrical balance by clustering things in odd numbers is pleasing to the eye. Suitable plants include bamboo, tabebuia, ligustrum, cattley guava, and gardenia. Ilex and ferns are also useful, as are cycads. Artuso points out that the empty space in the garden is for wind, sound, sunlight and shadow...it is where the visitor's imagination will wander. A bench beside a Koi pond can become a place for reflection and thought.
Scott Windham of Smallwood Design Group is also inspired by Japanese gardens. In one large Naples estate, Smallwood Design was able to work with the owner to create a garden that was part recreation, part contemplative. The landscaping created views in the garden to inspire serenity. Water was the essential element, and can be heard from every part of the garden: sometimes in a rushing flow, sometimes as a soft trickle. The Koi pond, the use of perspective and changing elevations to create vistas, the provision of meditative places, were all Japanese-inspired. The Shakkei technique was also used, where a natural view in the garden is incorporated into a landscape. Distant sand dunes and the Gulf were not obscured, rather things were planted and created around that view to enhance it. In Japan, Shakkei is used to underline something desirable, like a hill in the distance, and obscure something unnatural, like a tall building.
I didn't realize it at the time, but having a Japanese garden was indeed special, and even as a child I understood it was a place of tranquillity. When we were finished playing in our part of the 'backyard', swinging and shouting and running around, we would find ourselves drifting over to our mother's garden. We knew enough to enter it civilly. We would tap on the shoji (sliding outer door) of the tea house, and ask if we could come in. My mother would smile and say yes, and we would sit quietly while she told us a story.
I think we all need a peaceful place. I'm sure I learned the importance of this in my mother's Japanese garden.
THE END
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