The Zen Garden

 

Zen or Japanese rock garden at the Huntington Gardens and Library. Photo by Myriam Mahiques. Personal archives.

Zen or Japanese rock gardens are not designed for the pleasure of contemplating beauty or to generate intellectual thoughts. They are meant to be a metaphor of the Universe.

The following is an excerpt from the book Wabi Sabi. The Japanese Art of Impermanence (By Andrew Juniper). Chapter "Wabi Sabi in the Japanese Arts. Garden Design". From page 69-72:

Zen garden from Wikipedia. I like the combination of the rock garden and the trees, plants in the background. 

"Japan's first gardens were inspired mainly by Shinto beliefs and were initially no more than open gravel spaces where it was thought that kami, or spirits, would be encouraged to visit. To these simple beginnings were added rocks and trees where the kami were thought to reside. (...)

It was in this period that the ishitateso, "the monks who place stones," were given the task of designing temple gardens  using large rocks as their primary mode of expression. The reverence for the Chinese landscape pictures that came from the mainland during the Song dynasty found a voice in the garden designs of the Zen monks who used the themes of ethereal mountains and rivers to build their microcosmic gardens, known as karesansui.

Armed with a frugal selection of raw materials the monks sought to build worlds within worlds as their gardens became miniaturized versions of the cosmic order and their rocks took on the stature of mountains.  (....) By loosening the rigid sense of perception, the actual scales of the garden became irrelevant and the viewers were able to then perceive the huge landscapes deep within themselves. This expanse is a key aspect of Zen, and the nothingness that it symbolizes is not the same as the nothing we understand in the West. It is the indefinable infinite that both surrounds and lies within us. The solitary rock surrounded on all shores by a sea of gravel was synonymous with our own existential  position, not only with regard to our fellowman but also the eternity that envelops our very being. (....)

Just as our eyes only perceive the dry gravel streams, so our minds are missing the great river that courses through the fleeting world".