Thirty Thousand Leagues in a Single Foot—Zen Influence in the Ryoanji Zen Garden

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(Figure 1)[1]

Fifteen stones. White gravel. 25-meters by 10-meters. Unlike other UNESCO World Heritage Sites or historical and religious landmarks from other parts of the world, the Ryoanji Zen garden in northwest Kyoto is minimalistic in ornamentation and coarse in texture. “Is there a language of stone,” French photographer Francois Berthier asks in his book on Japanese dry landscapes, “a few unhewn rocks distributed on an expanse of gravel—could they be delivering a message? This is ultimately the question posed by the garden at Ryoanji in Kyoto.”[2] Instead of the reaching towers in French castles, the Ryoanji garden’s surrounding walls are no taller than a standing person; unlike the intricate ornamentations found in Gothic cathedrals, the Ryoanji garden’s only patterns are the neatly raked grains of gravel on the ground; rather than inviting visitors into its space to explore its grandiosity and complexity, Ryoanji restricts access on its grounds, asking visitors to instead explore inwardly into their own meditations and enlightenments. Unlike its Medieval contemporaries, the Ryoanji garden is, ostensibly, raw, bare, and stark. The Ryoanji garden is perhaps the best known and most symbolic physical expression of Zen Buddhist values and aesthetics that survives today. This essay aims to demonstrate that the Ryoanji Garden embodies Zen Buddhism practices and artistic expressions during the Muromachi Period in Japan. Despite its simplistic appearance, by inviting spectators to reflect inwards, it harbors multitudes in limited space.

I. Experience

(Figure 2)[3] (Figure 3)[4]

Built between 1450 and 1473 and rebuilt several times thereafter, the Ryoanji Zen Garden, otherwise known as the “Temple of the Dragon at Peace” directly translated from its direct Japanese name, is a part of a temple complex by the same name that serves as a mausoleum for several Japanese emperors. Connection to nature is one of the most outstanding qualities of the temple’s design and site selection. The famous temple is located in the northwestern suburbs of Kyoto, Japan. It stands at the foot of a lush, quiet, and modest hill called Kinugasa-yama (Figure 2). Taking the winding paths to the entrance of the temple, visitors can slowly settle into the serenity and peacefulness in the surrounding area. The stone steps and pathway leading up to the temple are shrouded in vegetation—red during autumn, green in the summer, concealing the structure of the building behind. The exterior of the temple is wooden, with some parts painted white, blending into its woody surrounding.

Entering the main structure of the Ryoanji temple, similarly, induces a sense of quietness and calm. The visitor enters the temple through the former temple kitchen, or the kuri (Figure 3), which then leads to the hojo (Figure 4), or the head priest’s former residence. Like traditional Japanese residents of the time, the bedroom is devoid of furniture, only moveable straw mats and sliding doors indicate the utility of a space. The hojo is simply decorated with some painting and a few adjunct gardens. The omnipresence of the wooden material—in the floors, the sliding doors, the window frames, the ceiling—harmoniously incorporates the landscape of nature in the surrounding. Further, the use of the same wooden material for various purposes in the structure give the space a sense of wholeness without drawing attention to any specific part. Passing through the main structure, visitors can finally get a glimpse of the much-anticipated garden, which is only meant to be viewed from a seated position on the veranda of the nearby resident structure (Figure 5). There, viewers find themselves confronted by a small sea of white, interrupted by sporadic scenes of rock and moss. Amidst the silence and monotonicity of the material, the small space expands into universes of possibilities.[5] However, without understanding the Japanese’s total obsession with wabi-sabi aesthetics and the more fundamental Zen teachings, visitors are often underwhelmed by the visual experience of the garden.

(Figure 4)[6] (Figure 5)[7]

II. Formal Description

(Figure 6)[8]

The Ryoanji garden premise itself only a mere 25-meters by 10-meters, it is difficult to relay through words how writers and admirers see entire worlds in this little patch of rectangle. Seemingly, the fifteen stones—all different sizes and shapes—are the main characters of the garden. They are arranged into five groups—one group with five stones, two groups with three stones, and two groups of two stones. The stones sit on little patches of exposed moss or dirt, and everything outside the dirt-border is covered in white gravel. The white gravel is raked daily by the monks and sit otherwise undisturbed in fine rows that curve around the patches of stones. On three sides, the 250 square meters of space are fenced off by short mud and straw walls, beyond which vegetation is lush.

The Ryoanji Zen Garden is one of a class of rock-based gardens popular in East Asian cultures called the karesansui, or the dry landscape, that is made up of careful arrangements of rocks, moss, buses, and gravel or sand that is meant to represent water. The selection and placements of stones follow stringent specificities in order to bring about good fortune to the property owner and are generally placed in asymmetrical motifs representing various Buddhist and natural imageries ranging from the Buddha to small animals to mountains and islands. Of all the Zen gardens, the Ryoanji is perhaps most famous because of its deviation away from literal metaphors to pure abstraction. In fact, observers claim that the Ryoanji garden defies any one or two ways of abstracting meaning from the form; rather, because it harbors many possibilities, it resists being tied down to formal definitions.

Unlike other Zen gardens, whose rocks, moss, and gravel are often read to represent, or better, replicate the shapes of scenes like a peaceful island sitting on a river, or a tortoise swimming through the lake, the Ryoanji garden is notorious for its resistance of interpretation. Some believe that the Ryoanji garden is the symbolic representation of a world where an invisible figure of Buddha is believed to exist and worshipped.[9] Others draw connections to peaking mountain ranges and islands in the sea.[10] Regardless of the many potential physical resemblances, the only conclusive assertions that can be made are that the differences in sizes of the rocks reflect the principle of yin and yang; the number of stones and the grouping mechanisms invoke ties to significant numbers in Taoism.[11] Many students of the Ryoanji have arrived at the conclusion that the Ryoanji does not symbolize. Rather, it is an abstract attempt to reproduce beauty only achievable by nature. Notably, one cannot see all the fifteen rocks at once—for clustered into groups, they are staggered in one’s line of sight. The notion of completeness, or the indication that the “full picture” cannot be seen, is one of the many signals that the visitors can abstract from the garden.[12]

(Figure 7) (Figure 8)[13]

III. History and Context

The change of the Ryoanji over time has not been formally documented, and most historians who study it are limited to educated assumptions drawn from comparable records. The most conclusive history tells that the site on which the Ryoanji was built was the former site of the Fujiwaras’ estate. In 1450, a powerful warlord acquired the land and built his resident as well as the first Ryoanji temple. The first temple was destroyed before 1473 because of the Onin War (1467-77) and rebuilt in 1488 by Hosokawa Katsumoto, a general who was deputy to Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the eighth shogun of the Muromachi Period (1338-1573). It was said that this rebuilding brought the garden its current depth and fame. Several Japanese emperors, the founding priest, Giten, are buried there. Then, in 1779, a great fire burned down the majority of the building complex and marred the garden. It is unclear how much of what was rebuilt by garden writer Akisato Rito is true to its original form. Despite its changes throughout the years, it is believed that the 1488 construction imagined the primary form of the garden as seen today and that the essence of the garden remains largely unchanged from its completion in 1499.[14]

The identity of the designer remains unclear. Many believe it was Soamai, a famous landscape painter who had become an emblem of the abstract, meditative ink paintings, and other believe it was Zen priests who had ideated the design. There is not much doubt that the space is built by sensui kawarimono, or riverbank workers, who were skilled builders familiar with the workings of various vegetations and gardens.

The Ryoanji is at once private and public—it was once privately owned by a wealthy landlord, then reconstructed by Katsumoto, who held the garden for his privately usage and for his retirement. In 1473, when Katsumoto passed, the temple was converted into a Zen Buddhist temple.[15] As a temple and mausoleum, the primary occupants of the space were the monks. The abbot lived in the Hojo, which has today been converted into a lobby space for the visiting public, where the paintings of dragons and mountains are hung, and the other monks lived in a separate building to the side. While outside visitors are restricted to the patio when viewing the garden, monks are allowed to, and, in fact, are obligated to enter the premises of the garden daily for maintenance and to rake the gravel. Today, the garden is open to the public. Not only does the Ryoanji temple and garden cross the boundaries of private and public, it also bridges the difference between history and present. While it is undeniably a historical site, the Ryoanji is equally relevant in the modern experience—people who visit today and people who visited five hundred years ago are similarly seeking progressed understanding of Zen Buddhism and further contemplation and introspection. (Figure 8 is by Terin Jackson, who had visited the garden in 2016, and is a visual reflection of his relationship as a viewer with the garden.) To better dissect the meaning of the garden beyond its form, visitors must be equipped with basic understanding of Zen and the Japanese culture.

IV. Zen Buddhism and the Cultural-Political Context

(Figure 9)[16]

Zen, while too vague to concisely summarize, can be categorized as a class of thought that believes in achieving enlightenment through long and questioning conversations with the master, prolonged periods of sitting meditations, and stretches of manual activity.[17] Zen Buddhism in Japan had been derived from China. While it was first introduced in the 8th century, it did not become a competing influence with the local Shinto religion until several priests’ trips to China and the establishment of several schools after their return. By the Muromachi Period, when the shogunate was seized by the Ashikaga clan and moved back to Kyoto from Kamakura, Zen was much more established and ready for the royal endorsement from the shogunate.

During the Muromachi Period, cultural—including artistic, architectural, musical—expressions took on a more aristocratic and elitist character, with the members of the upper echelons of society dictating the directions of artistic pursuit for the nation.[18] The Samurai class were the first to become advocates of Zen. The Zen values of self-reliance, rejection of appearances, and promotion of the “true self” matched the Samurai lifestyles that emphasized personal discipline, concentration, and continued development. As such, the Samurai class quickly embraced the class of thought, leading the nation by example.[19] Zen was also integrated into the organizational systems of government as the endorsed religious pursuit of the shogun.[20]

It was in this period that Japanese culture flourished—the Noh theater, a classical form of musical drama with masked characters, the Japanese tea ceremony, which emphasizes total control over the surroundings in order to maximize the feeling of natural-ness, the shoin style of Japanese architecture, which is commonly used in military and temple guest halls—all became very developed.[21] All of these forms of cultural expressions were influenced by the spread of Zen ideals in Japan, but most notably, and most closely intertwined with the rise of Zen gardens are the ink paintings, a calligraphy-like monochrome depictions of landscapes—most commonly mountains and rivers (Figure 9). Japanese ink paintings embody the meditative nature of Zen practices. After visualizing the landscape, artists make swift, broad strokes rather than focusing on details—leaving an abstract composition that nonetheless captures the essence of the object. “Nature,” Michel Baridon, a French researcher of gardens, once said, “If you made it expressive by reducing it to its abstract forms, could transmit the most profound thoughts by its simple presence.”[22] Such a belief bore the rise of the uniquely Japanese arts during the Muromachi Period.

It was in the context of this artistic and cultural climate, then, that the stone gardens saw a rise in its popularity. The gardens of the previous Heian period were bustling with elaborate and colorful designs and details, whereas the Zen monks rejected such flashy displays of vicissitude and liveliness. Rather, the Zen gardens, by stripping bare to the most basic, most crude forms, reveals nature in its truest form and thereby expresses a universal essence that is not limited to place nor context. Berthier writes: “By reducing nature to its smallest dimensions and bringing it back to the simplest expression, one can extract its essence.”[23] Through its minimalistic expression, then, the Zen garden is not only a pursuit of the Zen aesthetic, but its creation and utilization are also acts of practicing Zen.

As such, like in the examples of Greek and Roman class division, the Ryoanji is a testimony to the way different social and fiscal classes leaned towards different aesthetic tastes. “The rock gardens are a concrete expression on Zen thought,” Berthier writes,

Which is not itself accessible to ordinary people. For that reason they appear impenetrable. They are very different from the garden paradises of the Heian period; there is nothing charming about them. On the contrary, they evoke the aridity of the desert, though without its sterility. For the masters animated these rocks in order to nourish the spirits off those in search of their hidden being. In short, it is as difficult to understand Zen gardens as it is to understand one’s own self. [24]

At the time in Japan, such minimalistic and philosophical tastes that required refined sensibilities were only applicable to the noble and upper classes. It was starkly different from the tastes that manifest in Shinto, or the religion and aesthetics of the masses. Because to enjoy the Zen garden is not merely to observe but to actively meditate and participate in the landscape, the gardens are not only aesthetic but also practical manifestations of Zen Buddhism during this period.

V. Conclusion

Through looking at the historical artistic and cultural climate, the karesansui garden form, and the garden itself, it becomes evident that the Ryoanji Zen garden embodies various Zen motifs through its formal experience. Today, modern, and specifically western discussions of gardening like to praise Zen gardens for their understated complexity and attention to details in creating an “organized chaos.” As such, many have tried to emulate this practice, as one can see many Zen gardens spawning in the Western hemisphere over the past few decades. However, despite their ability to replicate the superficial appearance of stones, moss, and gravel, many fall short of capturing the true essence of meditation and introspection that lies at the heart of Zen gardens and Zen religion. In order to help spectators truly facilitate the path to enlightenment through their experiences in the Zen garden, more education and learning is required.

Further research and analysis on the composition of the stone gardens could shed light upon the meaning of specific gardens as well as provide more insight on the Zen school of though during the time. The selection and arrangement of stones, the various patterns in which the gravel are raked, the type and placement of moss, as well as the design of the surrounding atmosphere could all be ways of differentiating one stone garden from the rest of its type. More specifically, such nuanced examinations could demonstrate why Ryoanji was the garden, among all of its contemporaries, that was deemed to be most revolutionary in its exceptional vagueness and acceptance to interpretations. Studies of koan, an apparently nonsensical puzzle, by text or picture, can be compared to the Zen garden, which is just as much of a Zen enigma as these puzzles that invite profound reflection. What makes the Zen garden interesting is any ostentatious outward appearance, but rather the world of possibilities that the essence the small space suggests.

At its conception and construction, the chief priest of the Ryoanji garden had set such an ambition for the small garden: “Thirty thousand leagues should be compressed into a single foot!” Hannyaho Tessen had exclaimed.[25] The year was 1477. Now, more than five centuries after this proclamation, the essence of what the Ryoanji garden remains embedded in the unchanging rocks and gravels of the garden. Outside the stained earthen walls, the four seasons rotate punctually—pink cherry blossoms bloom from oceans of green, to be covered in white serenity, only to see the snow eventually melt and the green spawn once again—yet inside the walls, through the hundreds of years the fifteen stones and its surrounding moss and raked gravel is maintained, by devout and disciplined believers, to remain as true and pure as it was and harbor as much as meaning as it did in 1477.

Fifteen stones. White gravel. 25-meters by 10-meters. Despite its bare and minimalistic appearance, the Ryoanji Zen garden is a result of the Zen Buddhist practices and aesthetics that is passed down from the Muromachi Period to today. From its site selection in an isolated mountain, the minimalistic and natural design of the building structures, the Ryoanji Temple curates a peaceful experience for visitors, setting the perfect atmosphere for meditation. The garden itself—purposefully filled, or not filled, invites meditators to reflect and contemplate. Taking a step back, during the Muromachi Period, the Zen school of thought influenced Japanese art and culture and built the unique cornerstones of Japanese aesthetics still recognizable today—the emphasis on stripping down to the barest minimum and thereby revealing a universal essence that embodies multitudes. With fifteen stones and raked white gravel in 250 square-meters of fenced-in space, the Ryoanji Zen garden achieves exactly that—thirty thousand leagues in a single foot.

Bibliography

Books:

Berthier, Francois. Translated and with a Philosophical Essay by Graham Parkes. Reading Zen in

the Rocks: the Japanese Dry Landscape Garden. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

2000.

Dougill, John. Photography by John Einarsen. Zen Gardens and Temples of Kyoto. Tokyo;

Rutland, Vermont; Singapore: Tuttle Publishing, 2017.

Fukuda, Kazuhiko. Japanese Stone Gardens: How to Make and Enjoy Them. Tokyo; Rutland,

Vermont: Tuttle Publishing, 1970.

Mansfield, Stephen. Japanese Stone Gardens. Tokyo; Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing,

2009.

Masuno, Shunmyo. Zen Gardens: The Complete Works of Shunmyo Masuno, Japan’s Leading

Garden Designer. Tokyo; Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing, 2012.

Nitschke, Gunter. Japanese Gardens: Right Angle and Natural Form. Koln; London; Tokyo:

Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 1999.

Journal Articles:

Eusden, John D. "Chartres and Ryōan-ji: Aesthetic Connections between Gothic Cathedral and

Zen Garden." The Eastern Buddhist, NEW SERIES, 18, no. 2 (1985): 9-18.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/44346126.

Weiss, Allen S. "On the Circulation of Metaphors in the Zen Garden." AA Files, no. 60 (2010):

89-93. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41378503.

Weiss, Allen S. "The Limits of Metaphor: Ideology and Representation in the Zen Garden."

Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice 54, no. 2

(2010): 116-29. http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.berkeley.edu/stable/23182478.

Websites:

Cartwright, Mark. “Ryoanji.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. May 30, 2019. Accessed December

10, 2019. https://www.ancient.eu/Ryoanji/

Jackson, Terin. “Ancient Echoes, Modern Reflections.” Ancient Echoes, Modern Reflections.

Kyo Tours Japan, December 17, 2016. Accessed December 10, 2019. http://www.kyotoursjapan.com/blog/2016/12/17/counting-the-stones-at-ryoanji-zen-temple

Taaffee, Gerard. “Take Time to Savor Ryoaji’s Spendors.” The Japan Times. February 2, 2002.

Accessed 11/15/2019. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2002/02/14/environment/take-

time-to-savor-ryoanjis-splendors/#.Xc9zW1dKiHs

“Japan after 1333 CE – The Muromachi Period” Boundless Art History. Lumen. Accessed

11/15/2019. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/the-muromachi-period/

“The Muromachi Period.” Japan After 1333 CE. Lumen – Boundless Art History. Accessed

December 10, 2019. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/the-

muromachi-period/

Images:

1. Kang, Kaitlyn. Ryoanji Garden. October 2019. Digitally drawn.

2. Frederick, Ivan. Kinugasayama Park, Yokosuka. Photograph. Inspirock, Last accessed December 10, 2019. https://www.inspirock.com/japan/yokosuka/kinugasayama-park-a178898831

3. Ryoanji Temple, accessed December 10, 2019. Photograph. Japan-Guide.com. https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3909.html

4. Interior view of the temple: Inside Kuri, Main Building at Ryoanji Temple, accessed December 10, 2019. CS Kent. http://www.cs.kent.edu/~walker/photos/05-02-02_Kyoto/photo063.html

5 and 6. Ryoanji Temple Info, Tips & Review, accessed December 10, 2019. Photograph. Travel Caffeine. https://www.travelcaffeine.com/ryoanji-temple-info-tips-review/

[1] Digitally drawn interior perspective of the garden, looking out from the viewing point, Kaitlyn Kang. [2] Francois Berthier, Reading Zen in the Rocks (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), vii. [3] Modern day image of the Kinugasayama park: Kinugasayama Park, Yokosuka, accessed December 10, 2019. Photograph. InspiRock. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/miscellaneous.html [4] Modern day image of the Kuri Building in the Ryoanji Temple: Ryoanji Temple, accessed December 10, 2019. Photograph. Japan-Guide.com. https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3909.html [5] “Take Time to savor Ryoanji’s Splendors” Gerard Taaffee, Japan Times. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2002/02/14/environment/take-time-to-savor-ryoanjis-splendors/#.Xc9zW1dKiHs [6] Interior view of the temple: Inside Kuri, Main Building at Ryoanji Temple, accessed December 10, 2019. CS Kent. [7] Ryoanji Temple Info, Tips & Review, accessed December 10, 2019. Photograph. Travel Caffeine. https://www.travelcaffeine.com/ryoanji-temple-info-tips-review/ [8] Ibid. [9] Kazuhiko Fukuda, Japanese Stone Gardens: How to Make and Enjoy Them (Tokyo; Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing, 1970), 104. [10] Mark Cartwright, “Ryoaji,” Ancient History Encyclopedia, May 30, 2019, Accessed December 10, 2019, https://www.ancient.eu/Ryoanji/ [11] Ibid. [12] Dougill, John. Photography by John Einarsen. Zen Gardens and Temples of Kyoto. Tokyo; Rutland, Vermont; Singapore: Tuttle Publishing, 2017. 122. [13] Drawings of the Zen Garden: Terin Jackson, “Counting the Stones at Ryoanji Zen Temple,” Ancient Echoes, Modern Reflections, Kyo Tours Japan, December 17, 2016, accessed December 10, 2019, http://www.kyotoursjapan.com/blog/2016/12/17/counting-the-stones-at-ryoanji-zen-temple. [14] Stephen Mansfield, Japanese Stone Gardens: Origins, Meaning, Form (Tokyo; Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing, 2009, 90. [15] Cartwright, “Ryoanji.” [16] Ibid. [17] Berthier, 2-3. [18] Cartwright, “Ryoanji.” [19] “Japan after 1333 CE – The Muromachi Period” Boundless Art History. Lumen. Accessed 11/15/2019. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/the-muromachi-period/ [20] Cartwright, “Ryoanji.” [21] Ibid. [22] Ibid. [23] Berthier, 6. [24] Berthier, 10. [25] Weiss, 89.