Lets play one of Of Rice and Zen’s favourite games called “What Are We Describing?” First clue: it’s small and enigmatic like the Mona Lisa. If you guessed Paul Daniels you were close so award yourself a point. Clue number two: it was built in the 15th century, perhaps designed by painter and gardener Saomi who died in 1525, houses perhaps the most famous sekitei (rock garden) in the world and is one of Kyoto’s major draws. If you said Lotteria you were not very close so deduct your Paul Daniels bonus point.
The answer is of course Ryoan-ji or “peaceful dragon” temple. Let’s take a closer look. But before we do so we feel we must warn you that the austere aesthetic beauty of Ryoan-ji’s rock garden does make the Of Rice and Zen team want to spout philosophical about the nature of aesthetics and beauty. Forewarned is forearmed.
Factoid: Ryoan-ji was founded in 1450 by Hosokawa Katsumoto (1430-73) a military leader in the Muromachi period.
There is a nice garden and a temple building associated with Ryoan-ji but spending any time talking about those would be akin to describing the lampshades shaking behind Peter North, so lets cut straight to the Zen equivalent of a money shot; the rock garden.
Factoid: As should go without saying by now, the original temple buildings burned down during the Onin Wars (1467-77) in which Katsumoto was killed.
A common fallacy is that the zen rock garden will inspire peace. Far from it, the Ryoan-ji rock garden is constructed on the lines of a visual koan, or buddhist paradoxical question that helps one overcome the boundaries of normal logic. This garden is made to tease and confound you.
Whether or not it was designed by Saomi is almost impossible to tell and therefore largely irrelevant. What is relevant however is that it is, like all good art, free of meaning but prompts the mind to conjecture, flights of the imagination and is endlessly applicable.
Factoid: The temple was rebuilt between 1488-1499
Do you see a sunset in the clay walls surrounding the garden? Did you know the walls have that quality because they are a mixture of oil and clay, the former of which is seeping through the latter and causing that tantalising striation? Do you think the artist intended that aesthetic effect? Does the artists’ intention have any bearing on how we should respond to art? These questions and more should be bubbling to the surface in between the camera beeps and the chirps of playful schoolkids around you as you contemplate the garden.
Factoid: The temple belongs to the Myōshinji school of the Rinzai branch of Zen Buddhism. Myōshinji was introduced to Japan by the Chinese priest Ensai and places a strong emphasis of koan-pondering.
World travel has never been so easy and Kyoto is becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination. Add to this the fact that the population of the earth is increasing like there’s literally no tomorrow and it follows that all the famous tourist spots in Kyoto are rammed with herds of mooing man-flesh. It’s a fact of life, like tax and haemorrhoids. As such, any titanic dreams you had of stealing a moment of zen like the 15th century monks who presided over the temple before it was opened to the public will be dashed against the iceberg of reality and be sent drifting into the dark night on the wardrobe of despair.
On the other hand if you’re fully aware that lining up with the giant groups of schoolkids, retirees, families and foreigners at the drive-through of enlightment and that you’re wolfing a double-decker of zen with a side helping of inner peace behind the wheel of a Nissan Micra of the spirit parked in a philosophical lay-by, then there’s no reason you can’t get a lot out of a trip to Ryoan-ji.
Factoid: The rock garden style is known as karesansui meaning dry landscape. Some say it is the single greatest masterpiece of Japanese culture.
On the other hand, you needn’t feel bad that Christmas, Westminster Abbey, The Sistine Chapel and Ryoan-ji have lost some of their spiritual element and retain only their alluring aesthetic charms. It has often been remarked that it is on aesthetic grounds, if any, that the world will be redeemed. This means that far from man’s art being a response to spiritual powers outside of our understanding, the true power was embedded in aesthetics all along and that religious feelings are simply a beatific response to the beauty of nature, art and religious buildings.
If one continues along these lines of thought, one must recognise that the aesthetes like Oscar Wilde were right all along. Wilde, for example, said that America was a historically violent place because of its terrible wallpaper. Conversely, wallpaper as sublime as Ryoan-ji logically makes you a better person who’s less likely to go on a killing rampage. Deprivation doesn’t just cause graffiti and council estates. Council estates and graffiti cause depravity.
Factoid: There are fifteen rocks contained in the garden, but no matter where the viewer sits one can never see them all at one time.
Even if one refuses to see the oceans in the swirls of gravel and resists seeing the mountains in the rocks that protrude from the white pebbles, the garden will not rest in its efforts to spark your imagination. One cannot but be acutely aware that the children are constantly counting the rocks and repositioning themselves so that they can find them all. They will never stop trying to pin down and own the garden and the garden will never fail to resist being pinned down, because to do so would be allow imagination to rest. Any work of art that does so ceases to be pondered and ceases to be art.
Factoid: Oshidori-ike means “mandarin duck pond”. The pond has two small islands, the larger of which has a bridge leading to a shrine dedicated to Benten, the goddess of good luck. Interestingly, although Japanese temples are Buddhist structures, Benten is a Shinto goddess. Obviously, “interesting” is a very subjective word.
In that sense the garden is more a meditation on art and representations than it is a metaphor for the world and life. As these ideas play through your mind the wind blows between your toes dangling over the gravel and the leaves rustle through the branches that overlook the miniature landscape below. You decide to let the analysis rest and appreciate it as a zen artefact. Purely aesthetic and telling us nothing. Inspiring you only to stillness.
Then you nearly drop your perilously slippery iPhone into the meticulously raked pit and remember that there’s a queue of twenty hot and bothered tourists behind you waiting for their turn at the front of the stage. It’s time excrete a zen epiphany quick or get off the metaphysical pot.
Factoid: In the Buddhist world the number 15 denotes completeness, a state that is unattainable in this, the mere physical world.
Similarly modest in scale but brilliant in its simplicity is the tsukubai (stone wash basin) whose central square opening forms the kuchi symbol of the Japanese language and lends itself to the surrounding characters to create the reading “ware tada taruyo shiru” meaning “we are contented by learning alone”. there is no utilitarian goal being chased. There is no aggressive use to which learning will be put. Study itself contents us. In terms of setting out a stall to rival the power-hungry and world dominating designs of other schools of thought (that shall remain nameless to save their shame) this is an elegant and powerful inscription.
Factoid: The temple is spread out over 120 acres. Most people leave remembering a 25 by 10 metre patch of gravel and rocks.
Ryoan-ji is a beautiful and memorable place to visit and undoubtedly one of the high points of human accomplishment. A visit is highly recommended as early in the day as you can manage.
Names: Ryōanji, Ryoanji, Ryoan-ji, Ryugen-in, Peaceful Dragon Temple
Type of site: Buddhist temple
Faith: Rinzai Zen Buddhism
Dates: Founded 1450; rebuilt late 1400s
Size: Rock garden: 25 meters long x 10 meters wide
Location: Goryoshita-cho, NW Kyoto, Japan
Address: 13 Goryoshita-machi, Ryoan-ji, Kyoto, Japan
Phone: 075/463-2216
Hours: March-November: daily 8-5; December-February: 8:30-4:30
Cost: ¥500
Train: Keifuku Kitano Line to Ryoanji-michi Station (then 5 minute walk)
Bus: From a southbound 12 or 59 bus, get off at the Ryoanji-mae stop. The temple will be on your right.
Walk: 15 minutes west from Kinkakuji.
Popularity: 1% [?]
