A Karesansui 枯山水, or Japanese rock garden, is an enclosed shallow sandbox containing sand, gravel, rocks, and occasionally grass or other natural elements. The main elements of karesansui are rocks and sand, with the sea symbolized not by water but by sand raked in patterns that suggest rippling water. Plants are much less important (and sometimes nonexistent) in many karesansui gardens. Karesansui gardens are often, but not always, meant to be viewed from a single, seated perspective, and the rocks are often associated with and named after various Chinese mountains. A rock garden, also known as a rockery or an alpine garden, is a type of garden that features extensive use of rocks or stones, along with plants native to rocky or alpine environments. ... Sandbox may refer to: A Sandpit, a piece of playground equipment. ... Patterns in the sand Sand is an example of a class of materials called granular matter. ... Gravel being unloaded from a barge Gravel is rock that is of a certain grain size range. ... Sedimentary, volcanic, plutonic, metamorphic rock types of North America. ... A typical lawn A lawn sprinkler A lawn is an area of land planted with grass and sometimes clover and other plants, which are maintained at an even low height. ...

The Karesansui garden in Ryōan-ji Temple

The Zen garden at the Ryoan-ji

A famous Japanese rock garden is at Ryōan-ji temple in northwest Kyoto, Japan. Ryoanji is a temple belonging to the Myoshinji school of the Rinzai branch of the Zen sect, famous for its Zen garden. Dry garden at Ryoanji temple (in Kyoto). ... Dry garden at Ryoanji temple (in Kyoto). ... Ryōan-ji dry garden San-mon gate to the temple Ryōan-ji (jp: 竜安寺 or 龍安寺), The Temple of the Peaceful Dragon is a Zen temple located in northwest Kyoto, Japan. ... Kyoto Hall Mayor Yorikane Masumoto Address 〒604-8571 Kyoto-shi, Nakagyo-ku, Teramachi-Oike, 488 Phone number 075-222-3111 Official website: Kyoto City This page is about the city Kyoto. ... There is a disputed proposal that this article should be merged with Rinzai and Linji. ... Bodhidharma, woodcut print by Yoshitoshi, 1887. ...

The garden is constructed in Karesansui style. It is 30 meters long from east to west and 10 meters from north to south. There are no trees, just 15 irregularly shaped rocks of varying sizes, some surrounded by moss, arranged in a bed of white gravel/sand that is raked every day.

The rocks of various sizes are arranged on small white pebbles in five groups, each comprising five, two, three, two, and three rocks. The garden contains 15 rocks arranged on the surface of white pebbles in such a manner that visitors can see only 14 of them at once, from whichever angle the garden is viewed. In the legend, when someone attain spiritual enlightment as a result of deep Zen meditation, can he see the last invisible stone with his mind' eye.

The garden is not attributed to any single designer, although it is commonly believed that a leading monochrome artist named Soami (1480?-1525), in association with Daisen-in, designed and laid the garden. However the temple records are contradictory and indicate some other makers, and the back of one of the 15 stones is inscribed with the names of Kotaro and Hikojiro, who might have been two of the workers that did the actual construction.

Layout

A small hand-held Zen garden

There have been many attempts to explain the Zen garden's layout. Some of these are: Download high resolution version (800x813, 113 KB)Picture of a Zen garden. ... Download high resolution version (800x813, 113 KB)Picture of a Zen garden. ...

• The gravel represents ocean and the rocks represent the islands of Japan
• The rocks represent a mother tiger with her cubs, swimming to a dragon
• The rocks form part of the kanji for heart or mind

See Ryōan-ji for a mathematical analysis of a rock garden. Binomial name Panthera tigris (Linnaeus, 1758) Tigers (Panthera tigris) are mammals of the Felidae family and one of four big cats in the panthera genus. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 Kanji ( ) are the Chinese characters (Hanzi) that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名) and the Roman alphabet. ... The heart and lungs, from an older edition of Grays Anatomy. ... Mind refers to the collective aspects of human intellect and consciousness that originate in the brain and which are manifest in some combination of thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination. ... Ryōan-ji dry garden San-mon gate to the temple Ryōan-ji (jp: 竜安寺 or 龍安寺), The Temple of the Peaceful Dragon is a Zen temple located in northwest Kyoto, Japan. ...

A recent suggestion by researchers Gert van Tonder of Kyoto University and Michael J. Lyons of ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Labs is that the rocks form the subliminal image of a tree. This image cannot be consciously perceived when looking at them; the researchers claim the subconscious mind is able to see a subtle association between the rocks. They believe this is responsible for the calming effect of the garden. The Clocktower Kyoto University (Japanese: 京都大学, Kyōto Daigaku; abbreviated to 京大, Kyōdai) in Kyoto, Japan, is the second oldest university and one of leading research universities in the country, having a total of roughly 22,000 students. ... Established: October 1, 2002 Objectives: ATR-IRC was established with support from various industrial sectors, academic and government organizations to create principles and concepts for interaction media in order to achieve acquirable, joinable, and dispatchable new communication styles through persons impression, sympathy, and experience. ... A subliminal message is a signal or message designed to pass below the normal limits of perception. ... The coniferous Coast Redwood, the tallest tree species on earth. ... The notion of a subconscious in some branches of psychotherapy is considered to be the deepest level of consciousness, that we are not directly aware of, but still affects conscious behavior. ...

Zen garden

The Japanese rock garden have become known in the West as Zen gardens. The term was probably first used in 1935, by the American writer Loraine Kuck in her book 100 Gardens of Kyoto, and has since also found its way to Japanese language (zen niwa). The term zen gardens have later been adapted also to more naturalistic planted Japanese style landscapes containing rocks. This can be seen in the image (right), a small zen garden that is a part of the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Not seen in this view are several large boulders to the left at the shore of the rock bed enclosed by the bordering shrubs. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1580x700, 603 KB)A small zen garden in the Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1580x700, 603 KB)A small zen garden in the Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California. ... Bodhidharma, woodcut print by Yoshitoshi, 1887. ... An aerial view of the Golden Gate Park The Golden Gate Park is the largest urban park in San Francisco, California, USA. At 1017 acres (4. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Japanese Rock Garden

• Neuroscience unlocks secrets of Zen garden (Requires subscription)
• Neuroscience unlocks secrets of Zen garden (Mirror)
• Buddhist Garden and Sacred Space
• Zen garden images and meaning
• Photo Gallery of Japanese Zen Gardens
• Criticisms of the term "Zen Garden" in Japanese Garden Journal
• Stanford University article on the history and meaning of some Japanese gardens