Whether designing a traditional garden, a modern garden, or a garden overseas, creating Zen gardens that allow people to reflect on how to live their lives well every day is Shunmyo Masuno’s goal. "Zen is ultimately a way of discovering how one should best live. By viewing a garden, viewers question themselves if they are walking the correct path. They search for the unmoving truth inside the garden, the place where serenity and calmness are reclaimed. The delusions and the answers are all within ourselves."32
Notes on Language
Japanese names in the text are written to follow the typical Japanese order of the family name followed by the given name (the opposite of English). An exception is Shunmyo Masuno’s name which is written with his given name, Shunmyo, followed by his family name, Masuno. Shigeru Uchida's name is treated similarly.
Japanese words used in the text are written in Roman script (romaji), based on phonetic pronunciation using a modified Hepburn system. Consonants are pronounced similarly to English, with g always hard. A macron is used to denote a long vowel sound, except for words such as Tokyo and Kyoto, which have become common in English, and the word torii, which is commonly written with ii rather than ī. An exception is Kenkohji, the temple where Masuno presides as head priest, which uses an h following the o rather than a macron. Vowels are pronounced as follows:
a is ă as in father (ā denotes a lengthened sound; also written as aa)
i is ē as in greet (ī denotes a lengthened sound; also written as ii)
u is ū as in boot
e is ĕ as in pet (also written as é)
o is ō as in mow (ō denotes a lengthened sound, also written as oo or ou).
The glossary includes Japanese characters for each word—kanji ideographs originally from China and the two kana syllabaries based on phonetics, hiragana (now used for Japanese words or parts of words for which there is no kanji) and katakana (now used primarily for foreign words).
Japanese nouns can be either plural or singular.
For clarity, I have included the word temple following the name of a temple, for example “Ryōanji temple” and “Daisenin temple,” even though ji in Ryōanji and in in Daisenin mean "temple." Similarly, the word garden may follow the name of a garden, as in “Yūkyūen garden” or “Baikatei garden,” although en and tei mean "garden."
I utilize the definitions of rock and stone laid out by David A. Slawson in Secret Teachings in the Art of Japanese Gardens: Design Principles and Aesthetic Values (p. 200). He states, “Japanese ishi (seki) I translate as 'rock(s)' when they are used in the garden to suggest rock formations in nature, and 'stone (s)' when they are used (for their naturally or artifi-cially flattened upper surfaces) as stepping-stones or paving stones, or when they have been sculpted (stone lanterns, water basins, pagodas) or split or sawed (stone slabs used for bridges, paving, curbing).”
Three carefully arranged rocks in a bed of raked gravel in the Chōsetsuko courtyard garden at the Ginrinsō Ryōkan condense the essence of the universe into a few simple elements.
TRADITIONAL ZEN GARDENS
IN THE 21st CENTURY
A beautifully shaped pine tree growing on an island of moss is balanced with a rough rock rising from the pond in the garden at the Kyoto Reception Hall.
“In Japanese culture,” writes Shunmyo Masuno, “rather than emphasizing the form of something itself, more importance is placed on the feeling of the invisible things that come with it: restrained elegance, delicate beauty, elegant simplicity and rusticity.”1 The invocation of these qualities is deeply rooted in Japanese aesthetics and is a central tenet in the traditional arts of calligraphy, flower arrangement, tea ceremony, and garden design, among others.
In his gardens, Masuno creates these feelings by emphasizing the design of the atmosphere of a place, rather than the shape of a space or object. Of course, it is possible to achieve this with contemporary materials and compositions as well as long-established elements and arrangements, but in many of his gardens Masuno makes a conscious choice to utilize traditional materials and compositional devices—to create a “traditional” garden. But what is a traditional Japanese garden in the twenty-first century—and what is its role in contemporary life?
First, it is necessary to explore the concept of tradition. A tradition is not understood as such until it is viewed from a perspective outside the culture. Until there is something different with which to compare or contrast a traditional belief or practice, such conventions are not considered “traditional”—they are customary everyday practices, part of a living history developed slowly over time. When an outsider or someone who has experienced a different manner of doing things is able to see the belief or practice in the context of a greater realm, only then it becomes possible to understand it as “tradition.” This is exactly what occurred in Japan during the Meiji period (1868–1912), when, after more than two centuries of self-imposed isolation, Japan opened its ports to trade with the outside world and suddenly had a great influx of Western ideas and goods. Everyday life began to change, and with it the traditional practices were recognized by their dissimilarity to the new ideas entering the country.
Once a practice or belief is identified as traditional, the tradition does not necessarily end. However, the perpetuation of the tradition becomes a conscious, intentional act. The practice or belief may continue unchanged, as a simple copying of what has come before, or it may necessarily entail the continued development of that practice, especially if the essence of that tradition relies on its further development.
A traditional Japanese garden built today falls under that second category, of continued development. Because a traditional Japanese garden is designed to fit a particular context and place, it is illogical—and without doubt some would argue impossible—to replicate a historic garden. The designer must use the proper ingredients and adapt the recipe to the specific conditions of a given site.
Gardens were formed by making use of the natural scenery and geographical features, and adjusting the garden to suit the surrounding environment.... They are designed to merge with the surrounding scenery. When trimming trees in gardens, it is the same: Parts that stand out are trimmed closely and carefully, but parts that are connected with their surroundings are trimmed so they gradually adapt to the surrounding nature.2
While background trees are shaped to blend into their surroundings, prominent trees in Japanese gardens are pruned and trained to bring out their unique characteristics. This close and careful trimming of these trees is an example of “a highly conscious aesthetic of naturalism,” described by garden historian Lorraine Kuck as having developed with the influence of Zen Buddhism from “a simple love of nature.”3 This “highly conscious aesthetic of naturalism” is fundamental to all traditional gardens in Japan, but it is applied differently in each garden depending on the designer’s concept and the elements utilized in the design. For example, in his traditional gardens Shunmyo Masuno utilizes the time-tested elements and materials of this aesthetic—water in waterfalls, streams, and ponds; rocks for dry waterfalls, streams, oceans, and rock groupings; and plants for ground cover, focal-point plantings, and arrangements of flora. Yet each use of these elements is different and distinct, emphasizing the unique character of each garden.
Water drips from a bamboo spout into the carved stone shihō hotoke tsukubai chōzubachi (four-sided Buddha water basin) in the Mushintei garden at the Suifūso Guesthouse.
Historical garden manuals, such as the eleventh-century Sakuteiki (Memoranda on Garden Making), the oldest known treatise on garden design, teach the skill of observing nature to learn how to place rocks in a stream or prune a tree to appear natural. These observations have led to the development of specific elements,