If something is common in the Japanese landscape – besides cherry trees – it is the karesansui gardens or Zen gardens. On a walk through different temples you can find these sand and rock gardens, also known as kasansui, furusansui and arasensui. These spaces try to express the beauty and calm of nature, that sensation found in the mountains and the waves of the sea in a much smaller and more personal space.
What is a zen garden?
With a minimalist atmosphere, highlighting the beauty of emptiness and simplicity, seeking to relax the viewer’s mind, the garden leads to meditation to promote inner serenity and reduce stress. It achieves all this through its structure of white sand, rocks and vegetation.
In essence, the garden is the space where dry elements come together. Likewise, where an attempt is made to imitate the serenity of nature and balance.
The birth of the gardens
Following the arrival of Zen Buddhism in the late 13th century, the gardens continued to develop in the Muromachi period (1333-1573). Some samurai and warlords who admired him for his focus on control and self-discipline decided to devote themselves to the Zen-inspired arts. In a short time the teachings of the Zen garden became present in Japan, thus merging the tribute of two cultures to the power of nature and the mind.
Monks and samurai began designing these gardens by replacing sand with sand and incorporating stones to create a timeless landscape. Regardless of the passage of time, the rocks and sand could remain inert, full of balance and ready to rearrange themselves should change come.
Zen garden meaning: a space to connect
Each of the elements of a Zen garden works in favor of something, in essence they are expressions of some philosophical truths. For example, the function of white sand is to represent the movement of water currents; On the other hand, the rocks represent elements of a landscape: islands, mountains, trees and animals, providing a balance in groups of three.
But in a Zen garden the elements do not work alone, everything is part of a collective act with the same purpose. According to Shunmyō Masuno, a 21st-century ishitate-so (rock-laying priest), the Zen garden is a space that attempts to “restore people’s humanity.”
It is especially useful for those who live confined in cities, enveloped in buildings and small spaces without a natural landscape. Away from the key elements of life and existence. They are spaces that help find balance, that create spaciousness in the mind and clear away the haze. The calm within the chaos.