Zen Garden Quotes

How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!

Lao Tzu once said, 'Nature doesn’t hurry, yet everything is accomplished.' A single seed planted, eventually becomes a garden in time – when things get tough, tend to the garden in your mind.

Watching gardeners label their plants I vow with all beings to practice the old horticulture and let plants identify me.

To be content, horse people need only a horse, or, lacking that, someone else who loves horses with whom they can talk. It was always that way with my grandfather. He took me places just so we could see horses, be near them. We went to the circus and the rodeo at Madison Square Garden. We watched parades down Fifth Avenue. Finding a horse, real or imagined, was like finding a dab of magic potion that enlivened us both. Sometimes I'd tell my grandfather about all the horses in my eleborate dreams. He'd lean over, smile, and assure me that, one day, I'd have one for real. And if my grandfather, my Opa, told me something was going to come true, it always did.

A student asked to his master: "You teach me fighting but you talk about peace. How do you reconcile the two?" The master replied: " It's better to be warrior in garden than to be a gardener in war.

Now is the only cure for then.

The marks life leaves on everything it touches transform perfection into wholeness. Older, wiser cultures choose to claim this wholeness in the things that they create. In Japan, Zen gardeners purposefully leave a fat dandelion in the midst of the exquisite, ritually precise patterns of the meditation garden. In Iran, even the most skilled of rug weavers includes an intentional error, the “Persian Flaw,” in the magnificence of a Tabriz or Qashqai carpet…and Native Americans wove a broken bead, the “spirit bead,” into every beaded masterpiece. Nothing that has a soul is perfect. When life weaves a spirit bead into your very fabric, you may stumble upon a wholeness greater than you had dreamed possible before.

This mind is an amazing thing. It can conjure love from the scent of orange blossoms, peace from a dry breeze, and joy from a patch of grass on a summer day.

What if you suddenly saw through all your fear and ignorance, your restless craziness, and realized that you already possess what you are looking for because you already are everything you are looking for?

Behind the cool mask of bravado, past the one-way mirror of his mind, underneath the rock-solid layers of self-control, in the Zen garden that was Master Sewer’s soul, a high-pitched anxiety fart rustled through the still leaves. If farts could talk, this one would have said, “Damn coppers!

The mind is like a fertile garden,” Bruce said. “It will grow anything you wish to plant—beautiful flowers or weeds. And so it is with successful, healthy thoughts or with negative ones that will, like weeds, strangle and crowd the others. Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are the weeds that strangle confidence.

Ah, the toilet is through that first door on your right.

Mine is not the faith of wishful thinking. It’s faith with arms and legs, days and nights, eyes and ears.

men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them." "Where does that leave us," she asked lightly. "In a Zen garden. Green and yellow mosses, raked gravel. Silence.

Wisteria hangs over the eaves like clumps of ghostly grapes. Euphorbia's pale blooms billow like sea froth. Blood grass twists upward, knifing the air, while underground its roots go berserk, goosing everything in their path. A magnolia, impatient with vulvic flesh, erupts in front of the living room window. The recovering terrorist--holding a watering can filled with equal parts fish fertilizer and water, paisley gloves right up over her freckled forearms, a straw hat with its big brim shading her eyes, old tennis shoes speckled with dew--moves through her front garden. Her face, she tells herself, like a Zen koan. The look of one lip smiling.

[Once Ummon asked a lesser light Are you a gardener> Yes it replied Why have turnips no roots> Ummon asked the gardener who could not reply Because said Ummon rainwater is plentiful] I think about this for a moment. Ummon’s koan is not difficult now that I am regaining the knack of listening for the shadow of substance beneath the words. The little Zen parable is Ummon’s way of saying, with some sarcasm, that the answer lies within science and within the antilogic which scientific answers so often provide. The rainwater comment answers everything and nothing, as so much of science has for so long. As Ummon and the other Masters teach, it explains why the giraffe evolved a long neck but never why the other animals did not. It explains why humankind evolved to intelligence, but not why the tree near the front gate refused to.

No matter what steps into our path, we simply need to remember to go with the flow and trust our direction.

the delicate fragrance of rose hips lingered on my fingers from tending the garden .

Every path we travel has something to teach us and moves us in the direction to achieve our dreams.

Shigemori's body of work is a compelling manifesto for continuous cultural renewal.

You can’t fill a hole that doesn’t exist.

When we choose to live our lives in fear we become convinced that the world is unsafe.

Carnal, rocks remember when they were mountains.' They stared at the rocks in the garden. 'And what do mountains remember?' 'When they were ocean floors.' Big Angel, Zen master.

There is a bench in the back of my garden shaded by Virginia creeper, climbing roses, and a white pine where I sit early in the morning and watch the action. Light blue bells of a dwarf campanula drift over the rock garden just before my eyes. Behind it, a three-foot stand of aconite is flowering now, each dark blue cowl-like corolla bowed for worship or intrigue: thus its common name, monkshood. Next to the aconite, black madonna lilies with their seductive Easter scent are just coming into bloom. At the back of the garden, a hollow log, used in its glory days for a base to split kindling, now spills white cascade petunias and lobelia. I can't get enough of watching the bees and trying to imagine how they experience the abundance of, say, a blue campanula blosssom, the dizzy light pulsing, every fiber of being immersed in the flower. ... Last night, after a day in the garden, I asked Robin to explain (again) photosynthesis to me. I can't take in this business of _eating light_ and turning it into stem and thorn and flower... I would not call this meditation, sitting in the back garden. Maybe I would call it eating light. Mystical traditions recognize two kinds of practice: _apophatic mysticism_, which is the dark surrender of Zen, the Via Negativa of John of the Cross, and _kataphatic mysticism_, less well defined: an openhearted surrender to the beauty of creation. Maybe Francis of Assissi was, on the whole, a kataphatic mystic, as was Thérèse of Lisieux in her exuberant momemnts: but the fact is, kataphatic mysticism has low status in religious circles. Francis and Thérèse were made, really made, any mother superior will let you know, in the dark nights of their lives: no more of this throwing off your clothes and singing songs and babbling about the shelter of God's arms. When I was twelve and had my first menstrual period, my grandmother took me aside and said, 'Now your childhood is over. You will never really be happy again.' That is pretty much how some spiritual directors treat the transition from kataphatic to apophatic mysticism. But, I'm sorry, I'm going to sit here every day the sun shines and eat this light. Hung in the bell of desire.

To pass the barrier, you have to drop your ambivalence and cynicism. Your clever self-deceptions, excuses, and ulterior motives. You have to be ready, even desperate, before you propel yourself beyond your own fear.

My thatched hut; the whole sky Is its roof The mountains are its hedge, And it has the sea for a garden. I’m inside with nothing at all, Not even a bag, And yet there are visitors who say It’s hidden behind a bamboo door

In my experience, however, if I focus too much on what the team sees, then it can be difficult to complete the garden as an expression of my own thoughts. Although it may seem counterintuitive, when it comes to coordinating what direction the rocks will face, the fewer people involved, the easier it is to synchronize. And when it’s time to make the final adjustments, it’s best to do it alone. Decisiveness is about having the ability to trust in yourself.

Zen opens a man's eyes to the greatest mystery as it is daily and hourly performed; it enlarges the heart to embrace eternity of time and infinity of space in its every palpitation; it makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden

Buddhism asks big questions about birth and death, cause and effect, emptiness and form, delusion and enlightenment. I just hope you’re not actually thinking about any of that stuff, because Buddhism is fundamentally about something that requires no thought.

her parents had few friends, avoided social engagement, were awkward when they couldn’t avoid it, and spent most of their time reading, playing music, doing punishing exercise, or, like crazy Zen monks, sitting for hours in the garden or on the terrace doing absolutely nothing.

Whether working in the yard or just going about the daily business of life, you are continually adjusting, trimming, touching, shaping, and tinkering with the wealth of things around you. It may be difficult for you to know when to stop. We are all torn between the extremes of taking care of things and leaving them alone, and we question whether many things could ever get along without us. We find ourselves with pruning shears in hand, snipping away at this or that, telling ourselves that we're only being helpful, redefining something else's space, removing that which is unappealing to us. It's not that we really want to change the world. We just want to fix it up slightly. We'd like to lose a few pounds or rid ourselves of some small habit. Maybe we'd like to help a friend improve his situation or repair a few loose ends in the lives of our children. All of this shaping and controlling can have an adverse affect. Unlike someone skilled in the art of bonsai gardening, we may *unintentionally* stunt much natural growth before it occurs. And our meddling may not be appreciated by others. Most things will get along superbly without our editing, fussing, and intervention. We can learn to just let them be. As a poem of long ago puts it, "In the landscape of spring, the flowering branches grow naturally, some are long, some are short.

The earth provides not just a little, but all. The very body and mind with which I tend the earth are themselves of the earth. I am but earth tending earth. Were the earth not to roll this garden toward the sun today, were the clouds not to gather above the sea, the waters not to flow, the soil not to brim with its billions of microorganisms, were all or any part of this to fail, I would fail as well, my body numbed to a fixed stillness, my slightest thought cancelled. This truth is so obvious that it is a wonder we can forget it so often and so easily. The fact of it defines who we are. To forget this is to forget who we are, a species suffering from amnesia that bewildered seeks its own name.

In the name of Him Who created and sustains the world, the Sage Who endowed tongue with speech. He attains no honor who turns the face from the doer of His mercy. The kings of the earth prostate themselves before Him in supplication. He seizes not in haste the disobedient, nor drives away the penitent with violence. The two worlds are as a drop of water in the ocean of His knowledge. He withholds not His bounty though His servants sin; upon the surface of the earth has He spread a feast, in which both friend and foe may share. Peerless He is, and His kingdom is eternal. Upon the head of one He placed a crown another he hurled from the throne to the ground. The fire of His friend He turned into a flower garden; through the water of the Nile He sended His foes to perdition. Behind the veil He sees all, and conceal ed our faults with His own goodness. He is near to them that are downcast, and accepts the prayers of them that lament. He knows of the things that exist not, of secrets that are untold. He causes the moon and the sun to revolve, and spreads water upon the earth. In the heart of a stone hath He placed a jewel; from nothing had He created all that is. Who can reveal the secret of His qualities; what eye can see the limits of His beauty? The bird of thought cannot soar to the height of His presence, nor the hand of understanding reach to the skirt of His praise. Think not, O Saadi, that one can walk in the road of purity except in the footsteps of Mohammed (Peace and Blessings be Upon Him)

As my grandmother discovered long ago, the Japanese excel in cultivating nature. Their gardens come in numerous styles, including paradise gardens, dry-landscape gardens, stroll gardens, and tea gardens. Although each type has its own goal, tray all share the same principle: nature is manipulated to create a miniature symbolic landscape. A paradise garden is meant to evoke the Buddhist paradise through the use of water dotted with stone "islands." Dry-landscape gardens, usually tucked away in Zen temples, use dry pebbles and stones to create minimalist views for quiet contemplation. Stroll gardens offer changing scenes with every step, a pool of carp here, a mossy trail there, and a small bridge to link them both, while a tea garden provides a serene path to take you from the external world to the spiritual one of the teahouse.

— Нет, мы пойдем в сад дзен. Войдя в сад дзен, я попятился. В десятиметровом прямоугольнике, окруженном скамьями из посеревших досок, среди прочесанного гравия и песка, выровненного граблями, лежали замшелые камни. Идиотизм! Мало того, что этот каменный сад был безжизненным, я к тому же не мог взять в толк, как работа для ленивого садовника может улучшить мою собственную жизнь или избавить меня от решения моих проблем. — Садись и наблюдай. Из почтения к Сёминцу я был обязан сделать некоторое усилие, я присел с краю этого абсурдного пространства. Сжав зубы и наморщив лоб, я подпер голову руками и, чтобы не гневать учителя, изобразил сосредоточенность. Из скуки или же чтобы развеять ее, мысли мои перескакивали с одного на другое. Я думал об Асёрю, о матери. Вдруг я утратил равновесие, потому что сознание мое перетекло в сознание моего отца, я пережил его последние мгновения на балконе, перед прыжком… Мне показалось, что я падаю вместе с ним. Я встревоженно огляделся, чтобы удостовериться, что не вскрикнул и не привлек внимания сидевших по периметру прямоугольника; никто из них не заметил моего смятения, и я успокоился. Чтобы вернуть прежнее состояние, я сосредоточил внимание на следах, оставленных на песке граблями. Я равнодушно проследил изгибы. И тут это свершилось. Сначала я решил, что мне дурно. Я по-прежнему сидел, но у меня возникло странное ощущение. Все перевернулось. Во мне. И вокруг меня. Я уже не понимал, несет меня волной или же я сам стал волной. Подступало нечто странное, огромное, громоподобное. Потом возникла какая-то сила, наполнила меня, подняла вверх. Я ощутил мягкий взрыв, не болезненный. Напротив, мое тело вспыхнуло наслаждением, вырвалось из кожи, плоть моя множеством кусков разнеслась над садом. Сам сад изменился в размерах, обычный камень превратился в гору, гравий — в озера, а песок — в море облаков. Видимый сад уступил место незримому, излучавшему благодатную энергию. В одно мгновение я пробудился от владевшего мной кошмара, я вспомнил забытую реальность, то, из чего мы состоим. Я был уже не Джун, а космос, замкнутый, неподвижный и меж тем пребывающий в движении. Мне показалось, что я стал пустотой между предметами, пустотой между людьми, между утратившими значение словами, пустотой между потухшими мыслями и образами. Я покинул собственное тело, превратился в пустоту надо мной, пустоту, которая и есть истинный центр мира.

It’s not so bad to find yourself free of the effort to overcome your life. It’s not so bad.

You’re putting all your effort into pulling a rope and then blaming the other side for the blister.

We can either fill our minds and chatter to ourselves about issues and people while we are gardening, or we can simply enjoy cutting the flowers, watering the plants and doing the gardening.   It is for lack of a simpler term referred to as simply being in the moment, being connected with what you are doing at the moment.

After finishing their main course and dessert, she and Cady prepared her extra dish. Sophia had decided to make the girls' favorite dinner- beef tenderloin with peppercorn sauce. Soon enough they were plating and rushing back and forth to the huge banquet table set up in the courtyard. Pouring wine and adjusting garnishes and offering smiles to the judges. The ambience of this meal was Sophia's idea of romance. The table was draped with ivory linen and topped with glass jars of flowers. Bouquets of Rosa rugosa and Queen Anne's lace were nestled among votives and bottles of wine. The local glassblower had provided an assortment of pottery dishes and hand-blown goblets. Strands of white lights dangled from the surrounding trees. She and Elliott and the girls plated together, having reached some sort of exhausted Zen state. Emilia scooped the risotto, Elliott placed the salmon on top, Sophia added the three tiny sides shaped with a round cookie cutter. Elliott drizzled his sauce onto the final product. He brushed his shoulder against Sophia each time, needing that physical connection. The plates looked exquisite, artistic. Perfect. She tried to ignore the overwhelming stress of the moment and focus on the food. Cady and Emilia added garnishes- fresh herbs and flowers. And Cady had a whole sheet of candied violets ready to sprinkle on their dessert. It made Elliott laugh and tease them all about being a family of garden sprites. When they finally got to the head of the table and faced a sea of critics, Sophia felt confident about their choices. They'd prepared a beautiful meal that successfully showcased Elliott's love for Scottish tradition, local Vermont products, and the Brown family's love of fresh vegetables and herbs. All the components meshed together into one cohesive meal.

...and yet there was one lump in that freshly raked zen garden: a small woman crying into a fish bowl.

At a very personal level. as the head of an institution, it is the arrogance of my ambition that wants to see the outcome of my efforts in my own lifetime. But, our ability to even embark on this journey is the result of generations of people who have invested time and effort. - Ramesh Ramanathan, Janaagraha

Why do we prize changing organism more than inorganic matter, unchanging and constant? If there be no change in the bright hues of a flower, it is as worthless as a stone. If there be no change in the song of a bird, it is as valueless as a whistling wind. If there be no change in trees and grass, they are utterly unsuitable to be planted in a garden.

Messiahs don't drop from the sky, As mortal suffering jumps the fence. A messiah is just a mortal, Minus all the indifference. Peygambers don't jog down from jennet, As people are troubled by malice. A peygamber is just a regular person, Who has conquered their prejudice. Buddhas don't grow in a zen garden, As the world reeks of bigotry. A buddha is just an ordinary being, Minus all the self-centricity.

Amantes Assemble Sonnet 14 Messiahs don't drop from the sky, As mortal suffering jumps the fence. A messiah is just a mortal, Minus all the indifference. Peygambers don't jog down from jennet, As people are troubled by malice. A peygamber is just a regular person, Who has conquered their prejudice. Buddhas don't grow in a zen garden, As the world reeks of bigotry. A buddha is just an ordinary being, Minus all the self-centricity. Mind is the enemy, mind is the mate. To all wounds of society mind is ointment.

In the monastery, the practitioner does everything: he carries water, he looks for firewood, prepares food, cultivates the garden. . . . Although he learns the way to sit in the Zen position and to practice concentration and meditation in this position, he must strive to remain constantly aware of being, even when he carries water, cooks, or cultivates the garden. He knows that to carry water is not only a useful action, it is also to practice Zen. If one does not know how to practice Zen while carrying water, it is useless to live in a monastery.

To return home, to see into one's own nature, is the end aimed at by the practitioner, But how is one to see into one's own nature? It is necessary to bring light to one's existence, to live life, to render present and permanent the awareness of being. Put in another way, it is necessary that one sees the cyprus in the courtyard. If one does not see the presence of the cyprus in his own garden, how can one see into his own nature?

These were often tangible arts like miniature landscape gardening, Zen gardens

I’ve never actually visited a Zen garden in real life, but Gran and I used to holiday together on the sofa, side by side in our living room.

Big Angel turned to Little Angel and said, “Carnal, rocks remember when they were mountains.” They stared at the rocks in the garden. “And what do mountains remember?” “When they were ocean floors.” Big Angel, Zen master.

If you wait for people to bring you happiness, you will never find true satisfaction. To live a happy, content life, you have to exert the effort needed to incorporate happiness into your life: You should create your own garden and invest time and effort into cleansing and beautifying your soul.

To practice the Way single heartedly is, in itself, enlightenment. There is no gap between practice and enlightenment and daily life.” This stripped-down Buddhist aesthetic pervades all aspects of St Zen. Most St Zen temples eschew the fantastic sculptures of bodhisattvas with their jewelry and fluttering robes. Instead, Zen emphasizes rock gardens, green-tea caffeine-infused meditation, and single-mindedness.

Sit Quietly This is the most important Zen practice.   It is the classroom for living a wise and kind life.   Sit anywhere and be quiet: on a couch, a bed, a bench, inside, outside, leaning against a tree, by a lake, at the ocean, in a garden, on an airplane, in your office chair, on the floor, in your car. Meditation cushions are okay too.   Sit at any time: morning, night, one minute, three years.   Wear what you've got on. Loosen your waist so that your belly can move with your breath.   Sit as relaxed as possible. Relax your muscles when starting and during sitting.   Sit with your back straight but not stiff. Keep your head upright with your ears level.   Respect all medical conditions. Only take a posture you can. All postures are okay.   Do what you can do.   Keep your eyes slightly opened and out of focus. Closing them will make you sleepy and sometimes busy. Opening them wide will keep you busy.   Breathe naturally through your nose. Enjoy breathing. Feel your breath. Watch your breath. Become your breath.   Be like a cat purring. Follow your breath like ocean waves coming in and out.   When you get distracted, come back to the simplest and most basic experience of being alive, your breathing.   That's it. No belief. No program. No dogma.   You do not have to be Buddhist. You can be of any faith, religion, race, nationality, gender, relationship status, or capacity.   Just sit quietly, connect with your breath, and pay attention to what happens. You will learn things.   Do it when you want. You decide how much is enough for you. If you do it daily, it will get into your bones.   Please enjoy sitting quietly!   The only way to learn sitting quietly is to do it.

Can you give yourself totally to the reality of your life and its unknowable outcome?

Nostalgia seems like a harmless pastime until it renders you blind.

Nothing is solid. Everything disappears. In a million, billion ways the world will fail you. How can you bear it?

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When you can face reality without camouflage, yours is the face of compassion. What a sight for sore eyes!

Some of the gardeners, Nanao said, worked according to the precepts of Muso Soseki, others according to other Japanese Zen masters; others still to Fu Hsi, the legendary inventor of the Chinese system of geomancy called feng shui; others to Persian gardening gurus, including Omar Khayyam; or to Leopold or Jackson, or other early American ecologists, like the nearly forgotten biologist Oskar Schnelling; and so on. These

The rest of the house had a casual California boho-beach vibe, with its distressed wood floors, ivory furniture, and gauzy curtains, but the bedroom was very Zen. Decorated in a cool palette of sage greens and charcoal grays, with a floor-to-ceiling window along one wall that looked over a tiny tranquility garden of stones and succulents, it was my little oasis.

The path dips down to Gal Vihara: a wide, quiet, hollow, surrounded with trees. A low outcrop of rock, with a cave cut into it, and beside the cave a big seated Buddha on the left, a reclining Buddha on the right, and Ananda, I guess, standing by the head of the reclining Buddha. In the cave, another seated Buddha. The vicar general, shying away from "paganism." hangs back and sits under a tree reading the guidebook. I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika, of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything - without refutation - without establishing some other argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well-established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening. I was knocked over with a rush of relief and thankfulness at the obvious clarity of the figures, the clarity and fluidity of shape and line, the design of the monumental bodies composed into the rock shape and landscape, figure, rock and tree. And the sweep of bare rock sloping away on the other side of the hollow, where you can go back and see different aspects of the figures. Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious. The queer evidence of the reclining figure, the smile, the sad smile of Ananda standing with arms folded (much more "imperative" than Da Vinci's Mona Lisa because completely simple and straightforward). The thing about all this is that there is no puzzle, no problem, and really no "mystery." All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear. The rock, all matter, all life, is charged with dharmakaya... everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I don't know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination. Surely, with Mahabalipuram and Polonnaruwa my Asian pilgrimage has come clear and purified itself. I mean, I know and have seen what I was obscurely looking for. I don't know what else remains but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and have got beyond the shadow and the disguise. This is Asia in its purity, not covered over with garbage, Asian or European or American, and it is clear, pure, complete. It says everything: it needs nothing. And because it needs nothing it can afford to be silent, unnoticed, undiscovered. It does not need to be discovered. It is we, Asians included, who need to discover it. The whole thing is very much a Zen Garden, a span of bareness and openness and evidence, and the great figures, motionless, yet with the lines in full movement, waves of vesture and bodily form, a beautiful and holy vision. The rest of the "city", the old palace complex, I had no time for. We just drove around the roads and saw the ruined shapes, and started on the long drive home to Kandy.

On a stop over at Hong Kong airport heading home we phoned the Hipgnosis studio to brief Storm on the cover design for Meddle. The title had been hastily concocted and, maybe inspired by some Zen-like image of water gardens, we told Storm we wanted ‘an ear under water’. Time differences meant that neither party was on top form for the telephone discussion, but even across the intervening miles, we could hear the sound of Storm’s eyes rolling.

Soul wants time and patience to confer loveliness; it wants to be wooed and longs to find the face of the Beloved in the gardens of the city.” -- 'The Light Inside the Dark: Zen, Soul and the Spiritual Life', John Terrant

Prior to the beginning of the Shōwa period (1926–1989), few people visited the rock garden at Ryōanji, and within Japan itself, aside from a few professionals, there were not very many people who said it was particularly beautiful. Moreover, praise from foreigners did not come to be dominant until after the Zen boom in Europe and the United States started in the 1950s. As a Japanese, it is somewhat gratifying to know that Japan has a garden that foreigners praise and travel all the way across the ocean to visit. But this, again, is just a magic mirror that reflects a beautiful image of me.

While not inherently "green" in the current sense of ecology, Zen evidences quite a number of core qualities and values that can be considered ecofriendly and help it serve as a model for new theories that address problems of conservation and pollution control. Traditional Japanese society is characterized by an approach based on healthy, efficient, and convenient living derived from a mental outlook that makes the most of minimal natural resources. Zen particularly endorses the values of simplicity, in that monks enter the Samgha Hall only with robes, bowls, and a few other meager possessions; thrift, by making a commitment to waste nothing; and communal manual labor, such that through a rotation of chores everyone contributes to the upkeep of the temple. The image of dedicated monks sweeping the wood floors of the hallways by rushing along on their hands in a semi-prostrate position is inspiring. Furthermore, the monastic system's use of human and material resources, including natural space, is limited and spare in terms of temple layout, the handling of administrative duties and chores, and the use of stock items. The sparse, spartan, vegetarian Zen cook, who prepares just enough rice gruel for his fellow monks but not a grain too much or too little, demonstrates an inherent—if not necessarily deliberate—conservationist approach. The minimalist aesthetic of rock gardens highlights the less-is-more Zen outlook that influenced the "Buddhist economics" evoked by E. F. Schumacher in Small Is Beautiful.

Reformers can learn from monks, who spend countless hours cooking or cleaning the grounds or raking the garden, and can view each and every task, no matter how menial or seemingly trivial, not simply as a means to an end, which is frustrating if the final goal seems remote or unattainable. Rather, the tasks are seen as ends in themselves to be celebrated as eminently worthwhile, which paradoxically enhances their possible benefit for the future.

The moment you find yourself asking “Why do I have to tidy the garden every morning?” is the moment your training becomes meaningless.

jubilance of Philadelphia Eagles fans.) A great themeless doesn’t necessarily rely on weird central words. Lack of ostentation can be equally impressive. In On Crosswords, T. Campbell classified smooth themelesses as “puddings”: perfectly crafted fill with no awkward crosswordy quirks, the Japanese Zen gardens of the crossword biodome.

There is no old age like anxiety,” said one of the monks I met in India. “And there is no freedom from old age like the freedom from anxiety.” In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding that they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place. Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wars, but that’s not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life’s achievement. You don’t necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair. Without seeing Sicily one cannot get a clear idea of what Italy is. “No town can live peacefully, whatever its laws,” Plato wrote, “when its citizens…do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love.” In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real. The idea that the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one’s humanity. You should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. They break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life. The Zen masters always say that you cannot see your reflection in running water, only in still water. Your treasure—your perfection—is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. Balinese families are always allowed to eat their own donations to the gods, since the offering is more metaphysical than literal. The way the Balinese see it, God takes what belongs to God—the gesture—while man takes what belongs to man—the food itself.) To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver. Practice tonight at hotel. Not to hurry, not to try too hard. Too serious, you make you sick. You can calling the good energy with a smile. The word paradise, by the way, which comes to us from the Persian, means literally “a walled garden.” The four virtues a person needs in order to be safe and happy in life: intelligence, friendship, strength and (I love this one) poetry. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. Once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.

With the development of Zen, mysticism has ceased to be mystical; it is no more the spasmodic product of an abnormally endowed mind. For Zen reveals itself in the most uninteresting and uneventful life of a plain man of the street, recognizing the fact of living in the midst of life as it is lived. Zen systematically trains the mind to see this; it opens a man's eye to the greatest mystery as it is daily and hourly performed; it enlarges the heart to embrace eternity of time and infinity of space in its every palpitation; it makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden; and all these spiritual feats are accomplished without resorting to any doctrines but by simply asserting in the most direct way the truth that lies in our inner being.

Garden of the Dragons (The ’Halla, Vol. # 3) Chapter Ten Excerpt (original editing) ... Hachiman, surveys he the woe, Wipes his brow, hate does flow. A ruined life, heh, a loss of face, He must have her now, to his disgrace (Wed to Kari now, locked in time and place). Battle over, moon still shines, Lilies float soft in quiet time. Scented visions and memories sear remains, Of this terrible night of what was feigned. Visuals lithe, of sword and blade, Disguise the carnage and the pain. Petals soft, they hide our gaze, And cover the ground and its grave. Flowers and moon in water light, T'winkills the calm of a zen-burst night. Now to life, the poem to seek repose, And bury beneath those riddles she holds. Nectars sweet, precious flowers, A fragranted grave that allures and empowers. Heart~beat, heart~beat, tells the way, Of things long remembered and a far lost day. How many memories, Kari knew, That stain with age, being so few. Samurai remembers - feels it as a man, Clutches he his fist; wind in hand. . . . ". . .I have searched for you a very long time." "Do not waste breath, kill. It is our way here." "Not before I have my say, Corpse-eater." "No wonder you took so long to find me." "I have had a lot of time for thought," quietly he, "- T'is a shame we could not agree." "No more room for that," forcefully he snapped, "You dishonored me twice and now, I will take one back." "- Not enough? Hachi," said cordially she, "If you are going to - cut the artery, please." Tilt she her neck, exposed but her vein, Samurai frowned, decidedly vain. Looked he at his hands - "They're already too bloody for today." "Hummph. Such trite man'ers are atrocious. For yourself you are much too engaged." ("Yet, a moment and it is done," thought he, "But to gain it thus, a hollow travesty. I must face her in all her strength, The bladed Valkyrie, the one called great"). "I could kill you now, but I'd rather not, This room is too unbecoming for the proper job." "Charmed that you still think so highly of me." "- Only then of your haunted beauty, I shall be free." Feeling that weight, slowly dropped he his blade, Time enough - rituals to cleanse and to pray. Tossed his sword, pined her down - Smooshed her face to the floor, Pinching it to a frown. "Oh no, my little angel, you have it all wrong! I mean only to kill you when you are strong. Do not fear, I won't let anyone harm you in strife, In the meantime, try not to flirt with your life. Stay healthy - then we shall settle our love, unrequite." A biting grin creased Samurai's scarved face, "Let us fix it properly, according to my r'ace." "Bushido," mouthed Kari, her voice empty as the word. "And there will be no running away this time - Rest assured." Slowly withdrew he and left the room, "Bastard," spit Kari, caustic of his doom. The girl breathing vexiously, then calmly in the dark, The door closed, silent, the light dribbling out. Sounds below, drip mute in time, Reality presses, she makes her fate thind. And Skuld drinking, contemplates she her sibylline, It was her hour now, the night of the wolverine.

There is no greater work of minimalist art than the dry garden in the Zen Buddhist temple of Ryōan-ji, Kyoto. This comprises fifteen rocks of various sizes set in a sea of white, raked gravel; almost nothing, but you could look at it for hours. It was made about 500 years before the modernist architect Mies van der Rohe remarked that less is more.

After today's cavalcade of meth heads, being with Anna feels like entering a Zen rock garden.

Try getting in touch with nature yourself. If you notice a stone lying on the ground, pick it up and hold it. When you see flowers blooming by the side of the road, stop and smell their fragrance. Then, inside your mind, create a miniature garden of your very own. It will relax you.

A garden has to be disciplined so that the plans and flowers do not strangle each other, but the beauty of the garden is not in the discipline so much as the things whose growth it has made possible.