🪨THE RIDDLE OF RYŌAN-JI'S GARDEN🤔
Ryōan-ji's (竜安寺) dry landscape garden (枯山水 'karesansui') is by far the most famous zen garden in the world.
It is a 'koan' (公案 a zen riddle without a solution, intended to focus & open the mind) written in gravel, rocks and moss.
#Japan #Kyoto #京都 #Ryoanji #龍安寺 #公案 #zen #善 #枯山水 #karesansui
The 'karesansui' garden is a 248 square metre rectangle of carefully raked gravel and 15 rocks.
Some of the rocks sit on small islands of moss, the only greenery to be seen.
The rocks are gathered into 5 groupings (5 / 3 / 3 / 2 / 2)🪨
Forced perspective is cleverly used to give the garden depth and make it appear larger.
25m east-west and 10m north-south, the space is actually not level. The S.E. corner is 70cm lower than the highest point, the garden gently sloping down from the N.W. (this helps with drainage).
Other tricks are used to bring depth...
🔎the west wall is constructed 7 inches higher nearer the hōjō (方丈) to give the impression of distance
🔎the 2 rocks at the rear of the garden are shallower
🔎even colour is manipulated (closer rocks are reddish, farther rocks blueish)
Ryōan-ji is actually our neighbour, just across the road from Garden Teahouse.
Why not come and have tea in-between all that temple hopping...
Nao-san's 'how to find us' videos👣
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https://x.com/camelliakyoto/status/1515877168316043264
Online reservation🙇♂️⬇️
https://tea-kyoto.com/garden-general-information
#Ryōanji #竜安寺 #Kyoto #CamelliaTeaCeremony #teaceremony #GardenTeahouse #茶道 #matcha #抹茶
🤔🗺️HOW TO FIND US👣🍵 We've put together some short videos to help you find your way to our teahouses (and other nearby sites) when you come to visit. First of all Nao-san guides you to, from, and around Camellia Garden Teahouse. 1) Closest bus stop to the teahouse 🚏➡️🍵
Thought to have been landscaped in the late 15thC, it is unclear who designed the garden.
The bigger mystery, however, is what the garden symbolises. If, that is, it symbolises anything at all. Quite possibly it was always intended to be an unsolvable riddle🤯
Interestingly the garden may have had many different incarnations. We know the garden was altered following a massive fire in 1797.
The historian Kurokawa Dōyū in 1681 mentions only 9 rocks, perhaps hinting that the garden was constantly.
Camellia Tea Ceremony
redundantbloke