Attending

To many Western eyes, a garden of rocks and gravel will immediately trigger

associations with Japan and Buddhism (Fig. 1.1). It might even be described

as a “Zen garden,” and seen as a vehicle to stimulate contemplation: the

conscious or unconscious considering of the world at a level far deeper than

the normal. These associations are but half truths, however. There really is

no singular “Zen garden,” nor single form for a landscape intended to provoke

contemplation: indeed, to assert that one type of garden serves best for con-

templation is somewhat of an anathema to Zen Buddhism. The philosopher

and religious scholar Daisetz Suzuki once cited these lines as an essential

summation of Zen belief:

No dependence on letters or words,

Pointing directly at the Mind in every one of us,

And seeing into one’s Nature, whereby one attains Buddhahood.1