Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Final Romps in Kyoto

Well my last few days in Kyoto were coming to an end, so I wanted to be sure to get to the must-see destinations. On the top of the list were Katsura Rikyu, an old Imperial villa in Southwest Kyoto, and the Daitoku-ji temple complex.

Katsura Rikyu is famous for its display of "purely" Japanese architectural form, along with its beautiful garden. The Japanese brochures typically hail the Villa as exhibiting Japanese design techniques with no outside influence. This is almost definitely untrue, at least as far as history is concerned, but whatever. The Japanese tend to cast a somewhat blind or perhaps myopic eye on the true history of their culture (examples being religion and aesthetics). So says the American. Anyway, so beautiful architecture and gardens.



Another day I took the time to visit the Daitoku-Ji temple complex, which houses a decent number of gardens and temples. Each with their own separate 5 bone entry fee! As such, I visited only one temple, but a solid one, the Daisen-In, a karesansui style, or dry rock landscape garden. Photos were not allowed. At first I was disappointed by this, but soon appreciated the fact that I could focus much better on the scenery around me instead of the composition in the lens. The signs in the garden told that the rock landscape has divulged infinite wisdoms for centuries. I considered this. I did find one wisdom. Some introduction to the wisdom.

In Buddhism the concept of time is brought up continuously. From many books I've read, my understanding is that Buddhists do not believe that time exists in the normal understanding of the word. They believe that only the moment, this moment, exists. It is constantly changing. There is no past, and there is no future- these are only constructions of the mind, psychological tools used to calibrate ourselves in an everpresent state of change. I think I get this, and it seems sensible enough to me (I'm no rocket scientist. Any kudos, future physicist friends?).

Well In Zen Buddhism, the goal of meditation is to empty the mind of thought so that you may experience this ever-changing moment for what it really is, whatever that may be, devoid of human time. To become an empty vessel, a "pregnant void" as Zen's Taoist ancestral roots would put it. Zen dry landscape gardens are one vehicle with which to focus/release the mind (which is it?) to this empty state. Typically these gardens depict water of some sort- that's what all those raked pebbles are, flowing water. This "water" then interacts with various other rocks. Examples would be waterfalls or ripples around giant, partially buried boulders. Anyway, so the wisdom I got was that this rock garden is supposed to be representing a frozen moment, one instant in the "river of constant change" that is existence, reality, THE IT, whatever you call all of this. All of the pebbles representing water drops stopped in time. Taking this further, you realize that the paused moment the garden represents is itself the ever-changing moment, THE IT. At the very least the rocks' atoms are a shakin' and a dancin'. Pretty neat, I think!

There were a few other realizations that I will reserve for personal discussion, for sake of laziness. I will end with a quote that I read on my way out of Daisen-In (there was no punctuation).

"Each day is training Training for myself through failure is possible Living each moment equal to anything Ready for everything I am alive- I am this moment My future is here and now, for if I cannot endure today when and where will I?"

-Souen Ozeki

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The Japanese invented "Go" right? Shit, it could have been the Chinese. Dammit, wikipedia tells me it's Chinese. Son of a bitch.

Anonymous said...

Thus... Enlightenment...

--Meetch Dawg