Ryoanji, One of Japan's Zen temples, has a karesansui (dry landscape garden). Fifteen rocks of different shapes and sizes are positioned across a flat sea of raked gravel. No single vantage point reveals all fifteen stones. Many have attempted to decipher the meaning of its composition. Is it a tiger fording a stream with her cubs? Or is it a vehicle for convening the unknowable quality of the universe? It's spellbinding in its incomprehensibility. Since the designer died in 1515, there is no one left to ask.
Behind the temple building adjacent to the garden sits a stone water basin, a tsukubai, used for rinsing hands and mouth in a symbolic ritual of purification. The top of the basin is carved in the shape of a Chinese coin, with a square shape in the center.
Aligned with the four sides of the square are four Chinese characters, which together form this ultimate Zen inscription.
Ware tada taru koto shiru - I only know contentment.
Find contentment.
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