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Current mood:  bouncy Category: Religion and Philosophy
In a Japanese Garden Lately and recently, though not at the moment, I have been spending a lot of time in a Japanese garden. Not in Japan but in a traditional Japanese garden nowhere near the Orient or a reasonably priced sushi bar. It doesn’t seem to matter because the elements of a Japanese garden are magical, even if one is not on sacred ground, like historic gardens in Kyoto.
I learned the soul-nurturing values of a Japanese garden at the Kenroku-en in Kanazawa, where the rich design of the Tokugawa daimyo rules. A Zen-Buddhist monk with no vowels in his name told me, “Settle your soul in any Japanese garden except those that allow you to bring deadly weapons.” (That week there had been a garden in Wichita that did not frisk customers, resulting in a rash of stabbings and one case of rabies.)
Nothing relieves stress like sitting by a pond with three small islands, two adjoined to a shore with stone bridges by a pebble beach. The trick is to sit, not to walk on the beach barefoot or with a bag of rice cakes under each armpit.
Always, water is a part of the great serenity of a Japanese Garden. Without it, one loses a sense of soul, as well as one becomes thirsty. The source of water sometimes includes a cascade, sometimes shaped like a waterfall.
Replicas of Japanese landscapes are essential, too. I personally enjoy hillsides shaped to the scale of those in Yamato. (You say Yamato and I say Yamayto [sic].)
Let me not forget the tea houses. In these small, wooden cha-shitsus, one leaves all the world’s chaos behind (even the chaos that creates order). To spread upon a tatami floor is to be one with the universe, or three-quarters at the very least. With no other stimuli one can feel like a feudal lord, a Samurai warrior or an androgynous anime figure, which, let’s face it, has the most fun of the three at an anime orgy.
Having been hurled through deeply disturbing life experiences in the first fifty-eight years of my life, my visits to Japanese gardens have been medicinal, lowering my blood sugar, bad-cholesterol level and any need for Viagra.
5:59 PM
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