I have just returned from a visit to Japanese temples and gardens and was fascinated by their spiritual aspects. This is a topic that is not often discussed. These Zen temple gardens are not the stuff of your mother’s ornamental garden club. They are living monuments that speak to us through darkness and despair—through war, famine, death, and destruction. They are modern and yet deeply meet today’s needs. They offer an answer that is both ancient and enduring. One historian called them “the essence of Zen.”
There was a garden, Ryoan-ji, that spoke to me in its silence and stillness, almost like a wise Zen master. wisdom. Last night, after a 20-hour journey home, I couldn’t stop reading the newly leaked Artemis 2 findings. The findings of this lunar voyage resonated with the profound wisdom of these garden temples. Let me explain.
Before I left for Japan, I was worried about a patient who had a sudden episode of depression that neither of us had seen on the horizon. We think we can see our lives and can avoid disaster and despair, but in reality we cannot prevent our lives from falling apart. We cannot control the behavior of others. There are always things in our lives and family history that we don’t want to see. injuries that we think we can ignore until we can’t. Despite our protests, they turn into what my teacher called a perfect storm. As I sat in front of this garden and thought about my patient, I realized that these gardens are meant for us to see and wake up. They are, in fact, “gardens of awakening”.
Ryoan-ji was built in 1450. It was destroyed by fire three times. We don’t know who designed it. It is called “anti-garden”. It is completely simple and elemental: space, rocks, water and sky. It knows the secrets of survival, which is probably why it is one of the most beloved gardens.
To me, it embodied the secret of the Zen koan, which allows us to break away from our habitual ways of seeing. Interestingly, it is made of 15 stones, but you cannot see them all at once. There is no vantage point from which you can see them all. What a perfect metaphor! And what a powerful encounter with Artemis 2, the lunar mission that made us rethink what we knew about space. What we thought was the “dark side” of the moon becomes “unseen” or “unknown” that the path of trauma may go unnoticed. In fact, this side of the Moon receives as much light as we normally see it.
Musician and artist John Cage visited this garden temple in 1962 and spent the next three decades painting and composing music related to it, even arranging the stones in his paintings and imagination to see what comes up.
Because of the mystery and richness of this place, I had to come back again. After a few days, it was another garden. The first visit was all sunshine, but the second visit was rain and clouds, the rocks covered in cherry blossoms blown from the flowering trees. Cherries are very much loved in Japan – their beauty is extremely unusual and also a symbol of the imperfection of life. It’s not just that we can’t see everything and we can’t prevent our lives from being ruined. It is also the fact that nothing lasts and everything passes. Unbelievable beauty and then a gust of wind blows it away.
Before you exit this park, you will pass a square water fountain with an inscription that can be read sideways and downwards. I had to laugh. This is an old and toy version of Sudoku. These words translate as “be content with what you have.”
When I try to understand the clinical implications before I see my patient and hope to offer him new insight, I turn to the wisdom of Mark Epstein, an extraordinary psychologist deeply influenced by Buddhism. His latest book, Zen from Therapy, made me steady in my work. At the end of this book, he writes eloquently about surviving the worst, surviving yourself, building tolerance for yourself, and making room for others.
When we try to offer ourselves compassion for what we have not seen or understood, we learn to survive great difficulties and bring them into our lives. He concludes, “We cannot erase our histories no matter how hard we try, but in learning to face them with kindness … we enter a stream that flows gently … toward inner peace.”
To close, Zen monks still have a lot to offer clinicians. I take their wisdom seriously.
A monk asked: “What is the saying of the ancients?”
The master said: “Listen carefully! Listen carefully!”
