It is indeed a rock garden. The Ryoan-ji temple. I don't know if you can call this a shelf but there is indeed a spot were one can sit and watch, and meditate. The signification of these 15 stones is not clearly stated. Some say it is islands, other mountains, it s not an absolute for this temple has been destroyed and remade in the 16th century as far i as remember. I may have drifted from the original explanation but it struck me so hard that day, i don't know how to describe it, the weather was heavy and warm at the same time, the ambience in that garden leading to the temple was so odd, because it feels like you re in nature, but in the meantime everything is so controlled, human driven, that it generated a dreamlike, sort of out of this world frame. Now i believe i lived there what we call in french a "hapax" in philosophy, a deciding moment, which occurs only once in a lifetime. It may sound ridiculous but i felt at peace, able to think, like never before there. It was not a long moment (surely because i can't think for too long xD) but i want to see that gardens again. In May, i fly back to Kyoto, i ll return there.
The that was the garden I was thinking of. My Japanese host told me that if you meditate upon the garden and asked it any question, it will answer. Well, actually the 'garden itself' does not answer, but there is something calming about the place and it allowed my heart to speak its truth to my conscious mind. I knew what I must do.
And then it took me another 15 years before I finally did it. :(
In a fact this gardens raised more questions than it solved, but strangely it was providing a sort of frame in which reflexions were possible. Despite the richess of the vegetation around, the exquisite, refined work on the woods of the temple laid this bare raked stone garden like a blank page, a serenity i had never experienced before, and had never since.
I may have drifted from the original explanation but it struck me so hard that day, i don't know how to describe it, the weather was heavy and warm at the same time, the ambience in that garden leading to the temple was so odd, because it feels like you re in nature, but in the meantime everything is so controlled, human driven, that it generated a dreamlike, sort of out of this world frame.
Now i believe i lived there what we call in french a "hapax" in philosophy, a deciding moment, which occurs only once in a lifetime. It may sound ridiculous but i felt at peace, able to think, like never before there. It was not a long moment (surely because i can't think for too long xD) but i want to see that gardens again. In May, i fly back to Kyoto, i ll return there.
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And then it took me another 15 years before I finally did it. :(
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