About a year ago, our friend Melisa decided that she wanted to put in a zen garden in the front of her house in a spot defined by the alcove created by her home’s architectural design as determined by a large boulder that sits imbedded in the earth in that alcove. These giant granite boulders that are strewn all over these hillsides in this part of the state are sometimes of defined size and shape and sometimes are more like icebergs in the way they peak up through the surface but give no indication of just how big they may be beneath the surface of the land. You see, the granite of these boulders has a density of 165-170 pounds/cubit foot, which means that a 10-ton boulder would only be 6-8 feet across at the widest. On these hillsides, that’s a medium boulder at best. Melisa’s boulder is about 12 feet wide at ground level. The shape of the boulder is such that she estimates that what is above the surface is only 30% of the boulder, likely meaning that her boulder weighs in at a considerable amount. In other words, if that’s right and the diameter of the boulder is truly about 40 feet across, then that boulder could weigh as much as 1,000 tons. That makes the technical feasibility of removing it barely possible and would involve industrial-level equipment, breaking and fragmenting, controlled blasting and generally, quarry-scale equipment. It would also cost between $500,000 and $2 million, so as much as putting up a nice house altogether (even assuming you could get the regulatory permits to do the required blasting). In other words, yes, you might be able to remove it, but most likely, such a boulder would simply be incorporated into the landscape design or building foundations instead of being eliminated. That’s exactly what Melisa and Mike did. We love our boulders up here and now Melisa is set to incorporate her monster boulder into her landscape plan as a part of a lovely zen garden as she wants to envision it.
As best I can tell, her plan is less on paper and more in her head. She has at least three pots with nice plantings including a large Japanese red maple, which was a gift last year from Faraj and Yasuko (I have one from them out in my own patio zen garden). Along the way, she has also acquired a low stone Japanese lantern. For months now she has been describing a small wooden bridge that she wants to place over a trenched, rock-lined faux stream bed that will run from the driveway down to the big iceberg boulder. Melisa has a garage full of serious power tools and an even more serious craftsman for a brother (Len). She very carefully and deliberately purchased just the right kind of cherry wood and built from scratch a convex bridge about six or seven feet long and about three feet wide, which she has now stained a cherry red and coated in polyurethane. It is not intended for crossing, but rather for admiring as part of her zen garden, as though it crosses over the stream bed. She has finished that bridge and has it laying out more or less where it will eventually live, checking on its visual dimensions. Once she digs out her trench (presumably being wary of any bothersome buried pipes, electrical or irrigation lines in the way), she will get our neighbor Jon to come over with his backhoe and move a bunch of small and craggy granite boulders from her lower property, where they are plentiful, and deposit them near the trench.
Melisa is keen to bring in a bigger than otherwise practical boulder to set against the iceberg boulder and its small nearby cousin, thereby staying Feng shui. In Feng shui there is a positive significance of the number three. It’s about three things (naturally). There is growth and expansion, representing upward movement and progress, symbolizing creativity and self-expression and associated with new beginnings and fresh starts. There is family and relationships, connecting to family harmony and social connections, representing the trinity of relationships (past, present, future) and encouraging communication and cooperation. And, finally, there is the wood element (like the bridge) where three is specifically associated with the wood element in Feng shui to promote growth, flexibility, and vitality as well as support health and personal development. That’s a lot of good reasons to have Jon bring in a good third boulder.
All of these wood and stone elements, with their reminder of water (the stream bed) and the important element of wind (Feng shui literally means wind-water flow) to create a representation of the cosmic current of the universe. They will be set on a bed of pea gravel that will most likely be raked. Rake marks in zen gardens (karesansui) carry deep symbolic meaning and serve multiple purposes. They often represent water, flowing river or stream water through curved lines, ocean waves from repetitive patterns, ripples from concentric circles around rocks, and parallel lines for the tides. They can also represent wind across dunes or fields, cloud formations in the sky, mountain ranges in the distance or furrowed and plowed fields. They serve to focus the mind through repetitive, rhythmic patterns, encourage contemplation of impermanence and flow, create visual pathways for the eye to follow and perhaps even represent the journey of life with its various directions. Zen is about simplicity, mindfulness, harmony and impermanence. Raking is intended to be a form of meditation unto itself and is said to maintain order while accepting constant change. The rake marks transform simple pea gravel into a living canvas that represents the constant flow and change inherent in nature and life itself. I suspect that Melisa, who goes for yoga several times a week, is aiming for all of this with her zen garden. She is showing quintessential patience in doing it all very deliberately and without any sense of urgency, which is certainly a very zen-like way of operating.
As I have hinted at along the way, I too have a liking of zen elements. I have a convex bridge that I placed over an existing dry stream bed down on my lower front garden. I bought a pre-made eight-foot wooden bridge that fit the spot perfectly and I use it to walk across that stream bed every day. I left mine totally natural and functional rather than aesthetic and perfect like Melisa’s. I have bonsai trees and bonsai is very zen. Bonsai started in Buddhist monasteries and are prominent in many zen gardens. Almost all the spiritual and meditative aspects of zen are involved in true bonsai cultivation. I probably have 30 bonsai, which may breach some zen standard of excess, but they are spread around my garden with about half of them in my actual zen garden, where I have several Japanese lanterns and lots of raked pebbles depicting all the water and wind you can imagine. I also have a river rock stone waterfall/spillway (part of my hot tub area set amongst three massive boulders) to create a lovely babbling brook sound and introduce real water into the program. I truly do not know how Feng shui any of this is since, unlike Melisa, I am an impatient soul who needs to make a finish once I start a project. I guess I’m the Wall Street version of zen that doesn’t know how to do anything expect fast. Slow and deliberate do not compute for me.
I like the look of all of my zen gardens and elements across my gardens, but I would never argue that my way is the zen way of building a zen garden. Melisa, on the other hand, would make any Buddhist monk feel good that she was following the true path as Zen Buddhism intends. Zen in Sanskrit is “Dhyana”, which means meditation, contemplation and reflection. In Chinese, Zen is “Chan” but pronounced like “dhyana” and means the same plus the concept of absorption. When the Japanese adopted Zen, they pronounced it as we say it, “Zen”, and it has exactly the same meditative meaning. So, going fast or going slow, I will declare that zen must be cross-cultural enough to handle all the variations Melisa and I can throw at it.