Photos of the Rock Garden in the Ryoanji Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan

The garden covers an area of about 30 by 10 meters which is filled with sand, carefully raked every day. According to one interpretation, the sand represents the sea (world). Groups of rocks, representing islands or continents, are scattered in the sand. Along the whole length of the longer side of the Rock Garden are a few wooden steps leading onto a not too wide platform on the side of the main temple building. People are supposed to sit on this platform or on the steps below, observe the Rock Garden and meditate about the world until struck by some sort of inner enlightenment and understanding. I saw there mainly numerous Japanese school kids on their school trips and quite a few western tourists, neither of whom meditated there for too long.

Under the pictures are the URL's of the pages where I found them:

www.ai.mit.edu/people/ftchong/japan.html

 

Another nice one
www.orientalarchitecture.com/kyoto/RYOANJI.htm

 

And one more here. Also nice, but may take
some time to load as it has 366kB!
www.kiis.or.jp/rekishi/kyoto/img0073-e.html


www.pref.kyoto.jp/intro/trad/
isan/ryoan_e.html


news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/09/ 0925_020925_zengarden.html