Manual Gradini Japoneze - Introduce Re

8/8/2019 Manual Gradini Japoneze - Introduce Re

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Building my Zen garden.

Kieran Egan

Introduction

I visited Japan for the first time last summer, and stayed

with a friend whose partner had converted the small balcony

of their apartment into a miniature Japanese garden. It was a

miracle of design and made what might otherwise have

been a dull few square meters into a treat for the eye andspirit. The small garden was augmented gradually by stones

"liberated" from sites around Nagoya or further afield. This

meant that a drive might at any moment be halted as

Tanya's eagle eye spotted an appropriately shaped stone by

he side of a field or in a back alley or in some moreprecarious spot. The car would lurch to a halt, and Mike and

Tanya would look around with that exaggerated casualness

I last saw in 1950s British movies as the only-too-obvious

villain prepared to grab the unsuspecting dowager's

diamonds. Mike would climb out, examine the sky for a few

moments while edging closer to the stone, and then a swift

ung and grunt would have it into the back of the car. Later,


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n the apartment, the stones would be cleaned and carefully

set to enhance the accumulating beauty of the balcony-

garden. They were also coated with yogurt, which

encourages bacterial growth and so the appearance of

mmemorial years of serene repose on the seventh floorbalcony of the modern high-rise.

On returning home, I thought I could try to make our back

deck, or the upstairs balcony, a copy of Tanya's

ransformation. But our wide North American decks don'tseem well suited to that particular form of beautification.

Looking at the wreck of the rear of our garden a while later,

I thought I could try to make a Japanese garden there. It was

a wreck because the fence at the back was one of those old

green plastic mesh affairs and it backed onto the one

neglected corner of our adjoining neighbor's otherwise well-

ended garden. Their shrubs had spotted my reluctance for

confrontation, and invaded with manic enthusiasm, carrying

he mesh fence with them as a kind of shield or cunning

disguise of just how much ground they were expanding

nto. The area is also surrounded by trees, with too littlesunlight for a successful lawn. It had become, over the

years, a neglected strip behind one of those lumberyard

playhouses I had bought and constructed-by-numbers when

he children were little.

So I had my spot. I would make a Japanese garden along the

back strip between the fence of our neighbors to the north,


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and the compost containers I had built a few years ago to

he south, and the playhouse to the west, and the green mesh

fence to the east. This gave me a space of about 40 feet

along the back of the garden, by about 15 feet. I suspected

my wife would be reluctant to authorize furtherencroachment into the real garden.

The trouble with taking on any large task is that there seem

o be so many things one has to do before one can do what

one wants, and then things to do before one can do thehings before the things one wants. The other trouble with

his project was that what I had initially imagined as a small

strip with some stones, perhaps a raised area with plants and

a decorative Japanese lantern, gradually grew. The plan

soon included a pond, with a small stream and waterfall,

and a tea-house/scholar's study with a veranda over the

pond.

When I say the plan, I don't mean that I first sat down and

carefully drew up a plan. I know that is what one is

supposed to do. As the project was underway, guests mightask (politely, indulgently, resignedly, even one or two

nterestedly, I think) to see the work-in-progress, and many,

unenchanted by the mounds of earth and gravel and the

untidy hole that was to be the pond, asked if they might see

he plan. At first I was a bit discomforted by such requests. Ifelt guilty that I couldn't unroll sharp lined blueprints,

showing various elevations and "artists' impressions" of the


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completed landscape. My plan was just that I imagined the

raised garden at one end--raised to create a run for a pump-

driven stream--and the pond in the middle, where the stream

might fall, and the tea-house at the other side. That was the

plan, and I basically made each element up as I went along.That makes it seem very casual, but I didn't know enough

about what might be involved in the construction of each

part to be able to make much of a plan. If I had, of course, I

would never have begun. I just wanted to make a beautiful

place, such as Tanya had, with the added attraction that Iwould be able to sit peacefully in it.

That is, I set out in a rather indirect and rambling Irish way

o make a paradise. It seems the ancient Persian rulers built,

as an essential part of their palaces, a walled garden. The

pairidaeza was an area within which one might create

something, and pairi is also the source of our word 'dairy'.

The Greek version of the word was used in the Bible for the

Garden of Eden. The connection between gardens and

paradise, then, is of long standing in human languages and

maginations. It is our ideal cooperation with nature. Wecreate forms within which nature does its thing to our

mutual satisfaction. It would be tacky to call this the garden

of Egan.

The first task--instead of beginning on the garden, orbuilding the fence I decided I should put up to protect it

from the invading shrubs--was to take down the old


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playhouse. It was beginning to show its age--about 15 years

or so--and likely wouldn't be altogether safe by the time

grandchildren would be ready to use it. At this point I

hought I should try to record the process in pictures, as no

doubt your average Persian emperor would have done, hadhe had a Minolta. So here's the original site, with bits of the

playhouse coming down:

And here it is looking from the other direction:

My aim is to describe the process I went through in

building, from a weedy and more or less waste 40' by 15'

chunk of garden, an attractive place that has the qualities

raditionally sought by Japanese gardeners--beauty,

ranquility, and harmony. While I will describe just the one

construction in a particular place, I will try in doing so to
http://www.educ.sfu.ca/kegan/Site2big.jpeghttp://www.educ.sfu.ca/kegan/site1big.jpeg


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discuss the principles I have learned and consider also the

choices I did not make. That is, I will try to make it a useful

general guide to constructing a small garden using, more or

ess, Japanese principles. There will be compromises with

Western notions here and there, in part as matters of choice,n part due to the materials or plants that are available or

hat I could afford.

But the Japanese garden itself seems to have been a kind of

compromise. During the T'ang dynasty (c. 600 - 900 CE) afashion developed among some Chinese poets and painters

o withdraw from the city to a rural retreat. There they

would live in isolation, preferably in the mountains, near

running water, working on their art. Mind you, "isolation"

for these wealthy men might include a retinue of twenty

servants and an adequate number of concubines. One may

see paintings of their "huts" in the mountains in which they

sit contemplating nature, while servants bustle around

aking care of everything that might distract the artist. The

rural concealment, ironically, often stimulated interest in the

artist's work and brought fame and exposure to largeaudiences.

In the later T'ang period and into the Sung dynasty (c. 900-

1300) the first compromise involved those who wanted the

sublime environment as an aid to contemplation and astimulant to painting or poetry, but who did not fancy the

dea of heading for a hut in the hills. They began to replicate


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he wild environments of stones and water, of evergreen

rees and grasses in their city estates. This construction of

stylized wilderness gardens in town then became a fashion

among wealthy civil servants.

The further compromise involved the Japanese importing

his fashion in artificial wilderness gardening, to which they

added the element of the tea ceremony and the tea-house.

The tea-house is a replication of the Chinese artists' "huts"

of centuries before, and the tea ceremony is a ritualizedrecreation of the contemplative condition the mountain

fastness was supposed to induce. So my desire to build

something closer to a study than a traditional tea-house

simply harkens back to an older tradition.

I will try also to describe something of the spiritual idealshat inspire the design and building of Japanese gardens.

Along with the style of garden and their semi-religious

purpose in creating a sense of "harmony, respect, purity,

and tranquility" (wa, kei, sei, and jaku), the Japanese also

nherited from the Chinese a penumbra of Zen and Taoistdeas and stories related to the elements of the garden. I will

also draw on these where appropriate, among the details of

bolting two by eights to four by fours, mixing concrete,

hacking roots, and the mechanics of heaving stones around.

Perhaps I can begin here with Chuang Tsu one day walkingby a pond with a friend:


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"How delightfully the fish are enjoying themselves in the

water," exclaimed Chaungtse.

"You are not a fish," said his friend. "How can you know

hey are enjoying themselves!"

"You are not me," replied Chuangtse. "How can you know

hat I do not know that the fish are enjoying themselves?"

My planning has been largely a matter of looking through

books; mostly from the library, a few bought, onesplendidly illustrated Japanese book (in English) a present

from the friend whose partner began all this. The books are

nvaluable for getting ideas and seeing possibilities, of

course, but can be a bit intimidating. The American books

ypically illustrate how to dig out a pond or build a retainingwall using manicured soil off which you would willingly eat

breakfast, and with "workers" dressed in flawless white

rousers and unscuffed tan shoes. The first Japanese book I

read (in translation) began with the master-gardener

discussing clothing. His first advice was not to work in old

clothes. Rather, one should have a special gardening outfit,

or, I suppose, two for when the first is in the wash. I began

o feel I was already involved in uncivilized Western

compromises. The old jeans and shirts it was going to be.

What stimulated this mega-project--apart from the aestheticpleasure created by Tanya's example and looking for an


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activity that will give me physical exercise, keep me off the

streets, and provide a break from a job that requires sitting

at a desk for much of each day--is the image of being in the

ea-house/study looking across at the tranquil garden and

down at the pond, with the silky sound of the black bamboomoving in the breeze. And the slightly mad dream that in

his environment of water, stones, and green plants I will be

able to capture the winged words that elude me in the more

utilitarian environments in which I currently write. An

ronic conclusion will no doubt see me sitting in thismanufactured paradise, unable to write another lousy word--

as Dylan Thomas put it--either bemused by the sensuous

beauty and calm of the place, or too exhausted and broken-

bodied by the building process itself. But, if I can't write my

own winged words, I will have created a pleasant place toread other people's.

And what will I write in this perfected repose? If I knew

hat I wouldn't be out there digging and nailing and fiddling

with pumps and heaving stones around. I have been writing

academic books for years, and would like a change, writingsomething in which the imagination can have freer play.

But, we'll see. I'll think about it as I heave the stones.

Perhaps some lapidary poems.

In the tea house/study I can sit at the end of it all and readZen sages, and no doubt slowly learn from them how I

would better have embodied their wisdom by not beginning


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his frantic Western plan to shape the world to some

seductive image taken from books. Instead I should have

cultivated wan wei&emdash;the acceptance of the world as

t is. The message of the sages is that I shouldn't have done

all this in the first place. But I will have to manage the ironyhat had I not done it, I would never have learned that I

shouldn't have done it.

And what is an Irishman doing building a Zen garden on the

west coast of Canada anyway? It began, as I said, as asimple aesthetic response to my friend's partner's balcony

garden. I set about it somewhat whimsically, which is an

appropriately Irish way of edging half unconsciously into

work. And it became, in a peculiar journey of discovery on

which I hope you will join me, a slow gathering of

understanding about the principles that give form and

meaning to distinctively Japanese gardens and to a Zen

stance in the world. Why a Zen garden, rather than, say, an

English garden? I have no idea, though an uninformed,

romantic image of black bamboo gracefully bowing in the

rain played a part.

Another impulse leading into this unexpected enterprise was

perhaps distant memories of my grandfather gardening in

Ireland. I lived in upstate New York for a few years, renting

a house with a derelict vegetable garden attached. Iremember going out in the spring with a spade, thinking that

I would prepare the ground for seeds. I stood with my foot


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on the spade, and realized I didn't even know how to dig.

Did I put the soil I pulled up on top of the earth ahead, or

urn it over into the hole? Slowly I worked it out, and after

an hour or so found that I had precisely replicated the raised

vegetable beds my grandfather used to build. They weredeal for the wet Irish climate, but perhaps not so well

suited to upstate New York. I have continued putting in a

simple vegetable garden each year, and have since realized

hat what I most enjoyed was making beautifully raked and

symmetrical raised beds. In fact, I get rather boredhereafter with the business of putting seeds in and weeding,

hough I do enjoy eating the product, if it is not taken over

by weeds by the time it's ready for harvesting. So, I don't

bring a history of dedicated gardening to this task of

building my Zen garden, but do seem to bring an oldmpulse to move earth around.

It may seem that the stereotype of Irishness is not ideally

suited to the pacific harmony characteristic of the Japanese

garden. And as the project goes forward, conflicts between

Irish impulsiveness and unplanned casualness and Japanesemeticulousness, precision, and care erupt in occasional

mayhem, psychological chaos, and interesting

compromises.

Useful, though, to bear in mind that the patron saint ofgardening, St. Fiacre, is Irish. St. Fiacre died in France in

670, (fourteenth in descent from Conn of the Hundred


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Battles, King of Ireland from 523 to 577, one needs to

know!) He grew herbs, and considered water and stone as

essential to a good garden. He encouraged his disciples to

garden in order to produce food for the poor, and to nourish

heir souls in contemplation as they dealt with the ultimaterealities so apparent when one turns over a spadefull of

earth.

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Manual Gradini Japoneze - Introduce Re