And Finally…

British Earthy Paradise and Japanese Divine Gardens

British people are renowned for having green fingers, and their handiwork is certainly visible in so many of their beautiful gardens. When I compare Japanese gardens with British ones, though, I sometimes wonder why famous historic gardens in Japan belong to Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, while those in Britain belong to royalty and the nobility rather than churches and monasteries.

Part of the answer may be that the Japanese concept of shizen (nature) differs fundamentally from its British counterpart, which is traditionally based on the Christian idea of naturae, at least to a degree. Genesis shows how the Christian God, as creator of the world, is clearly separated from his creatures, establishing a vertical hierarchy that runs, from God at the top, through man created in his image (imago dei) down to all the other creatures we understand to comprise ‘nature’. Here God, as a transcendent being, does not exist within nature, nor are human beings a part of it.

On this view, nature is an external other for human beings, meaning that it can act in ways that disturb the relationship between God and Christians. This is evident in the writings of (admittedly a non-British) medieval author, Herrad of Landsperg, who detected danger in the pleasure of gardening. An illustration in her book, Hortus Deliciarum, depicts a reclusive monk who climbed to the very top rung of the ladder of Virtue, but then looked down behind him at his flowery garden. Seized by a strong desire for it, and thus exhibiting a preference for an earthly rather than a heavenly paradise, he plunged headlong down among the flower beds. ¹

We may contrast this with an 11^th-century Japanese work, the Sakuteiki, better known as Records of Garden Making. This begins by outlining three basic concepts for a gardener to be aware of before setting out to create a garden. The first and most important enjoins the following: “Select several places within the property according to the shape of the land and the ponds, and create a subtle atmosphere, reflecting again and again on one’s memories of wild nature”. This last phrase suggests not only that the most important underlying theme of Japanese garden-making is shizen or ‘nature’, but also that the author strongly and persistently urges us to study nature as the basis for making a garden. Nature, in other words, is a model or teacher for garden design. Here, stones are perceived as animate objects with a will and desires of their own that warrant consideration. What is most important here is the basic and widespread belief in Japanese garden-making that shizen or nature has an inherent quality that is both wholesome and correct. The natural world is thus seen to express an innate balance or healthy homeostasis that can also help in the practice of divine meditation in Buddhism and Shintoism. Gardens in Japanese temples and shrines exist to mediate the divine realm within the context of the life forces of the surrounding natural realm. This is achieved by incorporating nature’s healthy balance into the human sphere, as well as by imitating nature for aesthetic purposes.