Gardens of Awakening

A Guide to the Aesthetics, History, and Spirituality of Kyoto's Zen Landscapes

Photographs by Mitsue Nagase
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Hardcover
$26.95 US
On sale May 07, 2024 | 184 Pages | 9781645472056

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Renowned artist Kaz Tanahashi reveals the deep, inner spiritual connections that Zen gardens can foster, with over 75 stunning full-color photos of the masterpiece gardens of Kyōto, Japan.

Imagine yourself in Kyōto, Japan, gazing at an ancient temple garden. How would you contextualize what you are seeing? What is the history of this centuries-old contemplative art form of Zen gardening? What are its symbols and concepts?

Richly illustrated with full-color photographs, Gardens of Awakening guides you through a series of Zen temple gardens, most of which were created from the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. Some are teeming with plants and flowing water, while others have only rocks and sand. All share in the Zen aesthetics of awakening.

Through essays and commentary on Mitsue Nagase’s striking photographs, beloved Zen artist and translator Kazuaki Tanahashi presents the gardens in terms of seven qualities that arise from Zen practice: direct, ordinary, vigorous, gleaming, pivotal, nondual, and inexhaustible. Relating these qualities to the development of Zen culture and its influence on Japanese art, Gardens of Awakening invites you deep into the heart of Zen.
Soen Nakagawa Roshi (1907-1984) was an extraordinary Zen master and a key figure in the transmission of Zen Buddhism from Japan to the Western world. A man of many faces, he was a simple Japanese monk, a world traveler, a spiritually realized being of the highest order, a poetic genius, a creator of dynamic calligraphy–and a notorious eccentric teacher who, for example, was known to conduct “tea ceremonies” using instant coffee and Styrofoam cups. View titles by Kazuaki Tanahashi

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Renowned artist Kaz Tanahashi reveals the deep, inner spiritual connections that Zen gardens can foster, with over 75 stunning full-color photos of the masterpiece gardens of Kyōto, Japan.

Imagine yourself in Kyōto, Japan, gazing at an ancient temple garden. How would you contextualize what you are seeing? What is the history of this centuries-old contemplative art form of Zen gardening? What are its symbols and concepts?

Richly illustrated with full-color photographs, Gardens of Awakening guides you through a series of Zen temple gardens, most of which were created from the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. Some are teeming with plants and flowing water, while others have only rocks and sand. All share in the Zen aesthetics of awakening.

Through essays and commentary on Mitsue Nagase’s striking photographs, beloved Zen artist and translator Kazuaki Tanahashi presents the gardens in terms of seven qualities that arise from Zen practice: direct, ordinary, vigorous, gleaming, pivotal, nondual, and inexhaustible. Relating these qualities to the development of Zen culture and its influence on Japanese art, Gardens of Awakening invites you deep into the heart of Zen.

Author

Soen Nakagawa Roshi (1907-1984) was an extraordinary Zen master and a key figure in the transmission of Zen Buddhism from Japan to the Western world. A man of many faces, he was a simple Japanese monk, a world traveler, a spiritually realized being of the highest order, a poetic genius, a creator of dynamic calligraphy–and a notorious eccentric teacher who, for example, was known to conduct “tea ceremonies” using instant coffee and Styrofoam cups. View titles by Kazuaki Tanahashi

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