The last aim of Zen filosofy is reaching illumination by means of meditation. Zen has no creed or formal dogma and it's a filosophy that is free of all kind of static thoughts, which emphatizes its spirituality.
In Novatierra garden we have tried to represent the process to illumination by means of a progressive abstraction along the items that make it up.
Formal inspiration for zen garden starts from a tipology called lake strolling garden or paradise garden, and gets to Japan via China.
Let's walk along the path whose stones are covered with moss.
The open classroom is a stone and vegetables item, they can be pruned little trees, small bruxus as a miniaturized world, or bonsais, thought as cult items, and considered as link between God and men, refering at trees in the distance that seem to touch the sky.
Let's walk along the path whose stones are covered with moss.
Golden bamboo forest in the foggy morning... both for the kind of trees as the wet and bluish slate stones.
Let's jump along the walkway whose stones are covered with moss, getting over obstacles.
The jetty is just a stage and it includes several types of rocks at the shore of the lake. We sit down and we look at the dry garden at the other side of the water. We can also sit on the rocks to better fit the landscape.
Let's jump along the walkway whose stones are covered with moss, getting over obstacles.
Some tropical bamboos are spread here and there in our way to the kare-sansui or dry garden. In this interpretation, rules have been altered: this is not a garden in a temple, enclosed by a wall, where monks sit and get to the abstraction looking at the sand. Here, space is flowing, we sit down, of course, but we are in a open space, a stolen landscape, a sakkei.
Let's loose our look in the sand.
Triads and odd numbers are always present in japanese culture. The setting of tree elements, one big, one middle-sized and one small produces tensions that are used as compositive means for floral arrangements and gardens.
Some rocks domine and others are dominated. One rocks chase others... the center of the kare-sansui is out of the sand... in the lake, those three huge and sharpened stones, they are the center of this composition.
Where we are seeing sand, in fact, we are seeing water and waves produced by rocks... where we see rocks we are seeing islands... islands in the inner japanese sea.
Let's get downstairs, let's jump over the stones, let's get lost in the sand.
Sand, when simbolizing mountains, is a much more abstract symbol than stones. This mountain in the sand extention, is representing the Fuji Mountain, a essensial reference in the landscape.
At the end of his journey to illumination, Buda walked sadly till sit down under the shadow of a fig tree and there he stayed till he reached Nirvana.
Let's sit under the fig tree till get illumined.
