The Ryoanji Rock Garden Revisited

THE RYOANJI ROCK GARDEN REVISITED

By Paul Schollmeier

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The Montréal Review, April 2026

The rock garden has changed! Imagine my shock! The rock garden at the Ryoanji Temple, as far as I know, has been the same for centuries. Now it is no longer the same. Yet why should I or anyone be shocked? Change is inevitable, is it not? Everything is in unceasing change. Unrelenting forces from the ordinary to the planetary are steadfastly at work even on seemingly inert rocks and gravel. Not to mention human efforts and endeavors.

Or has the garden changed? Does it not yet remain the Ryoanji Rock Garden? It still consists of five clusters of rocks spaced apart within a large rectangular gravel bed. Two larger clusters remain on the left and three smaller ones on the right. The gravel is still raked primarily in straight parallel lines but also in curved parallel lines around each cluster. And there remain the earthen wall and the residential verandah that surround the garden. (For the essay that I wrote on the rock garden and its aesthetics and metaphysics before the change, please see here.)

What has changed, then? The gardener now rakes the gravel in a manner different than before though the rock clusters remain the same. The change is in the circular rakings of the gravel surrounding the clusters. The rakings still spread out in concentric circles, but the circles are now more striking than they were. They are noticeably more pronounced as they expand outward. The troughs become deeper, and the crests become higher. They give the appearance of ripples rising and falling on a pond surface when something is tossed into the pond.

A photograph of the last two clusters on the right of the garden can serve to illustrate the new dynamics of the concentric circles. One can see how what appear to be small ripples expand outward from the rock cluster and create deeper troughs and higher crests at their periphery:

This photo presents closer view of the rakings with the lower trough and the higher crest at the circumference:

The circles present a pattern resembling, though somewhat formalized, the pattern of the ripples occurring when a stone is tossed into a pond:

Please notice how the amplitude and the wavelength of the ripples increase as they expand outward from the center. (See here for a video from which this still photo was taken.)

The ripples in the gravel, then, present a pattern suggesting that the rock clusters are descending into the gravel bed as if they were immersing themselves, somewhat rapidly, almost plunging themselves, into the gravel. They would appear to enter into the gravel as if into a fluid—as if into water. A gravel bed is obviously not a fluid though it is apparently an arena of change. (For a video of how the gardener now makes the wavelike rakings around the rock clusters, and how he increases their depth and width at the circumference, click here. See especially 3:25-3:35).

Yet the rock clusters themselves give the appearance of ascending. The rocks rise to a peak in each cluster, sometimes more, sometimes less, pronounced. The first cluster is the most pronounced. Its largest rock together with its smaller rocks on the left and right all point upward and appear to be raising:

They also form a triangle that augments their apparent motion and carries the eye to its apex. They would seem to be emerging from the gravel.

The result of these two apparent motions is what one might perhaps call a dynamic stasis. The upward emerging of the rock cluster is in opposition to immersion implied by the outward motion of the ripples in the gravel bed. The one motion appears to indicate that the cluster is rising out of the bed, but the other motion apparently indicates that the cluster is falling into the bed.

One might be tempted to say that the two apparent motions rest in an equilibrium, and that they hold cluster suspended between them. But they do not. The eye wants to go up, and the eye wants to go down. The result is that our attention is swept up with the one motion, and then our attention is pulled down with the other motion.

One can see from the same photograph that the large cluster of rocks appears to move slightly leftward, but that the ripples appear to indicate a rightward movement. The rocks in the cluster not only seem to be rising but also to be shifting toward the left. Both the large and small rocks incline to the left. But the ripples surrounding each rock imply noticeable motions toward the right. The concentric ripples from the small rock on the left overpower the ripples from the large rock; then those for the large rock overlap and overpower the ripples of the small rock on the right.

The small rock on the left outside the cluster actually appears to generate ripples moving to the right and all but overpowering the moss of the cluster:

The ripples appear about to surmount or actually are surmounting the moss.

Though they each suggest a motion to the right, the ripples taken together also imply a sequence of motions to the left. The small rock outside the moss bed on the right would appear to arise into the gravel bed first because the ripples from the large rock overpower its ripples. The large rock appears to enter the gravel bed second because the ripples of the small rock on the left overpower its ripples. The small rock on the left enters last.

We find again a dynamic opposition among the different motions. There is the implied leftward motion of the rocks in the cluster, and the implied rightward motion of the ripples, and then the leftward sequence of the rock entering the gravel. We cannot help but find our attention ebbing and flowing with the apparent motions.

The other clusters exhibit similar tensions. Consider the second cluster:

The peak of the largest rock is slight but undeniable. And yet its peak is balanced by the moss extending outward on left. The peak also draws the eye upward, but outward ripples pull the eye down as they spread out.

The large rock has a triangle with a hypothenuse pointing to the edge of the cluster on the left. The rock seems to be pushing the moss to the left. But the mass of the rock counters with a rightward motion and its greater mass on right. The small rock also counters the leftward motion. It is positioned on the right side of the extended moss and inclines, if only slightly, to the right.

The three clusters on the right are amenable to similar analyses. Consider this photograph:

Any apparent upward or lateral motion in a cluster is countered by the wide circular rakings. The area covered by the ripples is noticeably larger than the area of its cluster. The eye is drawn upward by the rocks in each cluster though to a lesser degree than in the first cluster. But the expanding ripples pull the eye back down and out and away. The effect is especially obvious in the fifth cluster.

We might note that each cluster, due to the new rakings, seems quite isolated from the others. The large circumferences of the ripples stabilize the clusters and almost turn them into isolated islands in a sea or mountains in a fog. The clusters do not appear to interact though they did before. The rakings around the clusters also appear to be wider than they were.

The gravel itself remains still and inert except for the ripples. It is a neutral arena into which and out of which the clusters at once rise and fall. One almost overlooks the parallel raking to the left and the right.

There is, though, a quiet balance between the clusters on the left and those on the right. The clusters on the left have larger masses than those on the right. But the clusters on the right, though smaller, take up a larger area than those on the left.

Compare this photograph:

With this photograph:

One might note, more obviously, that there are two larger clusters on the right, but there are three smaller ones on the left.

The rock clusters on the left and the right would actually seem to balance on the second cluster, perhaps even at the very peak of the second cluster:

Also balanced are the rock clusters with the empty space between them and the empty space between the clusters and the verandah.

The rock garden at the Ryoanji Temple, then, presents the visitor with a new composition. The simple act of raking the gravel around the rock clusters in a different manner has greatly changed the aesthetics of the garden. The garden is static—except, of course, for planetary revolutions and rotations, which are hardly noticeable, and the prosaic rakings of the gardener, which are obviously noticeable. But the prosaic rakings have changed the apparent motions of the rock clusters and the rapport among the clusters.

This new composition invites a new interpretation. The rock clusters appear to reside in a realm tranquil and serene. Each cluster presents an apparently changeless configuration. Even the gardener forbore to alter them in any way. Though they do not physically enter into the gravel bed, the clusters do give the appearance of immersing themselves, or even of plunging themselves, into the gravel. They would suggest entities of a tranquil realm engaging with a realm less tranquil.

The gravel bed would appear to be a realm not at all tranquil and serene. It betokens a world susceptible to change and at times to change sudden and disconcerting perhaps. The rock clusters especially appear to create sudden disturbances on its surface. The circular rakings around the clusters with their wave patterns moving out and away would suggest that the disturbances can be abrupt.

Dare I say that we might take the clusters to represent enlightened souls? They appear to remain unperturbable despite any disturbances that they might occasion or encounter. Those who are enlightened perhaps in a noumenal world cannot enter entirely into nor escape entirely from a phenomenal world with its multifarious vicissitudes. Enlightened souls cannot perfectly participate in a world forever shifting to and fro. Though engaged they yet remain detached.

Yet the garden also appears motionless, does it not? The immersion and emersion of the clusters and the flow of the ripples all appear to be unmoving despite any apparent motions. The rocks of the garden and the gravel remain to the eye quietly at rest. Why, then, do they appear to move? I would suggest that the rocks and the gravel present what appears to be a moment within a motion. They present a moment resembling a moment within a downward plunge or an upward thrust. In our mind we create their apparent motion.

What, then, is motion? All motion is motionless! one might say with a grand air of paradox. Any appearance of a motion can only be momentary and static. A motion, indeed, is a series of static moments. The moments appear to be in continuous motion though they are not. In our mind we see several discontinuous moments, present, past, and future, in a series, and we move through the series in our mind. What appears to be a motion is but an activity of our own mind. We project remembered and imagined moments onto a perceived moment. We thus take an object to be in motion.

One might say, then, that we actively participate in the composition of the garden. When we contemplate the garden, we would appear to be the ones who create what I am calling a dynamic statis though we cannot quite do so. When we visit the garden, we recall other moments and their motions, and we can imagine past and future moments in a series with the moment that we see in the rocks and the gravel. The clusters and the gravel then appear to be in motion. They appear to be static moments in a series of moments seemingly dynamic.

The garden reminds us that all motion and all change are of a similar nature. The world at each moment is unchanging and stable. But in our mind the world is unstable and changing if at times ever so slightly. In our mind no object without motion is not without motion remembered or imagined. We might see but one moment, but with our memory and our imagination we see the moment in a series. What is motionless to the eye is not motionless to the mind.

Many forces, most times not at all obvious, we may take to be at work. Among them are cosmological, geological, ecological, and metrological forces, not to mention social and economic forces. These forces we cannot see, but with our memory and imagination we permit ourselves to think that we discern their effects. The gardener is familiar with the lesser of these effects. Whoever rakes the garden must ever engage in refreshing and renewing its composition with their simple activity—if they do not take it upon themselves to change it!

We might say that the garden is a still life if a rather austere one. We might say, too, that the garden is a still life representing the eternality of an enlightened soul not quite entering into and not quite engaging with the temporality of the mundane world. It is a paradigm for our own life participating, yet not quite participating, in the worldly realm of the everyday. We cannot not be detached should we be so fortunate as to attain even a smidgen of enlightenment and to grasp a moment for what it is.

Even our participation, such as it is, is fleeting. It endures no more than a brief moment—if we may say that a moment endures! The unchanging realm must constantly renew itself within the changing realm. And yet the unchanging moment, even of an enlightened soul, will inevitably disappear into the changing! A life for us is but four score years. We will disappear much as a pebble tossed into a pond disappears beneath the surface. All motion is itself but momentary whether we think it to continue for a millisecond or a millennium.

And so is our own appearance from one moment to another whether we are enlightened or not. I close with an early Japanese poem by Princess Shikishi:

The kind of place
where the way a traveler’s tracks
disappear in the snow
is something you get used to —
such a place is this world of ours.*

The rock garden of the Ryoanji Temple serves to remind us of what place we have grown used to and of what within it we have grown used to.

Paul Schollmeier is Barrick Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

* Stephen D. Carter, ed. and trans. Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), p. 181.