The Secret of Ryoanji Garden

The Garden of the photo below is very famous, named "石庭" of "Ryoanji (龍安寺) Temple". "石庭" means a "Sand and Rock Garden".


The Secret of the Garden is as follows;
(a) Size
The area of the Garden is only 250 square meters (25m x 10m). However the Garden looks very big for its size.

(b) An optical illusion
The Garden has been built by making full use of "an opticla illusion" of humanbeing.

(c) The wall of the right back side of the photo
Regarding the height of the wall, the right side looks like higher than that of the left side.
This is true and not an optical illusion.

And this mechanizm is one of the reason why the Garden looks big for its size.
If you are interested in "龍安寺の石庭の秘密/A secret of ZEN Garden(Ryoanji)", you are able to check it by the video provided by YouTube.

In the video, please note that the comment is explained in Japanese and not in English.

By T.S. on 10th Jul., 2008