Designing the Contemplative and Healing Garden:
Teachings from Sacred Landscapes
"From the moment that bodhisattvas become completely endowed
with steadfast activities of body, speech and mind,
they go to that spot of earth
where they sit to overcome all hindrances."
Mahavastu, a 3rd century Indian Buddhist text
Sacred landscapes have much to teach those of us engaged in designing therapeutic landscapes for humanistic health-care facilities. They have qualities and characteristics that help to strengthen physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health in a balanced and harmonious relationship with the natural and social environment. As expressions of spiritual teachings, sacred landscapes help the process of healing by opening up the heart and energizing feelings and concepts associated with spiritual dimensions of life.
These landscapes are revered because of the unique features appearing in the natural formations of the earth, waters and skies, and the energy that emanates from the presence of the revered sages who taught and meditated at these spots. Sacred landscapes are considered the embodiment of the spirits themselves, the deities as recognizable natural forces; and are designed as artistic expressions of practices used in spiritual quests.
According to Buddhist concepts of nature, the elements of the environment - earth, water, fire, wind, and space - are integral components of our bodies and minds, and the physical environment is an expression of our mental and spiritual health. They arise with birth and dissolve with death. Just as the mind has the ability to alter the qualities of the landscapes in which we live, so does the sacred landscape have the ability to alter the state of the mind.
Since health and well being is enriched by places considered spiritually invigorating, people go on pilgrimage to sacred landscapes. When Buddhist teachers discovered landscapes having auspicious geomantic features, the lands, waters and skies were purified, consecrated and empowered with freedom from physical, mental, emotional and spiritual afflictions. Tibetan Buddhist texts refer to this as "opening up the sacred landscape," whereby the natural landscape was transformed and designed as the medium for pilgrims' devotional practices.
Because of their abilities to heal, sacred landscapes provide inspiration for the design of gardens in therapeutic health-care environments. Gardens designed for contemplation and healing are likely to be most effective and responsive to the needs of its users when the elements of the sacred landscape are applied. The following design elements constitute such a landscape:
Being of favorable context -
it is sited to take advantage of positive attributes,
and mitigate negative effects
receiving auspicious life-forces
given by the earth, sun and moon;
It is contained - a distinctive form in space,
a distinct space surrounded by form;
It is coherent - clearly defined and ordered
to help things make sense;
It is composed - enabling one to pay attention;
It has clarity - made simple in format
to help develop concentration and insight.
It is an artistic expression of contemplation -
quiet and light inside,
enabling one to listen to the heart sing.
Being of favorable context, the sacred landscape is located in an auspicious setting. It mitigates potentially negative effects, and takes advantage of the environmental attributes of its location, gifts offered by the earth, waters and skies, the sun, moon and stars.
"At a true site...there is a touch of magic and light.
How so, magic?
Here the breath gathers and the essence collects.
Light shines in the middle and magic goes out on all sides.
Try to understand!
It is hard to describe!"
Buddhist teachers seeking auspicious landscapes or gardens in which to meditate often relied on divination and geomancy, such as the various practices of feng shui. Feng shui means wind-water. It refers to the evolution of the land and water through nature. Certain places are considered suitable for physical and spiritual renewal. Many are not. When a place is found, it is best that it be tested. If an activity is properly located because of its favorable relationship to surrounding landforms, environmental conditions and celestial events, there is greater potential to benefit from the attributes of the site. While occupying this physical and mental place, one has a better opportunity to cultivate their mind and heal their heart.
The location of Pretapuri on the Sutlej River constitutes one of nature's best essays on landscape, wrote the Japanese monk Ekai Kawaguchi in 1909. I found that the location of Pretapuri is truly significant. It amplifies the importance of those landscapes where topographic and geologic configurations meet and interact. It was in these landscape transition zones, more often than not, that notable teachers chose to undertake their meditation retreats.
These landscapes dramatically reveal the essential features and qualities of the geological process and the movement of the subtle earth energies that flow through the land. Their movement is expressed in the positioning and relationship of landscape formations within their environmental context. It is where they meet and speak with one another. Where mountains meet the level plains, rivers cut through narrow gorges, layers of rock deform in accordion-like patterns, and winds rise up the windward side of hills and begin to fall over the leeward sides.
Pilgrims are drawn to these transactional grounds for spiritual renewal because they most clearly sense the power of healing in nature. In these sacred landscapes sensitivity to motion is enhanced by its meeting with resting, rising is heightened its meeting with falling, and solidity is strengthened when meeting softness. Where dryness meets wetness, heat meets cold, space meets form - they are places with which the heart reverberates.
Being contained, the sacred landscape is a distinct form in space - or a distinct space surrounded by form. Visually uncomplicated, a sacred landscape is easily identified. It appears in profound contrast with the chaotic, nebulous forms and spaces generally found elsewhere. One feels cradled and secure within a sacred landscape. Because of its unique appearance - contained - one can point a finger to its presence in the landscape. It is certainly contained within the heart. Upon arriving at such a container, a pilgrim senses as if the landscape were always known, having arrived safely at home.
"When you endeavor in right practice,
the voices and figures of streams and the sounds and shapes
of mountains, together with you,
bounteously deliver 84,000 teachings."
Mt. Kailas in Western Tibet is among the most holy places of pilgrimage; hundreds of Hindus, Buddhists, Jain and Tibetan Bon-po circumambulate the mountain each day. Discovered more than 3000 years ago, Mt. Kailas was invested with the power of Mt. Meru, the physical embodiment of the centre of the cosmological universe. The sacred mountain rises high above the Tibetan Plateau, bounded on all sides by steep escarpments, narrow river valleys and the Barkha Plains. Like the four jewels forming the four sides of Mt. Meru, each facet of Mt. Kailas bathes the surrounding landscape with light - gold on the north, silver on the east, lapis on the south and crystal on the west. Tibetan people call Mt. Kailas, Kang Rinpoche, Precious Jewel of Snow.
Being coherent, the sacred landscape is clearly defined and organized. This refers to the delineation of boundaries, points of entry and paths. The entrance to the sacred landscape provides a sense of arrival. Boundaries establish a clear domain. Paths leading pilgrims through the sacred landscape provide orientation. They are comfortable, secure and free from distraction.
Coherence in the landscape helps things to make sense. It clears the mind from confusion caused by apprehension and uncertainty, debilitating companions to suffering. People suffer when they wish that events were other than at the present moment. Coherence helps develop patience and presence, enabling us to sense that having arrived, all that can be known in this landscape is present right here and right now. There is nothing else to want or to not-want; there is nothing else to need or to not-need.
"Walking on pilgrimage is purification,
each step causing a fresh breeze to arise
and blow away the sorrows of life,
helping to cultivate the awakening mind."
The routes surrounding the sacred landscapes of Tibet are called the kora. Kora means to go - to go without arriving. Tibetan pilgrims circumambulate around sacred landscapes on the surrounding paths. With their beads and prayer wheels in hand, they chant the sacred sounds of the deities OM MANI PADME HUM. Their devotion expresses the strength of their closeness to the landscape.
The Pure Land temple Amida-ji is tucked into a narrow valley within the mountains north of Kyoto near the village of Ohara. It is similar to the Chinese Taoist places for retreat high in the mountains. Its boundary is defined by the surrounding hills. The hills separate the sacred landscape from the busy-ness outside. Having sought refuge within this boundary, people give themselves, more so than were they to remain outside, the opportunity to clear the mind of inner turmoil and reconnect with abilities to heal. The gateway identifies the arrival. The garden provides a place in which to be at rest, helping to reestablish a healthy personal identity, integral to providing relief from pain and suffering.
It is difficult enough to know which direction to take in the journey to discover the nature of the mind and heal the heart without having to deal with the difficulty of not knowing where to put oneís feet. Inside the sacred landscape, the paths through the temple grounds are clearly arranged so that the focus of concentration is on the guided movement. They provide a clear sequence of experiences, manipulating the sense of time and space. Imagine a file of Buddhist monks chanting as they walk in meditation: "Slowly, slowly, every step is a prayer."
Being composed, the sacred landscape is an intentional arrangement of features and patterns on the lands and in the waters. They interact with one another in a state of dynamic equilibrium, in balance and harmony. A composition enables one to pay attention. It is something on which to focus, orient and awaken the mind. This is called mindfulness, becoming completely observant to activities and thoughts taking place both inside the mind and in the landscape. Mindfulness helps develop appreciation, understanding, consideration and passion for people, places and things. It cultivates intimacy with the forces of nature and a desire to deepen it.
The collection of stories and symbolism that unfold in the dry mountain-waterscape Kyoto garden of Daisen-in is very rich. It resonates in people's hearts whenever they visit. Daisen-in is designed as an abstraction of nature. As a metaphor for human experience, the garden is called the River of Life.
Beginning in a narrow space along the eastern verandah of the main shrine room, the gravel stream emerges from the tall stones and camellia shrubs, an expression of the heights of the immortals, and immediately plunges down as the cascading torrents of youth. It flows briskly under bridges and around large stones, representing the trials of adulthood and the hard lessons of life. The stream continues through a broad channel, suggesting the broadening of human experience; and ends in the raked gravel Great Sea of Meditation, pointing to the goal for one to be fully enlightened and completely healed.
Being clear, the sacred landscape is simple in format. It offers a vehicle for self-control, necessary for healing. Just as meditation develops deep mental concentration and insight through the cultivation of a clear mind, the sacred landscape gives unwavering attention to one thing at a time. The mind becomes calm and stable, focused on the present moment.
The walled garden of Ryoan-ji in Kyoto is the Japanese landscape best known throughout the world. It is the most famous kare-sansui, dry mountain-waterscape garden. Fifteen stones are set in five circles of moss, within a rectangular bed of gravel-sized granite. The garden is considered the essence of Zen wisdom. Many stories and speculative commentaries have been written about the meaning of the fifteen stones. The geometric relationship among the five groups has been intensely analyzed. Yet the instinctive sensation that I felt in their presence was that the stones were perfectly clear. They expressed all that could take place at that moment - cause and effect in space. They appeared to come alive, teaching a path for creating mental distance between turmoil outside and a healthful balanced mind within.
As an artistic expression of contemplation, the sacred landscape draws from the most profound aspects of the mind. Contemplation is the cultivation of complete consciousness, and complete consciousness is creativity in every moment. When accompanied by wisdom, one develops an understanding of the nature of reality and the reality of nature. When accompanied by altruism, the sacred landscape embodies qualities of caring for one self and others, and for habitats of past, present and future generations.
In the garden, these expressions became the features and techniques used by the various schools of Buddhism, artistic expressions of practices in their respective Buddhist dialects. Dialects help the meanings to make more sense, as in the poem inscribed in the foyer of Daisen-in Temple:
"Each day in life is training.
Training for myself.
Though failure is possible.
Living each moment.
Equal to anything.
Ready for everything.
I am alive. I am this moment.
My future is here and now.
For if I cannot endure today
When and where will I?
Although the ability of sacred landscapes to heal may be scrutinized through scientific methods of analysis and proof, the incredulous would certainly find people experiencing remarkable physical and mental transformations. At the very least, sacred landcapes help increase people's inner spiritual strength, necessary companions to healing.
Much is to be learned to develop a keener understanding of the features and characteristics of places most conducive to healing. For millennia, pilgrims have sought out the magical and mysterious power of the sacred landscape. In their teachings, sacred landscapes offer these six design elements as guides to most effectively design gardens for meditation and healing in therapeutic health-care environments.
Notes
See HH The Dalai Lama. "Buddhist Concept of Nature" in Cho Yang, Vol. 1. (Dharamsala: Department of Religion and Culture) and Jeffrey Hopkins. Meditations on Emptiness. (London: Wisdom Publications, 1983).
See Keith Dowman. The Sacred Life of Tibet. (London: Thorsons, 1997), p. 147.
Yeh T'ai, Ti Li Ta Ch'eng in Andrew March, "An Appreciation of Chinese Geomancy." Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. XXVII, No. 2, Feb. 1968.
Ekai Kawaguchi. Three Years in Tibet. (Benares: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1909).
Master Dogen. Shobogenzo Sansuigyo: The Sutra of Mountains and Water. (Woking, Surrey: Windbell Publications, 1994).
See Richard Feather Anderson, "Geomancy," in James A. Swan, The Power of Place. (Wheaton, Ill: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1991), p. 194.
Inspired by Jon Kabat-Zinnís book Wherever You Go There You Are. (New York: Hyperion, 1994).
Zasep Tulku Rinpoche. Lecture: Journeys to Sacred Buddhist Landscapes of India and Tibet: The Journey as a Buddhist Pilgrimage, Toronto, January 1998.
Abbot Soen Ozeki, "Words for Each Day," Daisen-in Temple, Kyoto.
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