Name: Hirayama Soyoke    Alternate Name: Hirayama Ryôichike  Address: Chiran  Mailing Address:   City: Kageshima  State:   Postal Code:   Country: JAPAN  Phone:   Fax:   E-Mail:   Contact:   Designer(s):   Construction Period: -   Public/Private: PUBLIC  Hours:   Admission:   Added to JGarden: 1/1/1998  Last Updated:   JGarden Description:

Saihoji Temple, Kyoto Actuality is emblem here: a walled-in garden With its hieroglyph of the heart a lake with lotuses, And its stones and trees a figure of ascent From painted maze and sensuous paradise To the Pure Land of the mind, the interior garden. All paths wind inward to this inward mirror -- Reflecting-pool of primitive solitude -- Where the mind, quiescent, meditates its shadow, In the garden's Heart this cipher of the heart. Some bonze cropped bald by wisdom's scythe, to glean In Chinese glaosses on the Sakya sage Reality's scattered kernels, planted here A green and less laborious commentary: Perpetual witness of the perfect stillness. Only the moss speaks still, a living scroll; From the lakeshore to the hillside a silver-green Page of continuous discourse where the foot moves More soundlessly that thought along the paths laid Over ten centuries ago For the saints rehearsing sutras. Their path unfolding in a single text, They moved on an obscure way more quietly Than the arhat's mantras or the lohan's prayer; And bruised no stone, no grasses in their passing, The ground of their desire inviolate. Nameless, they merged into indifferent turf, Engrossed in one impartite grace of green, Their separate deaths lost in this single life -- Men without memory, without distinction. Though earth assumes them like a scroll rolled up, The path is fragrant still because they passed here.   John M. Steadman   20th Century