FROM THE GARDEN OF ZEN: April 2022

April 26, 2022

Yama-zakura (mountain cherry) flowers and Engaku-ji : Kita-kamakura

The small valley thickly covered with trees, where the temple buildings of Engaku-ji are situated, is finely adorned with the subtle and calm colors and forms of spring.

On the fresh-green hillside, the countless mountain-cherry flowers are blooming and shining in the bright fertile sunlight as if to celebrate this season of rebirth and growth.

The tender chirping songs of birds are echoing throughout the valley to express their joy in the arrival of long-awaited spring. The colorful new leaves of various plants are creating an elegant mosaic ornament to this tranquil landscape.

No matter what is happening in the human world now, every living being earnestly goes on with its life in the ceaseless stream of seasons.

Yama-zakura (mountain cherry) flowers: Kita-kamakura

The Yama-zakura (mountain-cherry) tree is a general domestic plant variety of Japan and has been long admired by Japanese people since ancient times as the principal object of our Hanami (cherry blossom viewing) tradition.

This native cherry tree has been described in many "Waka" poems (classic Japanese lyric verse), in which its elegant and short-lived flowers are regarded as one of the essential symbols of "Mono no aware."

"Mono no aware" (the pathos of earthly things) is the most typical concept in Japanese aesthetic sense and represents our traditional emotion of finding profound beauty in transience. This sentiment is influenced by Mujo-kan (Buddhist concept of the impermanence of worldly things).

The Yama-zakura tree bears numberless snow-white or pale-pink flowers from March to April. Unlike familiar Someiyoshino (Japanese cherry) tree, its new leaves appear at almost the same time with its flowers. The basic color of the young leaves is rosy, but some leaves may be tinged with various green or yellow colors.

Yama-zakura (mountain cherry) flowers: Kita-kamakura

Sakura (Japanese cherry) flowers: Engaku-ji

The excellence of Sakura flowers becomes apparent when they scatter in the spring breeze.

After blooming devotedly for a short period, they flutter down gracefully like a snowstorm without any hesitation or attachment, showing no stain of their snowy petals.

When their thin, tiny petals fall to the ground, they promptly return to the soil just as if nothing had happened, like an ephemeral daydream that has faded away rapidly.

Shidare-zakura (weeping cherry) flowers: Engaku-ji

Sakura (Japanese cherry) flowers: Engaku-ji

Shidare-zakura (weeping cherry) flowers: Engaku-ji

Sakura (Japanese cherry) flowers: Engaku-ji

Shidare-zakura (weeping cherry) flowers: Engaku-ji

Sakura (Japanese cherry), Haku-mokuren (Yulan magnolia), and Kobushi (magnolia) flowers: Engaku-ji

Shidare-zakura (weeping cherry) flowers: Engaku-ji

Sakura (Japanese cherry) flowers: Engaku-ji

Shidare-zakura (weeping cherry) flowers: Engaku-ji

Sakura (Japanese cherry) flowers: Engaku-ji

April 17, 2022

Sakura (Japanese cherry) flowers: Kencho-ji

Spring is the season of startling vital expression in all living things.

The full bloom of Sakura flowers notifies the highest stage of liveliness and regrowth, and, in response to their stunning grace, various living things begin to emerge one after another hurriedly to compete for the precious blessings of the spring sun.

Flowering is the brilliant highlight of the tranquil lives of plants and trees. Every flower blooms with all its might, as if to silently explode the vitality having been stored up through the year.

Shidare-zakura (weeping cherry) flowers: Kencho-ji

According to the law of the universe, the life on the earth keeps circulating and transforming ceaselessly, changing its name and form in various ways without a moment of stagnation.

Flowers bloom and disappear one after another, enlightening us on the constant and rapid transition of the seasons.

Beside the Hatto (lecture hall) of this temple, an old weeping cherry-tree is once again bearing lots of rose-colored flowers on its thin cascading branches. Soon, these graceful flowers will scatter all together in the spring breeze and countless fresh green leaves will emerge rapidly to erase the memory of these fleeting flowers.

Sakura (Japnese cherry) flowers: Kencho-ji

Shidare-zakura (weeping cherry) flowers: Kencho-ji

Sakura (Japanese cherry) flowers: Kencho-ji

April 3, 2022

Ume (Japanese apricot) flowers: Tokei-ji

In the merciful spring sunlight, the bronze statue of Sakyamuni Buddha is sitting meditatively in the quiet garden adorned splendidly with the countless graceful flowers of ume.

It seems to me that the shining petals of these flowers are implying the supreme words of Buddha which guide us to his land of awakening.

These elegant flowers, that have bravely bloomed enduring the chill of late winter, will soon scatter in the capricious winds of spring after completing their lives. Their flower petals will flutter about in the fragrant breeze like the blessed voice of Buddha which teaches us that all things must pass soon.

Otome-tsubaki (Camellia japonica f. otome) flowers: Jyuhuku-ji

If there was no flower, how painful and sorrowful this world would become to us. Flowers may be the benevolent gifts which are presented by this universe so as to soothe our pains of existence.

In the abandoned bush on the hill behind this old Zen temple, I found these exquisite otome-tsubaki (otome camellia) flowers blooming modestly in shade.

The Japanese word "otome" means "a young lady" and this epithet seems to well express the tender and maidenly grace of this pale pink flower.

Haku-mokuren (Yulan magnolia) flowers: Engaku-ji

As if to indicate the evident progress of spring, the noble silky-white flowers of Haku-mokuren (white magnolia), which I have been waiting for, are beginning to bloom again this year.

It is said that this white magnolia tree was the gift presented by Chinese writer Lu Xun to this temple in 1933.

Lu Xun (1881-1936), who once stayed in Japan to study at Sendai Medical College, gifted the sapling of this tree as an expression of gratitude to a Zen monk of Engaku-ji Temple who had initiated him into Rinzai Zen in his life in Japan.

The white magnolia tree originates from China, where it is called "Gyokuran (white jade orchid tree)" and its fragrant flower is the city flower of Shanghai where Lu Xun spent the last years of his life.

The white magnolia tree grows to a height of 10 to 15 meters, and in spring, before its new leaves appear, it produces plenty of large, upward-facing white flowers which look like white lotus flowers in the air.

Spring garden: Jochi-ji

In the small humble garden where seasonal plants and trees grow as they naturally are, I found a flower assortment of yellow-mitsumata, white apricot, and pink peach, which represented the incoming of spring in Kita-kamakura.

The bright yellow flowers are yellow-mitsumata. Its bundles of cottony flower-buds sprout in the form of a tiny toy handball in the beginning of February, and keep growing quietly in the height of the harsh season.

Around the middle of March, as the warmth and sunlight of spring increase, these small yellow buds begin to bloom all together like dear children smiling joyfully and to emit a pleasant aroma, quietly heralding the arrival of long-expected spring.