FROM THE GARDEN OF ZEN: April 2023

April 7, 2023

Yama-zakura (Cerasus jamasakura) flowers: Kita-kamakura, Engaku-ji

On the fresh green slope of the hill which embraces Engaku-ji temple complex in its vale, the dainty flowers of Yama-zakura (mountain cherry tree) are in full bloom, as if to quietly glorify the true height of spring.

Because these elegant sakura flowers are transiently blooming with the full force of life, I must gaze at them with all my heart and mind to appreciate their precious and fleeting beauty thoroughly.

If there were no flower of sakura in this world, how tranquil it would be for me to spend this springtime. Their graceful presence always makes me unquiet because I must worry about their sudden falling in a blast of spring wind.

Yama-zakura (Cerasus jamasakura) flowers: Kita-kamakura

The fleecy cumulus clouds of spring are staying quietly in the deep blue sky above the tender green hill adorned by the graceful flowers of Yama-zakura.

These clouds seem to be fascinated by the splendor of the spring mosaic below and have forgotten to drift away swiftly in the perfumed wind blowing from the east.

Soon, as always, these short-lived flowers will fall all too soon, and subsequently, various spring flowers bloom and scatter one after another to glorify this fertile season.

When the time is ripe, these Sakura flowers will fall altogether like a snowstorm in the sudden gust of wind. The white cumulus clouds, which are now floating still in the sky, must flow away abruptly, and, quite unfortunately, may miss the most beautiful spectacle that Sakura flowers present to us.

Yama-zakura (Cerasus jamasakura) flowers: Kita-kamakura

Sakura (Prunus yedoensis) flowers: Engaku-ji

In front of the stone steps leading up to the Chokushi-mon Gate (gate for Imperial Envoys), the flowers of an aged Sakura tree are in full bloom like the splendid canopy adorning this noble gate.

Every spring, this old tree bears countless flowers with its full life force, and then these flowers quickly scatter all at once in the sudden wind without any attachment and mourning.

Such decisiveness and transitoriness of Sakura flowers impress the fleeting nature of this world and the elegant glamor of them touches my heart deeply like an unforgettable dream that I have in the spring daylight.