Renowned artist Kaz Tanahashi reveals the deep, inner spiritual connections that Zen gardens can foster, with over 75 stunning full-color photos of the masterpiece gardens of Kyōto, Japan.

Imagine yourself in Kyōto, Japan, gazing at an ancient temple garden. How would you contextualize what you are seeing? What is the history of this centuries-old contemplative art form of Zen gardening? What are its symbols and concepts?

Richly illustrated with full-color photographs, Gardens of Awakening guides you through a series of Zen temple gardens, most of which were created from the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. Some are teeming with plants and flowing water, while others have only rocks and sand. All share in the Zen aesthetics of awakening.

Through essays and commentary on Mitsue Nagase’s striking photographs, beloved Zen artist and translator Kazuaki Tanahashi presents the gardens in terms of seven qualities that arise from Zen practice: direct, ordinary, vigorous, gleaming, pivotal, nondual, and inexhaustible. Relating these qualities to the development of Zen culture and its influence on Japanese art, Gardens of Awakening invites you deep into the heart of Zen.

"Imagine yourself in Kyåoto, Japan, gazing at a garden of emptiness. How would you understand what you are seeing? What is the history of this contemplative art form, which has flourished for centuries in Kyåoto, the famed center of Zen arts? What aesthetic principles inform it? Through photographs and commentary, Gardens of Awakening guides you through a series of Zen gardens created from the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries. Some are teeming with plants and flowing water, while others have only rocks and sand. All are associated with particular temples and share a certain Zen aesthetic related to the cultivation of awakening. Zen practice and culture have had a powerful influence on various Japanese art forms, including Noh theater, tea ceremony, architecture, ceramic art, painting, calligraphy, and poetry. In this book we discuss gardens in terms of seven qualities that arise from Zen practice: direct, ordinary, vigorous, gleaning, pivotal, nondual, and inexhaustible. Photographer Mitsue Nagase's outstanding color photographs highlight these qualities and, narrated by beloved Zen calligrapher and translator Kaz Tanahashi, help readers to go deep into the heart of Zen and Zen art"--