This is me at the Taniguchi Japanese Garden. Photo taken by Mary Bouldin (my grandmama).
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| Pulling up to tranquility. |
When the opportunity arose to go to the Garden as a class, I was intrigued; but I also assumed I had already gone before. Much to my surprise, I realized that I have lived in Austin for 16 years and had indeed never before been to the Taniguchi Japanese Garden. I remember often going to the Zilker Botanical Garden as a kid, but had not realized that the 2220 gardens extended far beyond a few planters. As it were, I couldn’t go with the class on the excursion to the gardens for various reasons. But I knew this was an experience I did not want to miss. So the other day, I asked my grandmamma (for all intents and purposes, Mary is family) to go with me—mostly because I had not seen her since I moved out, and because I wanted her to see the Garden. Seventy-five years old and still traveling the world, she got her walking cane and drove us to Zilker. Once at the gardens, I attained momentary personal peace while meditating on Taniguchi’s larger intention: “provide a symbol of universal peace.”[1]
When we arrived, it felt like we had hit record heat; I sometimes forget Austin can be just swelteringly hot. I was worried that Mary would need water, a place to sit, or have some other need that I couldn’t address. But because she is a true trooper, we continued on the winding path down through the gardens. She took a break, leaned on the railing, and watched as I climbed onto a rock in the middle of the stream. I told her I would scope out the rest of the gardens and find us a spot to sit down. After prancing around the gardens, as if I had found paradise, I found a resting place on the grassy hillside beside the flowing water. It took Mary a few minutes to catch up with me. As I waited for her, I took in the sights, the sounds.
All the stress from the week, from work, from the world, melted away as I gazed at the water cascading over small rocks. It reminded me of reading Siddhartha, and learning that the river is a metaphor for life. It is always moving and yet it is constantly there. Moreover, the intensity and pressures of everyday life seemed to fade into the back of my mind as I focused on the beauty of the water. Everything about the Garden was aesthetically pleasing—from the orange burst of color on plant stalks to the arrangement of rocks in the stream. We arrived right as the sun was filtering through the trees; its rays combed through the green algae on the bottom of the stream, making the color seem all too vibrant to be real.
But even as beautifully as Taniguchi captured water’s essence, I recognized that it was man-made. And Taniguchi got something right. What an ingenious arrangement: water over rocks amidst shady trees and lush green grass. This is what peace is, I remember thinking. Precisely, this is what he had intended for visitors of the garden to feel. On the Taniguchi website, it states his intention: "It has been my wish that through the construction of the visable garden, I might provide a symbol of universal peace."[2] He intended to “construct” a “symbol” but also to afford peace in the moment.
As we were both meditating quietly—or just resting, who knows—I told her what I had been thinking about since I arrived at the gardens. I said: the Japanese must understand the word “peace” better than us Westerners do. She just smiled and looked back at the water. When I think of peace, I told her, I think of anti-war slogans and the commercialized peace sign. But what does peace mean beyond the commercialized symbols and loud anti-war rhetoric? As if to guide me in the right direction, Mary responded by telling me she had been to Japan. (I could have guessed so; she’s traveled to every continent including Antarctica). She said that the Japanese understand the elements. And the power of simply listening to the sound of water trickling over rocks, the importance of feng shui—the arrangement of objects in space, and the necessity for a meditative space to quiet one’s mind.
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| I'm down with water and plants and soil. This, is peace. |
I think the answer was drifting down the stream through the gardens. Taniguchi understood the meaning of peace and peace-giving environments. This Garden was for me the epitome of peace and tranquility. But it was also a reminder that peace is not always political. He emigrated to the U.S. and retired only twenty years after the U.S. established Japanese internment camps (1942-45). His answer to political and social problems was finding inner peace and appreciating nature. This, I think, is exactly what I needed to learn and appreciate at this time in my rebellious protest-prone state of mind.
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