Amie's Portfolio

E603, Fall 2004

Taniguchi Garden Reflections

Prompt: Are you able to concentrate in the Gardens?  What do the Gardens say to you?  What would a Garden constructed in your memorial be like?

Am I able to concentrate here in the Gardens? This depends on what I’m supposed to doing. Am I distracted? That is a question of how I ought to be directing my mind.

These gardens are beautiful, lush, tranquil. The solidarity of rugged stones and rocks compliments the gentle sway of deep green leaves and the constant flow of clear water. While doing the anthology reading, I was hard pressed to believe that Taniguchi spend eighteen months doing nothing but creating this garden. As soon as I stepped inside and caught a glimpse of the intense beauty within, though, I found it hard to conceive of creating such a place in fewer than several years!

I was excited about meditating here, sitting on a rock over a tiny stream. Ah – to sit peacefully and clear my mind! But no sooner did I scope out a spot than did five boisterous children come running and yelling near me. They screamed, they pushed, they littered; still the streams flowed onward. I thought about how much I miss the kids I baby-sit in Dallas; how eager I am to find a family in Austin that needs a baby-sitter… and my mind was gone.

Realizing this, I resented the children for being so loud and distracting. Then, coming to my senses, I determined that I must be glad for the children’s presence – this isn’t my garden, afterall. These children have just as much right as I do to come and learn from its beauty.

My "distraction," I realize, is my desire to lay a claim on the place – to be alone in it, to call it mine. The solution, I think, will be to gladly share the Garden and remember that the noisy children add to its beauty. They are visiting the Garden, and therefore, for this moment, they are a part of it.

The gardens point to another world. Primarily, being here, I’m comforted by the thought that there is a world outside the UT campus, aside form parties and concerts and meetings. Over the past two and a half months, I’ve lost touch with that outside world. My mind has been consumed by clubs and grades, organizations and assignments, concepts from classes and ideas for papers. I live in a burnt-orange bubble. Aside from reading the news and visiting churches, I’m consumed by campus life. Here, in this garden, I sense the exotic beauty of Asia, the lush mystery of a Dominican valley, the peace of "my creek" back home. I don’t feel like I’m in Austin – I should be able to walk out the gate and into the countryside surrounding Nanjing. But here I am, in the heart of Texas – confronted by the fact that an entire world is here, not yet known to me. Millions of people live their lives, hardly giving thought to UT’s presence here. I live my life, unaware of theirs. How can we connect?

I sense these questions as I listen simultaneously to a tranquil brook, cars zooming by outside the fences, and a man with a megaphone in Zilker Park. Over the tips of the bamboo curtain, I see the sky scrapers of downtown. Here I am in my body, and there is the entire rest of the world all around me. Pressing in. Pulling me out.

Uneven grounds speak variation to me. Green leaves soothe me. Rushing water marches on. Rocks remain.

Branches rustle and hiss. Wind tickles my skin. Grass pushes up between heavy rocks, and my bare toes grasp the boulders. Recharged by this place, I wonder what the garden would be like if it had been designed in honor of me…

At first, I determine that any water should either rbe completely at rest and tranquil, or it should be rushing mightily and forcefully. I don’t tend to like things that are "sort of" – for instance, the streams here: they flow sort of quickly, but sort of weakly. I realize that this is a dualism. Why the need for an extreme? I need to work on being at peace with the middle-ground, so long as the middle ground preserves truth.

There’s nothing dishonest about a sort-of-slow-fast steam. So those would be allowed, too. In my garden, no shoes would be allowed. Nor so many paths. There would be one path, which would wind and swirl through many trees and wild things, but people wouldn’t be confined to it. No, I would suggest that they leave the path and climb the trees and feel the grass and love my garden.

I would have very pure water running through it, too – I get thirsty when I write journals about gardens.

My garden would be open in the rain and the cold and the extreme heat – for all these types of weather are real and important and good. Getting wet in the rain would make people want to come to my garden, because then they could feel the rain. And they would love life more because they would feel more.

Thus, my garden would speak to people through their experiencing it, and their knowing my garden with their feet and their heart and their wet hair – not just with their eyes from a cobblestone path.