Don't worry I can see the light at the end of this very long Kyoto tunnel, just a few more temples and we're outta here. Granted, the shiny gold temple is a lot more immediately appealing then another zen rock garden, but this one at Ryoan-ji is kind of cool because it's got a little game attached to keep you occupied. In this wide field of gravel, there are fifteen rocks scattered around. The key to the "game" is that for Japanese Buddhists, the number fifteen represents completeness. But the trick here is the rocks are so placed that from the viewing platform at the end of the garden, everywhere you walk, you can only see fourteen rocks, and when you move, a new rock appears just as one of the other rocks hides behind another. So you're always seeing an incomplete fourteen. You need a total view of the garden to see the completeness, but in our temporary world, you'll only have an incomplete sense of what the real picture is. Pretty deep, no?

While I appreciate the whole zen aesthetic, sometimes Zen can be a little, well, Zenn-y, and this sand garden is a good example. It's a big field of sand, carefully raked every day, with a mound of sand off to the side (the pic at right). It's a temple highlight, but it doesn't really hold my attention, and judging by the number of turned backs and people hurrying by in the picture, I don't think I'm alone in this.