One of the world’s foremost garden designers, Shunmyo Masuno explains how his work is intertwined with his own spiritual journey
Image by Chester Ong
As anyone who has been there will be aware, the city of Kyoto is replete with inspirational scenes.
Japan’s former capital and its spiritual centre is the country’s traditional persona writ large. Beautiful temples meditate peacefully in leafy glades and by tranquil lakes while in historic enclaves such as Gion it is still possible to observe immaculately presented geisha scurrying between secret liaisons.
For Shunmyo Masuno, it was another famous Kyoto signature – its sublime temple gardens – that set him on the path to becoming one of the world’s most sought-after landscape architects.
“My family visited Kyoto when I was in elementary school,” recalls Masuno, who rounds out his design work with duties as head priest at Kenko-ji temple in Yokohama and professor at Tama Art University in Tokyo. “I was blown away by the beauty of the stone garden in Ryo-anji temple and the dry landscape garden in Daisen-in temple. It was the first time in my life I had seen such beauty and I was totally captivated.
“At the same time I wondered why Kenko-ji temple, where I was born and grew up in, had no beautiful gardens. How could the Zen temples in Kyoto have such stupendous landscape gardens? I experienced a kind of cultural shock.”
Spellbound by the ancient tenets of Zen landscaping – an expression of thoughts through gardens, rocks and trees – the young Masuno became obsessed with sketching out his design ideas at high school. His first project was the realisation of the dream that had been nurtured on that formative family trip to Kyoto. Working with an elder mentor, garden designer Katsuo Saito, he set about reimagining the garden at Kenko-ji where his father was the head priest.
That informal apprenticeship was bolstered by a university education in the natural environment as well as Zen training from his father. After completing his studies he founded his company Japan Landscape Consultants and took on the role as assistant priest at Kenko-ji.
Combining the roles of company director, master designer, professor and Zen priest may sound like a heavy burden to take on. Masuno, however, credits his Zen schooling for a methodical yet meditative approach to life and creativity.
“In Zen, zazen, or meditative discipline, plays a central role,” he explains. “Zen is the state where one finds his/her original self and its ultimate goal is to calm the soul and experience the truths and reasons that prevail in the world. Buddha lies in the heart, which gives us all the more reason to practice discipline through zazen.”
Masuno’s dedication to his work has helped him become arguably Japan’s foremost garden designer – no mean feat in a nation that is known for its advanced aesthetic sensibilities.
He has over 50 gardens to his name, his work instilling a sense of Zen calm and beauty at residential, commercial and municipal projects at home in Japan and overseas. Big name commissions include gardens at the One Kowloon office building in Hong Kong, the Canadian Museum of Civilisation in Ottawa and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo.
Although his services are constantly in demand, nobody could call Masuno prolific. He insists on hands-on involvement in all his projects, and makes every effort to keep his lofty reputation burnished. To that end he only takes on two or three projects per year.
The process of building a garden can also be painstaking. Masuno and his team go to great lengths to find exactly the right materials for every project. For the garden at One Kowloon, for instance, he travelled to the southern island of Shikoku in Japan to choose the diamond-granite boulders he wanted from Gokenzan Mountain. It is little wonder then that his projects generally take around three years from conception to completion.
Image by Taku Imai
“Japanese gardens must express the underlying spirit that prevails in any given space,” he explains. “One does not design concepts like wabi (the avocation of enjoyment of a quiet life) or sabi (the connotation of melancholy) out of nothing. Careful consideration is given to the existing landscape and trees and also to how adding materials will impact this balance.”
Although he has achieved huge success in his career and is one of the world’s most bankable garden designers, Masuno remains something of an ascetic. When he is not travelling the world to oversee his projects or lecturing he can generally be found at home at Kenko-ji where he begins his daily routine by opening the temple doors at 4.30am. He meditates, chants scriptures and cleans his living environment before settling down to his design duties for the rest of the day. After eating dinner with his family he goes to bed every night without fail at 11pm. It is this discipline, he says, that helps inform his calming design creations.
“I cannot be a landscape designer without being a resident priest at the same time and vice versa,” he says. “Designing gardens, to me, is a means of engaging in a Zen task and I regard my work as a part of my spiritual training. In Japan we believe that there is a spirit in each stone and plant. This is a belief based on Buddhist teachings. How can I bring out the spirit that lies within? I am always questioning how I want the viewers to feel when they gaze over one of my gardens.
“I express Zen principles in my garden spaces. That is why I am indivisibly a Zen priest and a landscape designer.”
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Source : property-report.com
Read more…Zen and the art of landscape gardening
