A rectangle of raked gravel with fifteen stones, designed some five hundred years ago by someone whose name no one knows, became one of the most contemplated objects in Japanese art and an obsession for Western musicians, philosophers and businessmen. Twelve stops through the Zen temples of Kyoto: the tiger crossing the water, the philosopher's path, the silver pavilion that was never silvered, the hermit who invented a sound, the tea master condemned because of a statue, a river of stone, a hidden cross, the burned golden pavilion, the garden of fifteen stones, the impossible catfish, the garden of a repentant traitor and the moss temple. Approximate audio duration: 20 minutes.
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El zen de Kioto: quince piedras que nadie logra ver juntas
Un rectángulo de grava rastrillada con quince piedras, diseñado hace unos quinientos años por alguien cuyo nombre nadie conoce, se convirtió en uno de los objetos más contemplados del arte japonés y en una obsesión para músicos, filósofos y empresarios de Occidente. Doce paradas por los templos zen de Kioto: el tigre que cruza el agua, el sendero del filósofo, el pabellón de plata que nunca fue plateado, el ermitaño que inventó un sonido, el maestro del té condenado por una estatua, un río de piedra, una cruz escondida, el pabellón de oro incendiado, el jardín de las quince piedras, el pez gato imposible, el jardín de un traidor arrepentido y el templo del musgo. Duración aproximada de audio: 20 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~20 min of audio · 23.87 km on foot (~6 h walking) · about 6 h 30 min in total
You are in front of the great wooden gate of Nanzen-ji, one of the most important Zen temples in Japan. If you climb to the upper floor, you will see all of Kyoto among the trees.
According to kabuki theatre, the legendary sixteenth-century thief Ishikawa Goemon hid in this gate, gazing down on the city and exclaiming: what a magnificent view. He was boiled alive for his crimes.
Go into the abbot's residence and look for the dry garden. Raked white gravel, a few rocks, pruned trees. The garden is called tiger cubs crossing the water.
There is no water. There are no tigers. The gravel is the…
2
The Path of the Man Who Thought While Walking
You are on the Philosopher's Path, a stone walkway of about two kilometres following a narrow canal under cherry trees. In spring it is a tunnel of blossom. The rest of the year, a quiet place.
It is named after Kitaro Nishida, the most important Japanese philosopher of the twentieth century. He taught at Kyoto University and walked here every day, thinking.
Nishida practised Zen meditation for years and studied Western philosophy in depth: Kant, Hegel, William James. His great project was to explain, with Western tools, an intuition of Zen: pure experience, before the mind separates subject…
3
The Silver Pavilion Without Silver
You are at Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion. Look at the two-storey dark wooden building beside the pond. It has not a gram of silver. It never did.
It was built from 1482 for Ashikaga Yoshimasa, a shogun who ruled while Kyoto burned. The Onin War, between 1467 and 1477, destroyed much of the city. Yoshimasa withdrew to this hillside and devoted himself to art.
He was a terrible ruler and an extraordinary patron. Around him were born the tea ceremony, flower arranging, refined noh theatre and the architecture of the Japanese house.
Look at the white sand garden in front of the pavilion: a se…
4
The Samurai Who Chose Silence
Sit on the tatami of Shisen-do and look at the garden: raked white sand, azaleas clipped into round shapes, trees behind. Now listen: every so often there is a dry knock, tok, of bamboo against stone.
The sound comes from a shishi-odoshi, a bamboo tube that fills with water, tips, empties and strikes a stone as it swings back. It was invented to scare deer and boar from the garden. It is attributed to the man who built this place.
Ishikawa Jozan was a samurai of Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1615, at the siege of Osaka, he disobeyed the order not to attack first and threw himself into battle. He won g…
5
The Statue That Killed a Tea Master
You are in front of the great red gate of Daitoku-ji, a complex of more than twenty Zen temples. Look at the upper floor of the gate. That is where one of the most tragic stories in Japanese culture began.
The upper floor was paid for in 1589 by Sen no Rikyu, the great master of the tea ceremony. Rikyu brought tea to its purest form: minimal rooms, imperfect bowls, exact gestures. The wabi you saw at Ginkaku-ji, turned into ritual.
He was tea master to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the most powerful man in Japan. Hideyoshi, of peasant origin, loved luxury: he had a tea room covered in gold. Rikyu stoo…
6
A River of Stone That Tells a Life
You are at Daisen-in, a sub-temple of Daitoku-ji. Its dry garden, from the early sixteenth century, is one of the oldest in Japan. And unlike others, it tells a story.
Follow it with your eyes. At the top, in one corner, tall rocks form a mountain and a waterfall: it is the source of a river. The white gravel flows down like water between the stones, passes under a stone bridge and around a boat carved from rock.
The river widens, grows calm and ends in a great sea of empty gravel, with two mounds of sand.
The monks interpret it as the path of a life: birth in the mountain, turbulent youth,…
7
A Cross Hidden in a Zen Garden
You are at Zuiho-in. The front garden is a sea of gravel raked into waves breaking against a peninsula of moss and rocks. It was designed in 1961 by Mirei Shigemori, the great twentieth-century renewer of the Zen garden.
Now go to the back garden and look carefully at the stones. Seven rocks are arranged to form a Christian cross.
The temple was founded in 1535 by Otomo Sorin, a feudal lord from Kyushu. Years later Otomo converted to Christianity, was baptised by the Jesuits and took the name Francisco.
In the sixteenth century tens of thousands of Japanese converted to Catholicism. Then ca…
8
The Pavilion a Monk Burned
There it is: Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion, reflected in the pond. The two upper floors are covered in gold leaf. It is the most reproduced image of Kyoto.
It was built from 1397 by Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, grandfather of the shogun of the silver pavilion, as a retirement villa. On his death it became a Zen temple. It survived wars, earthquakes and fires for more than five hundred years.
On 2 July 1950 a twenty-one-year-old novice monk set it on fire. The original pavilion burned completely. The monk was arrested in the nearby hills. He had tried to kill himself.
The writer Yukio Mishima turn…
9
The Fifteen Stones
Sit on the wooden veranda of Ryoan-ji. In front of you is a rectangle of white gravel about twenty-five metres by ten, enclosed by an earthen wall. On the gravel, fifteen stones in five groups, with a little moss. Nothing else.
Count them. From any point on the veranda you will see fourteen. There is always one hidden behind another. It is said that only someone who reaches enlightenment can see all fifteen at once.
No one knows for sure who designed it or what it means. It probably dates from the late fifteenth century. There are theories for every taste: a tigress crossing a river with her…
10
Catching a Catfish With a Gourd
You are at Myoshin-ji, the largest Zen complex in Kyoto: more than forty smaller temples within a single precinct. It is the head temple of thousands of temples across Japan. Go into Taizo-in.
This temple holds a famous painting: a man beside a stream tries to catch a catfish with a gourd. The fish is slippery; the gourd is round with a narrow mouth. It is impossible.
It was painted by a monk, Josetsu, in the early fifteenth century, commissioned by the shogun. It is one of the oldest ink paintings in Japan. The original is in the national museum; a copy can be seen here.
Above the painting…
11
The Garden of a Repentant Traitor
You are at Tenryu-ji, in Arashiyama. In front of the abbot's hall lies a pond with rocks, pines and, behind it, the mountains. The garden incorporates the distant mountains as if they were part of it. It is a technique called borrowed scenery.
This is one of the oldest gardens in Japan to keep its original form. It was designed in the fourteenth century by Muso Soseki, a Zen monk and great garden designer.
The temple's story is one of guilt. In 1339 Ashikaga Takauji, who had betrayed Emperor Go-Daigo to found his own shogunate, ordered this temple built to pray for the dead emperor's soul. I…
12
The Garden That Time Finished
You are at Saiho-ji, the moss temple. To get in you must request permission in advance, and before seeing the garden every visitor copies a Buddhist sutra with a brush. It is part of the visit.
Then the garden opens up: a pond surrounded by a green carpet of more than a hundred species of moss, beneath tall trees. The light filters through, damp and green.
It was designed in the fourteenth century by the same Muso Soseki of Tenryu-ji. But he did not plant the moss. The moss came by itself, centuries later, when the temple was abandoned after wars and floods. Damp and time covered everything.…
How long does the "Kyoto Zen: Fifteen Stones No One Can See at Once" audio tour take?
It has about 20 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 23.87 km walking route (~6 h on foot). Plan roughly 6 h 30 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Tiger Crossing the Water" (coordinates 35.0112, 135.7937). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Kyoto and pick "Kyoto Zen: Fifteen Stones No One Can See at Once". No account required to start.
