Stone Gardens

The zen rock gardens are very different from the picture that comes to mind at the term "garden". These gardens are known as "dry landscape" gardens which, according to the Bilingual Dictionary for Japanese Garden Terms, is a miniature landscape composed of carefully arranged rocks, moss, pruned trees and bushes with a ground-cover of gravel or sand that is raked to represent ripples in water. One of the placards we passed also described them this way, "recordings of unaffected landscapes using natural materials to recreate the scene".

Often these gardens are intended as objects of contemplation and can be viewed from a seat outside of the garden. One of these gardens is located in Kyoto on temple grounds and has eleven rocks arranged in such a way that you can never see all eleven rocks except from an aerial view (which is not available). It is said that if you find a way to view all eleven rocks then you have reached enlightenment. The rock map above is not that garden, but is another garden on the grounds of Nijo Castle with a similar pretext. You can see from the placard above that each rock has a name and purpose, yet from every angle, one of the smaller rocks is obscured (as you can sample from the two photos below that I took from two different angles). 

This art form came to Japan almost a millennia ago alongside Buddhism, and has been the subject of classical texts and central to such traditions as the tea ceremony. Some of the most famous of these gardens in Japan are in Kyoto (such as Ryoan-ji) and date back to the fifteenth century. 

Each garden is given an incredible amount of thought to create an atmosphere of tranquility and significance and even to align the structure with the architecture of the surrounding buildings. Within the garden scene, an scene must also be created in which the rocks can symbolize mountains or boats or creatures floating "in the sea of life". Whole texts have been written as instructions in such art.

Here are compilation examples of such gardens (created by other people):

http://www.bestchoiceschools.com/25-most-inspiring-japanese-zen-gardens/

http://www.insidekyoto.com/kyotos-best-zen-gardens

Here is also a documentary on them by NHK (Japan's equivalent of PBS).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0heK1nRIaks