5 A comment from the heart of zen

So, in gardens, we come close to the heart of zen, to the contact with life which shows it to us as orderly and uncontrollable, wild and cultivated, dispassionate and unkempt.
In the greatest buildings, and in the greatest art, this quality may also be expressed. But it is in gardens, above all, that most of us have an opportunity to express it at an ordinary level, to try it, practice it, see it in the life of the world around us, and to bring our own nature — so easily sent off the rails by an unbalanced position — into harmony with natural things.
It needs formality as a backdrop. But within formality it needs a kind of freedom, not to make things up-tight — so that they are regular, ordered, and yet open to the wild grass and the falling leaves and the blowing irises.

#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/7 The Character of Gardens#