Part of the design in Yokō-en Garden is Taizō-in Temple’s answer to the question of the slimy catfish posed in the Hyōnen-zu scroll.
As you walk around, please think about what that could be.

This garden was completed in 1965, but until then it was a thicket of tall bamboo called moso. Flowers bloom and wilt on moso bamboo over a span of 60 to 100 years. It was my grandfather, the head monk at the time, who cut down all of the bamboo to make a garden.

Hoping to make the garden look a bit bigger, we requested the design from Kinsaku Nakane, who worked on the Japanese gardens at the Adachi Museum of Art in Shimane Prefecture and at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He was revered as a great garden designer of the Shōwa Period (1926-1989). As a whole, the garden is constructed on a gentle slope, with the elevation gradually rising the farther one goes inside.

The garden is also encompassed by trees that grow in height and width the deeper into the garden one goes so the garden looks bigger than it actually is. Visitors often think they are seeing Yokō-en Garden from above before they approach the pond, but once they draw nearer, they see a completely different view. Perhaps this is yet another expression of how all things are multifaceted.

Yokō-en Garden boasts seasonal flowers, such as camellia, weeping sakura, hydrangea, and Chinese bellflowers. This is peculiar for a Zen Buddhist temple, because, as in Motonobu-no-Niwa Garden, flowers are not normally planted in a Zen garden. In contrast, Yokō-en Garden changes with the seasons and is intended to illustrate the impermanence of things.

So, what in this garden answers Hyōnen-zu’s question about the slimy catfish?
That would be the pond, which is shaped like a hyōnen or gourd. There are two catfish living here, though because they are nocturnal you may not see them during the day. This is our unique answer to the question posed by the Hyōnen-zu scroll. I suppose there are not many who would find themselves at this conclusion!

So, what in this garden answers Hyōnen-zu’s question about the slimy catfish?

That would be the pond, which is shaped like a hyōnen or gourd. There are two catfish living here, though because they are nocturnal you may not see them during the day. This is our unique answer to the question posed by the Hyōnen-zu scroll. I suppose there are not many who would find themselves at this conclusion!