Episode 6: Zen Rock Garden

This morning when I got into work and went to get my hot water for my tea, I saw somebody had put up a Zen rock garden for adoption. I'd always thought about getting one, but was too cheap to spend $20 on some rocks and sand, so I thought this was perfect and adopted it.

After settling in with my tea, I sat down and read the little booklet on the history behind Zen rock gardens. Apparently I'm supposed to be able to look at it, contemplate things and somehow find myself. The stark contrast between the white sand and the dark rocks are supposed to kind of jolt you and entice you to reach within for a deeper emotion or response.

So now I'm sitting here, about 6 hours later, looking at the gardening I did on it this morning, and I'm realizing that I'm a perfectionist haha. Throughout the day I've been looking at it and fighting the itch to completely re-do the gardening/raking because the circle I made around my rock touches the wavy rakes I did in a funky location.

If I redo it, the circle and wave would not touch, instead they would complement each other's lines... It's actually really starting to bug me haha.

I guess the Zen rock garden really does work. I've re-learned somethign about myself. I knew I was a perfectionist already, but this is pretty bad after all :)