(born 28 February 1953) is a Japanese monk and garden designer. He is chief priest of the

Sōtō Zen Sōtō Zen or is the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (the others being Rinzai and Ōbaku). It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Cáodòng school, which was founded during the Tang dynasty by Dòngshān L ...

temple Kenkō-ji (建功寺), professor at

Tama Art University or is a private art university located in Tokyo, Japan. It is known as one of the top art schools in Japan. History The forerunner of Tamabi was Tama Imperial Art School (多摩帝国美術学校, Tama Teikoku Bijutsu Gakkō) founded in 1935 ...

, and president of a design firm that has completed numerous projects in Japan and overseas. He has been called "Japan's leading garden designer".

Career

Shunmyō Masuno was born in Yokohama as the eldest child of the 17th chief priest of Kenkō-ji. After graduating in 1975 from the Faculty of Agriculture of

Tamagawa University is a Japanese university in Machida, Tokyo, Japan. The university consists of 16 departments in seven faculties (undergraduate), as well as seven programs leading to a master's degree and four programs leading to a doctorate degree. Part of the ...

he continued an apprenticeship in garden design under Katsuo Saitō, who had designed the garden at his father's temple. From 1979 he underwent Zen training at

Sōji-ji is one of two of the Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism. The other is Eihei-ji temple in Fukui Prefecture. ''Fodor's'' calls it "one of the largest and busiest Buddhist institutions in Japan". The temple was founded in 740 as a Shingon Buddhist te ...

, one of the two head temples of the Sōtō school. He founded Japanese Landscape Consultants, his garden design firm, in 1982. He became chief priest of Kenkō-ji in 2000. Since the 1980s he has lectured at universities such as

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teac ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degre ...

, and Harvard. He is a professor in the Department of Environmental Design at

since 1998, and has also taught at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

. Through his firm, he has designed dozens of gardens throughout Japan and around the world. They include traditional designs such as the Japanese garden at Berlin's Erholungspark Marzahn park as well as strikingly contemporary designs such as the ''

karesansui The or Japanese rock garden, often called a zen garden, is a distinctive style of Japanese garden. It creates a miniature stylized landscape through carefully composed arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and u ...

'' garden at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo.

Philosophy

When designing a garden, Masuno first meditates and establishes a dialog with the space. This requires an emptying of the self in order to "hear" the elements of the garden speak. In discussions with the philosopher Koji Tanaka, he explained his perspective on the ethics of gardening, saying that gardening brings about a gentleness in the designer, builder, and caretakers. The garden teaches the suchness or intrinsic value of each thing, the connectedness, harmony, tranquility, and sacredness of the everyday. Developing a sense of respect for all things is no small step in becoming an ethical human being, both with respect to other humans and the environment at large.

Selected publications

* * * * * * *

Notes

References

External links

Japan Landscape Consultants
official site

Interview of Shunmyō Masuno (french and english versions) {{DEFAULTSORT:Masuno, Shunmyō 1953 births Soto Zen Buddhists Zen Buddhist priests Japanese Zen Buddhists Japanese landscape architects Living people People from Kanagawa Prefecture People from Yokohama