Searching For Your Outer Zen

Zen is philosophy that was born out of Mahayanna Buddhism in the 11th Century. It puts less emphasis on ancient religious practices and focuses on meditation, selflessnes and unity in the universe.
There are 7 pillars of Zen: kenos (simplicity) ; fukinsei (assymmetry) ; Koko (austere sublimity) ; shizen (naturalness) ; datsuzoku (unconventionality) ; sei-jaku (tranquility) and yugen (profound grace).
These principles are also followed in Japanese dry gardens or Japanese rock gardens, more commonly know as Zen gardens. 
A zen garden is a distinctive style of Japanese garden - it creates a miniature stylised landscape through carefully composed arrangement of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees and bushes, and uses gravel or sand that is raked (to represent ripples in water) and are commonly found at temples or monasteries.
A Zen garden is usually small, surrounded by a wall or building, and is usually meant to be seen while seated from a single viewpoint outside the garden, such as the porch of a hojo, the residence of the chief monk of the temple or monastery. Many, with gravel rather than grass, are only stepped on for maintenance. They are intended to imitate the essence of nature, not its actual appearance, and so serve as an aid for meditation.
Unfortunately, monasteries and temples were in short supply on today's solo local photographic safari when I went searching for an image, so this scene was not taken from the porch of a chief monk's hojo as this particular miniature stylised landscape actually consists of some stepping stones and a minuscule trampoline set into the ground at one of our local playgrounds next to a climbing frame, which for some reason I immediately envisaged as a zen garden when I crouched down to get this shot whilst trying not to fall backwards onto some muddy ground. But I still think I might have just about managed to still include some of those seven zen principles! :-)