The Golden Leaves

Once a Zen master was teaching the art of gardening to the king of Japan. After years of teaching, he said, “Now I am leaving. I will come any day and see your garden. That will be the examination of what you have learnt so far.” And he added, “Whatever you have learnt, go on practising in your palace garden.”

For three years, the king had used nearly one thousand gardeners to implement everything in the minutest detail. The garden was cleaned, everything was put exactly right, as it should be, no error, no mistake…

One day, the master came. The king was very happy because whatever the master had said, had been absolutely fulfilled; it was impossible to find any fault. But the master looked at the garden and became very serious, which was not natural to the master. He was a man of laughter. He became sad.

As they moved into the garden he became more and more serious and the king started feeling a little trembling inside. Was he going to fail? What had gone wrong? The silence of the master was too heavy. Finally, the king asked, “What is the matter? I have never seen you so serious. I was thinking you would be immensely happy that your disciple had worked hard.”

The master said, “Everything is right but where are the golden leaves? I don’t see any dead leaves, yellow leaves fluttering in the wind. The garden looks dead without that. There is no song, no dance. The garden looks very artificial."

The king had removed all the dead leaves, not only from the ground but even from the plants and trees. He had never thought of it, that death is also part of life, that it is not its opposite but its complementary, that without it there would be no life. And certainly, the master was right. Yes, the garden was beautiful, but it looked as if it were a merely a painting, not alive.