Located in Kyoto City’s Ukyo Ward, Shōsei-en Garden is a nationally designated Place of Scenic Beauty that belongs to the precincts of Higashi Honganji Temple. Its management thus far has been based on the garden’s history, but because it is an urban green space, we have redesigned our management concept by focusing on the value it has as an ecological refugia. Specifically, we are striving to recreate the scenery of the natural habitats of elements such as black pines and Japanese maples. We look upon the ongoings of the garden’s plants and animals and the Buddhist concept of “life, aging, illness and death” as forms of Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism’s teaching of “co-resonant life” making up part of the garden’s scenery. To give the future a garden that is even more alluring, we continue to balance “permanence and fashionability” as an effort toward passing down cultural properties to later generations.
