Ryōan-ji Temple is a Zen temple located in northwest Kyoto. It belongs to the Myōshin-ji school of the Rinzai branch of Zen Buddhism. The Ryōan-ji garden is considered one of the finest surviving examples of kare-sansui (“dry landscape”).

The temple’s name is synonymous with the temple’s famous Zen garden, the karesansui (dry landscape) rock garden, thought to have been built in the late 15th century.

The garden is a rectangle of twenty-five meters by ten meters. Placed within it are fifteen stones of different sizes, carefully composed into five groups; one group of five stones, two groups of three, and two groups of two stones. The stones are surrounded by white gravel, carefully raked daily by the monks. The only vegetation in the garden is some moss around the stones.

The visitors sit on a wooden platform and observe the garden in silence as in meditation.