These days it’s hard to find space in our lives for introspection or meditation. But it gets a bit easier when we have a physical space that welcomes them. A Japanese garden can be such a sanctuary. Where Western gardens with their well-ordered rows symbolize victories over nature—real or hoped for—their Zen-inspired counterparts in the East remind us that nature will have the ultimate say. The often whimsical play of shapes and colors in these gardens seeks not to mimic the natural world directly, but to evoke its essence and its harmonies. These images capture this enchanting spirit.