Catching Up With the Temple We Missed This Morning

Fortified with lunch, the three of us head back out to the skipped Ryoanji Temple to see the Zen Rock Garden or "Dry Landscape Garden" and rest of the complex.

There was a 30-minute wait for personal Goshuin,
so I opted for a pre-written slip of paper to place in my book

Ryoan-ji was built on the grounds of a villa of the Fujiwara clan in the Heian period (794-1185). The deputy of the shogun and warlord Hosokawa Katsumoto bought the estate in 1450 and built his residence on it, together with the temple Ryōan-ji.

The Rock Garden. Along with its origins, the meaning of the garden is unclear.
Some believe that the garden represents the common theme of a tiger carrying cubs
across a pond or of islands in a sea, while others claim that the garden represents
an abstract concept like infinity.

 Near the teahouse is a famous stone water basin, with water continually flowing for ritual purification. This is the Ryōan-ji tsukubai, which translates as "crouch"; because of the low height of the basin, the user must bend over to use it, in a sign of reverence and humility. The kanji written on the surface of the stone basin, 五, 隹, 止, 矢, are without significance when read alone. Though the water basin's frame is circular, the opening in the circular face is itself a square (口). If each of the four kanji is read in combination with 口 (the square-shaped radical is pronounced kuchi, meaning "mouth" or "aperture"), which the square opening is meant to represent, then the characters become 吾, 唯, 足, 知. This is read as "ware, tada taru (wo) shiru", which translates literally as "I only sufficiency know" (吾 = ware = I, 唯 = tada = merely, only, 足 = taru = be sufficient, suffice, be enough, be worth, deserve, 知 = shiru = know)[16] or, more poetically, as "I know only satisfaction". Intended to reinforce Buddhist teachings regarding humility and the abundance within one's soul, the meaning is simple and clear: "one already has all one needs". (Wikipedia)

The top left red stamp on the Goshuin is a representation of this kanji written on the surface of the basin. 

Now we took the bus to see if Nijojo has any smaller lines... alas, No.

So back to the hotel to get ready for the theatre.