This is a picture of the water basin in my garden in Fargo, in Japanese it is called a tuskubai. This one is a copy of a famous tsukubai that sits near the monks quarters behind the famous Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto, Japan.
Water flows continuously into the small basin. At Buddhist temples in Japan tsukubai are used by visitors to purify themselves by ritual washing of the mouth and hands. The low placement of the basin requires visitors to bend a little to reach the water suggesting supplication and reverence. The shape of the stone, which looks like an old-fashioned Chinese coin, the circle represents heaven (yang) and the square hole represents earth (yin).
The characters, kanji, written on the surface of the stone are read in combination with the square hole in the center.
This is a Zen saying that translates as 'Refrain from attempts to fulfill many hopes and be satisfied with nothing."
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