Sitting at the foothills of a mountain northwest of Kyoto is Ryoanji, a Zen temple built over 500 years ago. Queen Elizabeth II once visited the Zen temple to see its famous rock garden.

In place of soil is a sea of white gravel. In place of plants are fifteen stones of different sizes. Filling the air is stillness.

Fifteen stones.

The number fifteen is a symbol of completion. One can look to the moon to see the tangent; it takes 15 days for an invisible moon to become full moon.

But here’s the catch. There is no vantage point where you can see all fifteen stones at once. As if the garden is secretly teaching us that we can never be complete. Inviting us to accept that we will always be incomplete.