_important part played by aesthetic feeling in the enrichment of Japanese life. Among Japanese of all classes, an instinctive awareness of beauty seems to compensate for a standard of well-being which to Western judgement seems poor and bleak. Their habit of finding pleasure in common things, their quick appreciation of form and color, their feelings for simple elegance, are gifts which may well be envied by us who depend so much for our happiness upon quantity of possessions and complexity of apparatus. Such happy conditions, in which frugality is not the enemy of satisfaction, are perhaps the most distinctive features in the cultural history of Japan.4 _ Zen culture, working with the already highly developed vocabulary and capacity for perception developed in the Heian era, unlocked powerful new techniques that have made Japanese culture a special case in the annals of world civilization. Perhaps the best case in point is the stone garden at Ryoan-ji, which is a triumph of pure suggestiveness. It is clearly a symbol--but a symbol of what? It is clearly an invitation to open one's perception--but open it to what? The work gives no hint. With Ryoan-ji Zen artists finally perfected the device of suggestiveness to the point where it could stand on its own. The garden seems almost to be a natural object, like a sunset or a piece of driftwood. The impact of a traditional Zen room is similar. It simply amplifies whatever powers of understanding the viewer already possesses. Of itself it is a void.