The stones are set in two groups of two stones, two groups of three, and one group of five. Each of these groupings displays one or another of the various Ashikaga garden conventions. Both groups of two stones make explicit use of contrasting shapes between their members, a standard Zen device. One of the pairs is composed of a long, vertical rock set like an upturned blade in the sand, with a companion that is hardly more than a negligible lump, a token foil. The other pair has one sharp-sided vertical stone with a flat plateau as a top, accompanied by a larger round rock which spreads at the base. As has been noted, the Ashikaga gardeners prized flat-topped stones highly because of their resemblance to the angular brushstrokes of certain Zen ink painters. Life, in this case, was made to imitate art, or rather sculptural art was made to imitate the pictorial. Both pairs of stones are situated slightly off the lengthwise axis of the garden, maintaining the asymmetry considered so essential. In the two groups of three stones, the intent is to establish the visual pre-eminence of the largest member and to flank it with two comparatively insignificant smaller stones--usually differentiated in shape and attitude--thereby forming a vertical triangle with the peak of the largest stone representing the apex. This particular arrangement was so common in Ashikaga gardens that it became known as the "three- deity" stone setting, supposedly a pious reference to a Buddhist legend but probably merely a convenient tag for a standardized artistic device. The last grouping is five stones, since arrangements of four were considered too symmetrical by Zen gardeners. In this case, the group is dominated by one large central boulder with four ancillary rocks spread about its base like the feet of a granite beast. Such, in physical terms, is the arrangement of the garden, and when so described it seems undeserving of all the acclaim. Its subjective qualities tell a bit more of the story. It seems clear that the inclination of the stones is intended to evoke a sense of motion, for they have all been placed with their longer axis corresponding to that of the garden. This quality is further enhanced by the practice of raking the sand lengthwise, which makes the observer's eye sweep from left to right or right to left. And although the overall purpose of the garden is to induce mental repose, it has a dynamic tension, such as a high-speed photograph of surging rapids in a mountain stream might catch. But the sand, like the blank spaces in a Chinese ink drawing, is as important as the placement of the stones. The empty areas both emphasize the stones and invite the mind to expand in the cosmological infinity they suggest.