Courtyard stepping stone design: creating a scene where water and sky merge into one
In classical Chinese gardens, scattered piled stones were often placed on narrow, shallow water surfaces so that people could step across easily. They are called "stepping stones" (tingbu), also known as "duobu" or "tabu". The Yangzhou Huafang Lu also mentions a term "yuelue", and in Japan they are also called "sawatobi". Ming dynasty scholar Wen Zhenheng said in Zhangwuzhi: For small streams and winding gullies, those built with pebbles are best.
Stepping stones may look like just a few simple stone surfaces standing in winding streams, cave gullies and secluded ravines, yet they express the effect of "mountains and waters vast within a foot's reach" and embody a broad, deep and infinite natural atmosphere.
Types of stepping stones:
1. Conventional stepping stones
The use of this ancient water-crossing facility in gardens is plain and natural, with a distinctive charm. Although stepping stones are a minor feature in gardens, this does not mean they are dispensable; on the contrary, they reveal "craftsmanship" even more.
2. Irregular stepping stones
Irregularly arranged stepping stones make this path full of variation. Large or small, high or low, close together or sparse, broken or continuous, they are like music, now gentle, now rapid.
3. Dry-land stepping stones
They seem to be bridges yet not bridges, stones yet not stones: without the form of a bridge, they still carry the meaning of crossing a bridge.
Standing on stepping stones, the sky light above and below merges into one, water and sky reflect each other and become a single color. Is it water mirroring sky, or sky mirroring water? Is it people drawing close to water, or sky drawing close to people? Which is me, which is the object, which is nature? At this moment, whether it is the Daoist "unity of heaven and humanity" or the Zen "unity of Brahma and self" no longer matters. What matters is this: the blending of mind and object, emotion and scene, the oneness of object and self.