Bonsais In Daitaku-ji temple, we saw a Bonsai garden filled with little trees. Bonsai Japanese pines, maples, cedars, and more grew in petite pots that fit in your living room. Their trunks were gnarly and wise, full of old wisdom, covered with the twisty scars of time and pretty moss, which lent the whole Bonsai a slightly fantasy feel. Each little Bonsai was its universe, where little gnomes lived across its levels. Then we looked at the age. Nearly a dozen were 100 years old, half a dozen were 250 years old, and one Bonsai, a little Pine Bonsai in a pot, was 800 years old. 800 years of existence, in that little form and pot! Imagine the patience and the wisdom. The first 400 years of this little tree's life were spent in warring feudal Japan under the control of the Shogun. It lived under 200 years of the Edo period, enjoying relative peace under the imperial rule after the Meiji restoration. It saw a rapidly modernizing Japan get less insular to the outside world until it wore the hat of an imperialist to terrorize its Asian neighbours. It saw the world wars, the atomic bombs and the rise of modern Japan as a technological and cultural tour de force. Imagine all the kings, shoguns, emissaries, poets, master gardeners it had seen. Right now, it witnessed two very average Indians standing before it. That little thing blew my mind big. (From my post: Japan Trip Part 2: Mindfulness, Precision and Smallness) - see reply.