Ginkaku-ji is the second of the two Ashikaga retirement villas turned Zen temples, smaller and more restrained than its golden counterpart. The complex was begun in 1482 by Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa as a country retreat where he could devote himself to the cultivation of tea, Noh, and ink painting — the activities that came to define the Higashiyama bunka (Higashiyama culture) and the entire idea of refined Japanese taste.
The two-storey wooden Kannon pavilion is the centrepiece, but the garden is what stays with you. A sea of carefully raked silver sand (the ginshadan) holds a perfect cone (the kōgetsudai, "moon-viewing platform"); a moss garden climbs the wooded slope behind; a circular pond mirrors the trees. The walking path loops up the hill for a view over the eastern roofs of the city, then down past a clear spring used since the fifteenth century for tea. It is one of the most disciplined gardens in Japan.