CANTON — There's a hidden corner of Zen on St. Lawrence University's campus.

Tucked in a residence hall quad is the college's recently completed Japanese-style garden, where lanterns dot an ordered landscape.

"It's a real synthesis of science and spirit. We want it to be a community sort of place," said Catherine H. Shrady, chairwoman of SLU's geology department. "It's this hidden little courtyard with its own microclimate."

After visiting Kyoto, Japan, with eight students and religious studies professor Mark W. MacWilliams, she helped design and complete the garden this fall. It is in the courtyard of Sykes Residence Hall.

"We wanted to have a real living/learning environment on campus," Mr. MacWilliams said.

To that end, the garden reflects an understanding of both Zen Buddhist symbology as well as north country plants and minerals. Half of the space has been transformed into karesansui, or traditional dry rock gardens.

The "yang" side of the rock garden features a 6-ton center stone, surrounded by six other rocks in a gravel bed that will be raked into patterns.

"The huge center stone is 'shumisen,' or the mountain at the center of the world with the cosmos around it," Mr. MacWilliams said. "The Buddha inhabits the top. We chose this stone because it almost looks like a sitting Buddha in a cross-legged posture."

Because the stones are orthocites from the Adirondacks, the rock garden also has ties to the north country mountains, Ms. Shrady said.

Mounds of dirt covered in mosses and plants dot the raked gravel on the "yin" side of the rock garden. Representing "islands" in an "ocean of suffering," the mounds are shaped to evoke earth symbols like the turtle and crescent moon, Mr. MacWilliams said.

"It's a voluptuous landscape," Ms. Shrady said.

People can contemplate the karesansui from a pathway of meandering cobblestones handpicked from a local quarry. That's paralleled by a channel of smooth gray rocks to divide humanity's steps from the rock garden, which is considered divine space.

On the other side of the quad, the pair of professors created kaiyu-shiki, or strolling gardens. There, a large lantern modeled after those at the famous Kasuga Shrine in Naga, Japan, will illuminate ferns and small trees. Three large garnet stones from Gore Mountain frame the plantings.

A shaded moss garden sits next to a dry "stream" made of pebbles, which is lined with small Yakimi lanterns.

"With the stream, crossing over means death, so we divide the far side with memorial lanterns," Ms. Shrady said. "We really want it to be a place for meditation and contemplation."

The strolling garden also includes several species of trees and bushes that will be "trained" into angular forms like bonsai. Finally, a traditional flat stone at one end is meant to be the seat from which to view all of the gardens and meditate.

The professors hope the garden will be used as a "living classroom." Geology students will go there to examine the different types of rocks, while the mosses and other plants are of interest to biologists. Finally, Mr. MacWilliams said, students of philosophy and religion will use it to learn about East Asian aesthetics.