Tsukubai

In Japan, a tsukubai (蹲踞) is a washbasin provided at the entrance to a holy place for visitors to purify themselves by the ritual washing of hands and rinsing of the mouth.

[1] This type of ritual cleansing is the custom for guests attending a tea ceremony[1] or visiting the grounds of a Buddhist temple.

The famous tsukubai shown here stands in the grounds of the Ryōan-ji temple in Kyoto, and was donated by the feudal lord Tokugawa Mitsukuni.

If each is read in combination with 口 (kuchi), the shape of the central bowl, then the characters become 吾, 唯, 足, 知 which translates literally as "I only know plenty" (吾 = ware = I, 唯 = tada = only, 足 = taru = plenty, 知 = shiru = know).

[5] The underlying meaning, variously translated as "what one has is all one needs",[5] or "learn only to be content"[4] reflects the basic anti-materialistic teachings of Buddhism.