Incredible Japanese crystal garden with four Koi fish ponds hidden behind ordinary-looking Nottinghamshire home
AN INCREDIBLE Japanese crystal garden that took 45 years to make has been hiding behind a modest home.
These photos show the amazing "Pure Land Meditation Centre and Japanese Garden" which has been created by a former Monk in Nottinghamshire.
Koji Takeuchi, who refers to himself as Buddha Maitreya, has lovingly crafted the two-acre wonderland with four fish ponds.
Maitreya, 79, uses the space to teach visitors about meditation and his beliefs in "the way of oneness".
But the garden may never have happened as the 79-year-old admitted he never planned on staying when he arrived in North Clifton 45 years ago.
He said: “I came here on the way to America from Japan.
"I had no intention of staying here 45 years ago when I arrived.
“There were a lot of ‘new age seekers’ back then and I became a meditation teacher with a lot of followers from all over the country.
“I was in Mansfield temporarily at the time. And we were looking for a place where we could create the garden and when I found this it was just two acres of wild field that I thought could be the right place.”
Maitreya began turning the land into a garden because he wanted to “make a peaceful environment and thought back to the gardens in Japan”.
It now attracts 10,000 visitors every year and has become an unofficial tourist attraction.
He added: “Every year it becomes more and more refined. Even in the winter, there’s lots of trimming, racking and cutting to do.
“You need to prepare well in the winter for a good summer so there’s lots of work to do.”
His principle of ‘oneness’ opposes the ideas of dualism or karma found in many religions from the East.
This principle sees everything in the world as “born divine”, with Buddha manifested in all people.
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Maitreya said: "I see myself as enlightened because I’m able to see how everything is born divine in this world. With meditation you can realise that.
“Nature is magnificent in it’s true form but we do not see it so much in this man-made world.”
Maitreya has also created two gardens in India which he visits twice a year.
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