Zen Garden at Japanese Buddhist Centre

About Zen Garden at Japanese Buddhist Centre

The garden at Three Wheels Shin Buddhist Temple does not have flowers since it is a pure Japanese Zen Garden. It is surrounded by trees and bushes outside a cob wall set on a Welsh granite base and capped with Cumbrian slate. It is viewed from an oak-framed wattle and daub shelter with a Norfolk reed thatched roof. The garden itself consists of twelve large and small rocks of various colours and textures, from Cumbria, Scotland and Ireland, set in islands of moss and surrounded by a sea of grey granite gravel raked in a stylised wave pattern.
A visit to the garden of The Three Wheels Shin Buddhist Temple provides a complete Japanese experience of a kind not to be found elsewhere in Britain. Designed to encourage quiet meditation, it reflects, but is not copied from, such Zen gardens as that of the Temple of Ryoanji in Kyoto.

Visitors will be told about the principles and symbolism underlying its construction and there will also be the opportunity to take part in a Japanese tea ceremony demonstration for those who wish to do so. Those who might wish to return are welcome to do so by appointment.

Talk on the Zen garden between 3-4pm. Buddha Room open to public.