BUDDHIST leaders are to bring their teachings to Gloucester over the course of 2013 and reporter Mike Wilkinson went along to find out about the city's very own Buddhist movement.
HAVING a 300-year-old Himalayan bowl on my head is quite an experience.
Buddhist follower Jan van der Elsen, who runs the Sula Lightship in Gloucester Docks, strikes the bowl and it creates an incredible, mesmerising sound.
The sounds that these bowls create help to focus my 'monkey mind', the part of the brain that Buddhists believe needs to be kept busy to allow for successful meditation.
This all happens in the belly of one of the UK's last remaining nine lightships.
She sits comfortably in the Docks and is the home to Jan and his wife Agnes, who together run meditation classes and holistic experiences.
"When we came to Gloucester we saw that there was nothing like this here already," Jan says. "That's how the idea began and now it's really taken off.
"We have people coming in at lunchtime on their break asking for a bit of space.
"At first people come in and want to know more about us and what we do but then they start to tell you more about why they are here."
And it seems Gloucester's Buddhist movement is set to grow in the New Year.
Jan and Agnes are planning to bring in Buddhist leaders each month to talk about their branch of Buddhism.
"It is about helping people to understand what Buddhism offer," says Jan.
But it's not only Buddhist teachers that will be on offer.
Meditation classes for children and sessions for teenagers will be running.
The pair believe that the sessions can help youngsters with behavioural problems.
Jan said: "We ran some pilot sessions and there were two kids who were over-active and another girl who was in her own world but after just two sessions they were like different people."
And for the ordinary Gloucester resident, like me, this place offers a unique, tranquil zone which I will be sure to be revisit in 2013.
