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New Leeds temple is oasis for stressed workers
Solicitor Sian Thompson has a novel way of coping with stress at work.
She leaves her desk, walks downstairs and meditates in the Buddhist temple underneath her office.
The oasis of calm has been set up in the heart of the Leeds business quarter in St Paul's Street.
Just yards from where fraught lawyers and accountants pace during their lunch hours, it is the new base of the Jamyang Buddhist Centre.
Inside the ground-floor room, which the group rent from Simpson Millar LLP, you can meditate on just how far your share price has fallen as you breathe in incense and admire the colourful thankas – banners – on the walls.
Sian, of Wakefield, said: "Up here in my office it is high pressure and pretty intense. I haven't used the centre as a little hide away yet during lunch.
"But it's brilliant after work to be able to go downstairs and switch off."
The 38-year-old, who has been a Buddhist for three years, added: "I was helping to look for a new base for the centre and my boss said 'how about the space downstairs?'.
"Simpson Millar are very supportive of anything charitable or community-based in general."
The Jamyang Buddhist Centre Leeds was set up in 1996. It belongs to the Tibetan Mahayana tradition headed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
On Saturday founding director David Midgley and Viscount David Lascelles will be at a blessing to be carried out by Tibetan monk Geshe Tashi Tsering, one of the foremost teachers of Tibetan Buddhism in Europe.
Centre director Wendy Ridley said: "People can call in after work and learn to meditate which is a useful life skill in the present economic climate.
"They'll also get cups of tea and biscuits and someone to talk to.
"As we're now in central Leeds, five minutes from Leeds train station, the meditation classes and Buddhist study courses we offer are very accessible to people from all over the city and west Yorkshire."
A stone statue called Buddha Walking Toward the City and weighing 120kg had to be moved from the old headquarters in Armley's Whingate Business Centre.
The Venerable Mary Reaney, who leads meditation, said: "It was priceless when we took the Buddha down from Armley. We brought it by van and then it took four people to carry it in.
"It's carved from the same stone as the monastery and sacred Buddhist images in Borobudur in Indonesia.
"You should have seen people's faces as they walked past it when it was stood outside in the street."
Meditation is free, although donations are accepted, and available daily from 6pm to 6.45pm and 7pm to 8pm.
For more details call 07866 760460, e-mail smile@jamyangleeds.co.uk or click on www.jamyangleeds.co.uk.
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Weather for Leeds
Friday 10 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -9 C to 1 C
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Wind direction: South east
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Temperature: -2 C to -1 C
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