“It has been an intense last few months with Bhante being very clear that he wants the situation resolved, with our search budget approaching exhaustion and with the uncertain economic times continuing to support high land prices. Many lovely properties regularly appear with a price tag of six to ten million pounds but our budget is a fraction of that and part of our challenge has been to find a bargain. This means finding a property that is difficult to sell to potential property developers but suitable for our needs and a property that we can afford to run and that can grow over the years to come.
I would like to share with you our current shortlist but, as you’ll understand, as one enters delicate negotiations it is important to be cautious before revealing one’s hand. Suffice to say our current shortlist includes properties in Herefordshire, Denbighshire, and on the Scottish border.
It is possible that within the month we will have secured one of these options and as soon as that happens I will certainly let you know. Of course it is also possible that each of these options could prove unworkable for one reason or another and the search have to continue into the autumn. However it is probably safe to say that our thoughts are increasingly turning towards a programme of events, running costs and, in my case, printing out the great list of estate agent websites and burning it!"
And he goes on to say - “The land project took one great step forward this week. We made our first purchase, not land nor buildings but something even more significant and important. We don’t yet know where the land will be or what the buildings will look like but we do know what the Buddha rupa looks like because it now sits waiting to be ceremonially installed. In fact we now have three Buddha rupas, all carved from volcanic rock and all journeyed from the Indonesian island of Java". Read more from their blog here.