Koji Takeuchi

Maitreya (Koji Takeuchi) was born and brought up in Handa, Japan, near Nagoya. During the difficult teens he began a desperate search for truth which first led him to Christianity. But the church's approach could not give him the direct experience of Jesus that he was looking for and so he turned to meditation with the hope of personal contact with the truth. And so it was that he found himself on a week's meditation course for lay people at a monastery one summer where he had the experience 'Enlightenment' through his total sacrifice and dedication that was to firmly lay down the foundations for his life as a meditation teacher. In the moment of 'Enlightenment', he saw the absolute perfection and beauty intrinsic in all things and all beings, the essence of Life. The clarity and joy of that experience and its profundity gave rise to the strong wish to share this with everyone by helping them to experience it too by means of simple meditation.

Maitreya, for the purpose of becoming a meditation master, went on to university to complete an MA degree in Buddhist Theology and lived the life of a Zen monk for a time. But he felt the monastic life was too harsh, rigid and out of date. Maitreya left Japan to spend a year in Thailand, then went travelling in India and Nepal where he began teaching meditation for a few years.

Through the invitation of a friend he came to England. He stayed in various centres and universities around the country, Reading University, Cambridge University and Lancaster University, etc., teaching and lecturing. It was whilst staying in Teversal in Nottingham he came across a property for sale in North Clifton which became a base from which to teach meditation.

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About the "Nature's Heart" album:

"The songs on this album hold the heart of the great teachers of the world. Jesus' love, Buddha's peace, Lao Tsu's Tao, Zen's one-ness, and the essence of what I teach, "sit and be", simple but direct approach to the truth. "Life", that becomes nature, all creation and all beings. Life is wonder. If you call Life divine, everything in nature is divine, and every human being on this planet, sacred.

We are all one in the grand harmony of the universe. Awakening to it is enlightenment. To be here is a miracle, to be a human being is a blessing. We can give nothing but praise to Life. Human life is sharing pure joy. Loving is living.

My songs, "Nature's Heart", is my way of expressing the truth, love and beauty of nature and human life in music. It would be my great joy if this album would bring peace in your mind and love to your heart."

Maitreya
April 2010

Click here to visit the Koji Takeuchi website.