EC Blog Archive for January, 2008

It is Sunday; ten o’clock in the morning and people are ready for the market place to show the results of the meetings. Some groups explain their visions in the funniest ways, some are more serious, but everybody is interested in going through the different points of course preparation. The working part finishes with the presentation of every team in the gompa. Roman from Czech republic is presenting the communication plans, how to make posters, webpage, leaflets and how to distribute all information, Alex from Berchen Ling continuous with the technical plans, Veronika from Czechia is encouraging people from different countries to join the cleaning team, Mendrek from Poland promises to have the international services team, Roland from Spain explains the finance strategy Mishek from Poland from Gompa team is joking about the tents, Gerhard from Germany explains the system of shuttles and transport and Peter from Karma Guen presents the plan how to cook good traditional food for many different countries. Everything goes so smoothly and easily, in fact nobody wants to leave the Europe centre after this weekend.

The final point of the program is very important one, the meditation. If the meetings connected people through the work and plans, good food, party and wine through a nice atmosphere, the meditation definitely connected us with the transmission of the lineage – the source which is as alive as the people continue in the work of our lamas.

After the program the whole Europe Center is cleaned and starts to be emptier. Just the residents stay in the house sitting in the room called museum having glass of wine. Caty is talking about our lamas, stories about Shamarpa, Lopon Chechou and Lama Ole. At the same moment Ole calls. As Caty says, Ole calls every time she speaks here about him. Our lama is very happy about everything what is going on in the centre, smiling in the phone and greeting all our friends…

Yours,
EC Team

It is our first weekend when we came together more than 120 friends here in the EC. The whole house is radiant, with every lamp cleaned, flowers everywhere, and The Buddha, which has found its right place. Only in a couple of days some friends from at least 8 countries have helped to make out of the old villa a beautiful everybody welcoming Diamondway Center – our all center.

So, the Europe Centre is finally opened for people from many different countries, who want to prepare the very first International Summer course 2008. The centre still has limited capacity for accommodation, but it was a big wish of our lama Ole to make this meeting on our own grounds. And the meeting of so many people has really brought the power field of our centers about and made the Europe Centre alive.

In the entrance hall – Czechs, Slovaks, Austrians, Germans, Lithuanians, Danes, Swedes, Finnish, Poles, Russians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Venezuelans, Switzerlands – internationality seems to be an easy task among friends. Somewhere else – a discussion about prices. Should we focus on the ten percent of people who don’t want to pay and thereby try to cheat our idealism? Or will Karma do it? In the basement there is food for everybody arriving at anytime, famous Swedish Thai Soup. On another floor someone is still preparing the coming weekend. In the other corner one is analyzing the different healthy waters from the countries. Balsam, 999 and self made sweet wine is on the agenda :-).

Friends organizing the summer course are discussing how we could manage a course for many people and at the same time make everybody understand that the EC is really welcoming everybody who has made our dream possible. They are also thinking how to represent all nations and how to inspire our Sangha to become worldwide, an issue our Lama is so often talking about.

If the development continues as fast as during the last week, we are all sure we will manage!

Yours,
EC team

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So much is going on in the EC at the beginning of the year!

On the second week people have started to slowly move in, so there are 12 people living here right now. Two couples are staying in the second house and two couples as well as some other friends in the main Villa. Gerge and Caty have moved in for at least four months and Nicolas from Sweden has become the main cook of EC for the next three years.
So in the centre there already are people from Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, Czech republic, Germany and Hungary.

Everyday people from the closest centres are coming to help with cleaning and preparing the EC for the weekend meeting of the summer course organizers.

Unfortunately at the moment visitors cannot stay to live here, because the place is not yet ready to host so many friends, but there is a plan to build a dormitory in the future.

The main changes have happened with the gompa, which was already established in October. Because it was too small, we have decided to move the gompa to the most beautiful and biggest room in the main Villa. In the middle of the room there is already standing the big statue of Buddha Sakyamuni, you all know from the last initiation with Karmapa in Kassel. It will be provisory filled by Caty as soon as possible. There is also a nice place for the library, which we hope will be filled with lama Ole´s books in all languages.

We are right now working on small renovations inside the house. Painting, restoring and renovating the furniture is the everyday program. There is already a kitchen, which provides everybody with food.
We meditate every day together in the morning and at 8 p.m. On Thursday there is a public meditation at the same time. Today we were 45 people meditating together.

So, Europe centre now gets really moving!!!
Yours, EC team