EC Blog Archive for November, 2009

The third EC Transmission Weekend “How to build and live in the centres” could equally be called “How to build and live friendship”. H.H. Karmapa Thaye Dorje really emphasized during the Summer Course here this year that everything we do is built on friendship, and this theme was very clear on this weekend. The irrepressible Zsuzsa Kosegi started the weekend on Friday with a lecture on the “Meaning of Sangha”.

Saturday came around very quickly, bringing with it a stash of fascinating stories and experiences from Copenhagen, Zurich, Amden, Hamburg and Warsaw. Sunday followed with talks from Schwarzenberg and Budapest. Big transmission from the big dogs who lived through our Diamond Way history in these power places of Europe.

The importance of wishes and working together was emphasised, along with the need to be clear all the times and to take decisions together. Retelling the stories of how our places were built up, the obstacles that the sanghas overcame, and the jumps that were made into the unknown gave us a real sense of importance of our Diamond Way history. We know how important it is to understand our Karma Kagyu lineage and transmission, but it’s not always obvious how much extra perspective we can get by really understanding how we got where we are today.

By klara

It’s few days before the 3rd Transmission Weekend and the EC is filling up already. For example, Gala, Slava, Andrey and Edik from the Ukrainian sangha are here for a whole week. They plan to pass on what they learn during the Transmission Weekend to their friends at home.

As well as building the Ukrainian retreat center in Minkovka and other ongoing projects, the whole sangha there is sponsoring these fours’ journey. Since it would be too expensive for most of them to come here, the sangha decided to pay half the travel expenses, so that at least four of them could come and get transmission and help build up the Europe Center.

We would like to thank the Ukrainian sangha for their generousity and efforts in supporting the Europe Center and send them best wishes for the building of their new retreat place and gompa!

By meike

There are a few different ways of equipping the Europe Center with new and needed things.

Sometimes we find the original equipment in the “secret chambers” of the historic EC houses, or we buy inexpensive items in places like Hong Kong or India and have them delivered by our “flying Sangha” (friends working for airlines) or we get very generous presents from our Sangha friends worldwide. For example, you might see our beautiful new furniture in the architecture office. This very nice gift is a present from our friends and we would like to thank them for this!

There is always the possibility to donate a few practical things for the Europe Center – if you feel this extra surplus, please check the EC wishlist: http://www.europe-center.org/come-join/wishlist. Just  do not forget to check your plans with a contact person, otherwise we could end up with 108 hoovers…

By klara

By klara

Most of the beautifully coloured leaves have fallen to the ground, the top half of the mountains on the opposite side of the lake are snow-white and the nights are getting quite chilly. So our forest team Jürgen and JC are spending their day outside doing what needs to be done, before the first heavy snowfall. Surely they will get a lot of support from the Czech friends coming for the first country weekend at the Europe Center.

By meike

Last Friday morning we had a lovely breakfast with Lama Ole and friends from the EC, Immenstadt, Schwarzenberg and other nearby sanghas, before he left for the centers meeting in Braunschweig.

By cristina