EC Blog Archive for December, 2010

A few days before Christmas, Lama Ole came to the EC for so-called “project days”. Project days are a working retreat, a reserved time for the Lama and his team to focus on books, articles and other manuscripts in progress, for answering dozens of e-mails and letters from students and generally doing all the behind-the-scenes work that is not possible to complete on the road during teaching tours and travels. For us, Lama Ole’s students, the best we can do is to respect this time as a closed event – a retreat –and create the conditions for the team’s uninterrupted work.

This time, the project days were even more interesting, because apart from the normal work, Lama Ole did a series of audio recordings. What was recorded were selected meditations used in the Diamond Way Buddhist centers around the world – like the Guru Yogas on the 16th Karmapa and 8th Karmapa – that Lama Ole guided both in English and German.  Later, these will be available in our centers’ dharma-shops.

On the evening of Dec 23rd, before his departure to Copenhagen, Lama Ole managed to record a short movie about a planned joined “Americas Course” in 2012, addressing all North and South American students. After that he joined us in the dinning hall for a small get-together and we had the rare opportunity to be the first to hear the draft of Lama’s New Year’s letter that will be read just before the last midnight of 2010 in Prague and send to all Diamond Way centers and friends worldwide.

It is a precious occasion for the EC crew to be able to host Lama Ole and we are already looking forward to his next course or working retreat.

Allgäu Winterwonderland provided perfect conditions for our 24 hour meditation on Loving Eyes (tib. Chenrezig, skt. Avalokiteshvara), the embodiment of the love and compassion of all Buddhas. With below -10°C and half a meter of snow outside, we had a wonderful time meditating together in our cosy gompa in the EC Villa. On Saturday evening, we rounded up the meditation with an inspiring lecture by buddhist travel teacher Pit Weigelt about love and compassion – and a nice get together afterwards in our snowed in Baucafé.

The kids definitely got their weekend’s highlight on Sunday afternoon. They decorated the beautiful christmas tree in the hall of the villa – right in time for welcoming Lama Ole for a few days of bookretreat at the EC, starting tomorrow…

And then there are three more friends we were finally able to welcome this weekend: our new resident family Nastia, Martin and little Nik from Prague. Great they’ve finally come to stay!

Friday evening

Thanks to heavy snow in Austria, all the participants came much later than it was planned, therefore Hungarians took over the EC only in the evening. Everyone was welcomed by a bit of Hungarian palinka (schnaps), meanwhile the cooks started to prepare the dinner. After evening meditation we got a nice teaching from Didi and Zsuzsi Rowek about the beginning of Hungarian Buddhism. Didi and Zsuzsi were the first traveling teachers who started to teach in Hungary many years ago.

Saturday

7.30 wake-up with live Saxofon music, meditation and traditional breakfast. After this early start the contest among 9 mixed groups in 9 locations in the house took place. Tasks were really joyful: archery, building Buddha-statues from snow without talking, protecting flying eggs with different tools, finding out what is Hungarian invention etc.

After presentations about the history of Hungarian buddhism and videos from the past we enjoyed an unbeliveable cultural evening in the BauCafe: folk songs (presented by professional Buddhist artists) and folk dances with amateur friends.

Sunday

Wake-up music again, but with a bit bigger company (Saxofon, ancient Hungarian drum, violin and a singer) visiting again all the places where people were sleeping. After breakfast we went on with the presentations of the Hungarian buddhist history and then 6 traveling teachers made a session of questions and answers creating constant smile on the faces of the audience. For lunch there was of course a nice goulash with cottage cheese ball as dessert. Quick cleaning of the building and good bye (everyone got sweets and sausage with bread for the way home).

Well, that was a blog written by Majki from Budapest accomanied with photos and videos from Hungarian friends, who came in 7 minibusses and 6 cars. In the EC we had more than 85 Hungarians, several friends from Vienna, Transylvania, Uzhgorod and Greece  alltogether with many visitors. They all consumed 20 kgs of sausages and several kgs of Erős Pista (chili sauce)!