EC Blog Archive for the ‘Country weekends’ Category

Only a week after Lama Ole finished a tour of the Nordic countries, many Danes, Finns, Norwegians, and Swedes made their way down to Bavaria to meet again – this time at the EC for the Nordic Country Weekend.

The weather could not have been more welcoming to the Vikings –  icy temperatures at night and warm sunshine with bright blue autumn skies all day long. The perfect setting for the Finnish “Outside adventure”, which saw brilliant performances in disciplines like wheelbarrow races.

For the sanghas of the North, it was a nice opportunity to come together, get to know each other, and focus on the exchange of experiences. Denmark is going to celebrate 40 years of Buddhism in the West next year – we learned a lot about the roots of Buddhism in Western Europe this weekend.

Following the wishes of their teacher, H.H. the 16th Karmapa, Lama Ole and his wife Hannah started one of the first Buddhist Centers in the West in their hometown of Copenhagen in the beginning of the 1970s, after returning from meditating and studying Buddhism for years in the East. Karmapa visited the North for the first time in 1974. Leif Andersen, a contemporary witness and international traveling teacher today, shared lots of inspiring memories and showed pictures from these times. Diamond Way Buddhism in the West started in Skandinavia and Graz – with over 600 centers around the world today.

Rounding up an evening of questions and answers with traveling teachers from all present Nordic countries, the Baucafé saw a very joyful party at night – viking style, of course! This did not stop anyone from showing very informative presentations and telling about the ongoings in their home sanghas on Sunday. Even the very young Icelandic sangha sent greetings and a portrait of their meditation group in Reykjavik via video.

It was certainly a weekend of many new friendships and connections – with lots of fun and tasty regional specialities in and in between the lectures and meetings. Inspired by this weekend, the next and from now on annual meeting of the Nordic sanghas was already fixed for next year in Sweden.

By meike

A couple of days that were supposed to be the Polish Country Weekend at the EC turned out to be a weekend course with Lama Ole – organised by Poles!

Polish friends step by step were taking over the Europe Center many days ahead of the planned weekend. Due to the registration process, we knew that there would be plenty of friends arriving not only from every part of Poland but also from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Switzerland, England, Ireland, France and Germany. On Friday evening, after a wonderful welcome at the EC, we had a chance to taste a delicious Polish dinner. Afterwards everybody gathered in the big gompa tent for presentations of some Polish retreat centers, city centers and buddhist projects. To the great astonishment of many, Lama Ole, who was in book retreat at this time, joined us and made memorable comments during the Kuchary retreat center presentation: “It was from here where all the Buddhism in Eastern Europe and Russia started.” After greeting everybody and wishing us a very good evening, the Lama left and Tomek Lehnert started a lecture: “Teacher-Student-Relationship – my 20 years on the road with Lama Ole and Hannah”. Late at night, after the lecture, many friends joined the „Take It Easy” Kick-off party featuring a beatbox concert by Blady Kris and we enjoyed it to great extent.

Saturday morning started with a common meditation on the 16th Karmapa. After that everybody enjoyed having breakfast outside, since the weather was unusually sunny and warm. Later on we listened to the inspiring Caty who was telling about the Europe Center and the plans for its development. After a traditionally Polish cuisine lunch everybody gathered in the tent because the most important part of the weekend was about to start: „The History of Diamond Way Buddhism in Poland” Part 1. Polish travelling teachers: Mira Boboli, Maggie Lehnert, Wojtek Lehnert, Wojtek Tracewski, Rafał Olech, Włodek Wiszka and Marcin Barański together with Wojtek Kossowski and special guest Ania Czapnik were describing the very beginning of Buddhism in Poland. Another great surprise happened – our wonderful Lama Ole decided to spend more time with all of us. He joined us not only during the afternoon session but also he gave a lecture in the evening. Wonderful! Spontaneity is one of Polish distinctive features – therefore the whole day schedule was immediately changed. It was not the only time, as we all were to find out later. During the Lama’s evening lecture we had many friends here and Lama Ole’s last sentence that night was: “So what do I have in the program tomorrow? Bodhisattva promise and blessings?”. We couldn’t believe it We finished the day with a great party and an auction where many friends shared their generosity and donated some money to support the EC. The party powered by DJ Romero went on until early Sunday morning

After a late breakfast on Sunday morning there was a presentation of a great exhibition “Buddha Travelling West”, which we prepared especially for the EC. Afterwards all of us gave the Boddhisatva promise. It was very touching experience for all of us. Lama Ole gave a short speech. What made the strongest impression was one of the Lama’s sentences: “The active patience means to travel very far away to meet your teacher”. The blessing afterwards lasted till 6 p.m. Everybody who was visiting the Europe Center for the first time got a great gift – a set of relics from many European initiations – which were given out in 2008 during the first International EC Summer Course.

All of us were totally amazed by everything that happened this weekend and now the EC is a familiar place for all of us. We would like to visit the Europe Center as often as possible. It is much closer then we thought. See you soon!

The Polish Sangha

By hubert

It was about time for our close neighbours, the Austrian Sangha, to take over the Europe Center for a weekend! The Austrian Country Weekend was all about transmission in every direction – between the Europe Center, its international sangha and Austria as well as in between the Austrian centers themselves. Also sharing a lot of fun  meant growing together more and getting to know each other better in unusual situations for many of the participants.

The meaning and vision of the EC became clear during a spontaneous questions & answers session with Caty. “Now we really identify with the EC and – apart from that – also with our own center, our roots and our culture. We realized that the challenges we experienced in our centers are the same as in other centers in the world. We shared so much fun and creativity – it was amazing to see how much surplus we had together to organize this big thing!”

Another friend put it this way: “Hey, this is great, we can be at the EC whenever we want. It is ours!!!”

Thank you for a very unique and inspiring weekend!

By meike

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)!

By klara

This weekend the Europe Center was invaded by some 100 bavarians! It was about time, since it is located in the big German federal state of Bavaria. The Bavarian centers were and are much involved in the long process of finding the EC and building it up afterwards – and of course they can get here within a very short amount of time. Therefore they are quite important to keep the Europe Center running.

We heard very inspiring stories about the history of the EC and of Buddhism in Bavaria from the “old dogs”, brainstormed how to get the Bavarian sanghas even more actively involved in the Europe Center activities, and learnt a lot about the world-famous Bavarian culture – especially about the delicious food and the traditional clothing – “Dirndl” dresses and leather trousers. And the translators had an extra-challenging job this time – they had to translate from Bavarian dialect to English – and vice versa, of course!

Oh… if you should be wondering if accidentally some summer pictures slipped in between – this is not the case. We had “Weißwurst” brunch outside in the sun –  in the middle of November and weeks after the first snow in Allgäu. Anything is possible in Bavaria!

By meike

This weekend the Europe Center was conquered by the channel countries on all levels. We tried Belgian waffles, had English breakfast, tasted Irish drinks, learned about different Scottish dialects, enjoyed some Dutch cheese with French wine and dances… and Peter Malinowski from Liverpool gave an inspiring talk about the meaning of the sangha and several other buddhist topics. We were even taken on a virtual bus tour covering all the channel countries and afterwards danced the night away surrounded by “national heroes” of all kinds…

It was a very nice example of what the country weekends at our EC can be: getting to know more about each other and our different cultural backgrounds, deepening our friendship, meditating, working, and learning together, and definitely having a whole lot of fun. Thanks to everyone who put so much effort into making this weekend such a success – including the Czech sangha, who once again just came to help.

So come and join one of our country weekends – just check the EC events calendar for the upcoming Bavarian (oh yes, the Bavarians do consider themselves a country! ) and the Hungarian Country Weekend!

By meike

The weekend grand finale

(This is a 2nd part of the report from the Russian week. 1st part can be found here.)

From our Russian reporter: Lots of friends joined the Russian week finale on Friday evening and Saturday.

Tolek Sokolov’s Friday lecture was followed by a weekend-opening party at the Bau café. Around midnight, a surprise performance of Russian folk-dances spiced up the party with elaborate traditional costumes and dancing figures (see the video below). Russian sense of humor continued on Saturday during the Russian culture festival. We meditated, worked outside and organized “master-classes” in Russian singing, dancing and cooking.

The cultural highlight of the weekend came on Saturday evening with the concert of a Western Siberia band Drugiye Dyady from the city of Barnaul. They traveled about 6000 km to play their amazing groovy jazz-rock to a great delight of all the 240+ dancing and applauding spectators, including many Immenstadt locals. After 3 joyful and energetic hours of performance they handed the night over to Russian DJs sets.

From the EC team: What do add? During their week at the EC, our Russian friends generously hosted many Austrians, Belgians, Belorussians, a Brazilian, Czechs, Danish, Englishmen, French, Germans, Latvians, a Pole, Scotsmen, Swiss, Ukrainians and a Venezuelan. But in accord with the week’s motto it became clear, that although our passports may be different, there is a bit of a Russian in each of us

Thank you for the great week and many new east-bound connections with the EC!

PS: We started to experiment with videos along with the popular photos on our EC blog. Enjoy the first two!

Russian folk dance in the Bau Café

Drugiye Dyady in Immenstadt

Pictures

By Martin

From our Russian reporter: Most of our Russian group arrived to the Europe Center on April 31st but our journey started already a few days before in Berlin. There, as an unofficial start of the Russian invasion to the EC, we organized a party for the Big Moskovsky – the new Moscow Buddhist center project. It was our response to the Mila center party in December 2009 in Moscow.

At the EC, we were warmly welcomed home by the residents and soon after we received a direct transmission of how the center works and how to take care of the houses since we are in charge for its functioning during the whole week. Our Russian group took the responsibility for the cooking, the cleaning and taking care of the newcomers and guests. We also prepared and organize the program under the motto: Are you all Russians or what? This was the questions everyone who liked to visit our program this week had to answer while meditating, working and getting to know more about the Russian mind & culture.

Since the start of the week on May 3rd, we are exchanging a lot – the Russians made a presentation of the new center in Boyarsk on the Baikal lake and the new Moscow center and the EC team Beata explained about the history of the houses and presented what was going on at the EC last 12 months and what is planned for future. Marina Viller and Olga Komarova made a lecture about the 17th Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje’s tour through Russia in 2009. On Friday, one of the first traveling teachers in Russia, Tolek Sokolov, made a lecture about the history of Karma Kagyu Buddhists in Russia which has its roots in traditional Buddhist regions like Kalmykia in the 14th century.

But the Russian week is not over – there is still the whole weekend program, including a concert in Immenstadt, ahead of us! Come and join in!

By Martin

The tone for the Swiss weekend was given among other things by the following message: “Dear all:-)) short reminder: bring a little bit of your favorite “schocki” with you to Allgäu for our friends from around the world “. We responded accordingly and as a result, on every table of the Europe Center, chocolate appeared as if it came from the horn of abundance.

The activity planning was prepared in advance. Each one of the bigger centers would take care of one of the meals. There would be lectures by our Swiss teachers: Anne, Markus and Matthias; the Swiss centers would present their projects; Amden would have a special presentation and Alain and Päddu,  our Bernese DJ’s, would animate the party on Saturday evening at the Bau Café.

But the Swiss can be flexible as well. The weather was gorgeous and roses, flowers and trees had to be planted! What else to do? The plan was dropped and we did what was needed to be done with a lot of pleasure.

The menus were typically Swiss. On Saturday evening the centers presented their projects and talked about their history: Bern presented its new G14 house; Basel, St. Gallen and Zurich talked about their newest plans. The friends from Luzern offered us “Vo Luzärn gage Wäggis zue” accompanied by a guitar and the typical rocking movement.

In the evening at the Bau Café the DJ’s Päddu and Alain, as well as our bartenders from Amden: Mona, Corinne and René animated the party with good music, drinks and fantastic Swiss “Bergkäse”.

On Sunday, big cleaning action, more planting and a video of the Swiss Stupas rounded the weekend up. It was a fantastic experience. We are all looking forward to repeating it again soon.

By cristina