Behind every successful man there is one (or more) exhausted woman. Ladies and gentleman, let me introduce our construction women heroes: Aleksa, Daniela, Katrin, Beate and of course many others who are coming and joining the heavy construction work. All of them are very skillful and talented, so in case you need to build a house, don´t just look for a man to help :) These ladies can do it all!
Only five weeks to go until the 2nd International Summer Course with H.H. 17th Karmapa Thaye Dorje, H.H. Shamar Rinpoche, Sherab Gyaltsen Rinpoche and Lama Ole Nydahl, things are getting up to full speed at the EC. The atmosphere is more relaxed than last year, but there is still plenty to do and both pro-craftsmen and helpers are needed. So, check out the ongoing activities and if you would like to come and join in, please contact us at: join@europe-center.org. Everybody is very welcome!
The construction team has been working rapidly for weeks building up the brand new “Baucafé” on the meadow next to the villa, over-viewing breathtakingly beautiful Alpsee lake. And although until now it “only” consists of wooden beams, windows and a roof, it’s already a wonderful place to spend an evening with friends from all over the world who have come to help — chilling out quite romantically in the straw after a day of meditating and working together.
But there’s a lot more fun and activities going on: the road is being fixed, wood is taken from the forest and being prepared and stored, the garden is getting more and more beautiful, the roofs and chimneys have to be repaired… and in the villa’s basement, the new “lounge” is being refurbished and should be ready for the Summer Course as well.
And if all this wasn’t already enough — the statue exhibition in the villa is a big success with the Immenstadt public. A lot of visitors from town and surroundings come every Sunday to take part in the guided tours and thereby make their own connection with Buddhism and the Europe Center.
This is, of course, all just besides the extensive building-up of kitchen, dining tent, gompa tent and the infrastructure for the Summer Course itself. So be spontaneous — just get a few of your Sangha friends into a car, onto a bus or train and come to support the build-up phase if you can. We’re looking forward to seeing you!
We all love it when a plan comes together, and it looks like the second International Summer Course is going to be great. As you can imagine, organizing a course for so many people is quite a challenge. At the last meeting before the course, 150 friends came together to put the finishing touches on the designs, plan some surprises, and make and enjoy strong friendships. It was impressive to see how the friends who showed their qualities last year, the old dogs, and the fresh new faces came together. Undoubtedly these joyful heroes will make the next course a great success. With our new EC motto “Come and join in” we warmly invite you to help before, during, and after the course.
Over the last weeks, an international group has been sweating hard in darkened rooms over hot keyboards to produce the new leaflet with all the information about the course, and a brand new registration form, which will both be out very soon. Stay tuned :-)
Although it seems the Summer course 2008 is just over and the organizers enjoy lots of free time, the true is slightly different. The old course is gone – long live the new one! And not only that – it has to be prepared. That’s why all the team members came within this beautiful autumn weekend to EC to start with the preparations.
During the Summer course people had a chance to leave their comments and suggestions on the board located in the eating tent. These information were passed to particular teams and were discussed from all the possible sides all over again to improve the next course. We all wanted not only to keep the good style of the past but also fulfill as many new wishes as possible.
On Saturday evening we got an unexpected gift – a chance to enjoy a Questions & Answer session with Lama Ole, who came to EC for a book retreat. The next day Lama Ole and all friends coming for the course meeting joined their forces and worked on the site to prepare it for the next winter.
Another Tuesday came to the EC with amazing sunshine, even more exposing the inspiring nature of the area and the even more inspiring tasks to fullfil. It has been one week since the new inhabitants came and though so much has already been done, everyday we come up with new events taking place. First and foremost, there has recently been a meeting with the authorities of Immenstadt, concerning the finance, building works and logistics of the EC, and as the great work of our friends and good conditions came together the authorities have agreed with all our proposals, so we start the works as soon as possible. Another issue is the visit of some our great friends, working in the field of electric industry, who have recently came up with the most generous and kind proposal. The EC center has been offered to be presented with all needed electric equipment, both for the present houses as well as the premises to be built in the future. So that we can go on as radiant with light as always..
The EC team continues on with the meetings almost every evening, and as Caty is leaving for a couple of days, the last one has been really excessive and fruitful. Not only did the team thought over the planning of the rooms, including possible dormitories for the new inhabintants in a while, but have also discussed the circumstances of hosting guests in the nearest future possible. Who will come and where should they stay? Is the small house next to the villa less international than the old villa, and what do we do about it? Many questions. And where do we eat? At least once a day all together – well, you do not do any other way in a family..
Openess gives all the possibilites, hence we try to open up as much as we can. Go down to town and tame the places and the people. The totally wonderful Alpsee bar right next to the road to Gut Hochreute, where the EC is, has great beer, tempting food and an amazing cook, who has already made friends with the one from our EC team. And Phillip is the most inspiring example of going into contact, when stopping to greet the inhabintants of Immenstadt and exchange a nice word with them. It feels like spring in the Alps, and it reminds us even more that we should hurry on, because we start building the place in spring. So so soon.
Yours,
EC Team
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
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
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