It started with teachings about meditation by Patricia Press-Schaffrick and meditating together. Another dharma lecture by Sax Camarata from Italy rounded off the weekend later on.

On the mountain, we worked our way through bumpy ski-slopes and powdered through deep-snow hills. Since the sun was in hiding, some decided to spend more time on meditation in the EC gompa, while others were putting their luck and the stability of their bones to a test at what pilots call “zero sight” conditions – foggy -8 °C. A pure view was helpful to enjoy bumps suddenly appearing out of nowhere and sometimes making on end up in the snow with the nose first.

The EC is situated in between more than 15 ski resorts of every kind of level that snowboarders, alpine and nordic skiers and sledge drivers like to enjoy. Beautiful mountain hikes are easily accessible for walks in winter from here. So the name of the weekend kept what it promised: skiing & meditating… plus sharing laughs with friends and enjoying the fresh air and the beautiful EC surroundings.

Let´s do it again next year!
– by Tom

One of the funniest things was the “Wichteln”. Everybody gave and got one non-material gift each, like going on a hike with Jürgen, or snowboarding with Florian. So in the coming weeks, these presents will bring friends closer together, and people who sometimes did not even know each other before.

The evening was rounded off with dancing in the Baucafé and playing some games with a very international group – most of those games are apparently known all around the world across different cultures.

by Marie

On the one hand, we need to make sure that the Lama and his team have enough time to focus on writing books or articles, answering his students’ mails or working on other projects that need very focused attention. On the other hand, many friends come during those weeks and we want them to get the  most of what the Europe Center is about – connecting on a worldwide level and meditating and learning together.

Frank Huhn was asked by Lama Ole to teach Buddhism many years ago and kindly agreed to guide the first open meditation retreat during the project days. With an average of approximately 80 people on site each day, we practiced together up to five times a day, listened to lectures and talks in the evening and had lots of time to exchange during the meals and in between the sessions.

In between work, Lama Ole found the time to guide meditations and give blessing, as well as for a moreEC movie night in the Diamond Room. He answered questions in personal interviews for hours and started a 12 hour meditation on the 16^th Karmapa before leaving for lectures in Poland, Austria, Slovakia and Greece.

Olena from Ukraine for example spent most of the time organizing her home country’s moreEC via the internet. Ewa and Janosh spent days carefully restoring some walls in the villa, while others wrapped our moreEC “retreat huts” for the New Year’s course in Hamburg.

Leonie, Alexandra and Ilona took care of bookkeeping and guest registration in the office, Frank gave explanations on meditation practice in the Yellow room, and our EC electrician Jörg fixed some lamps in the basement of the villa.

Bernd, Jürgen and Frank brought our Christmas tree inside. And – to really get us into a holiday mood – it also finally snowed. A lot!

The snow team ploughed the snow on the road and in the courtyard with the tractor several times a day to enable the cars to go up and down from Immenstadt. The heavy snowstorm loosened a metal board on the roof – so JC climbed up to fix it.

Besides all these activities, of course we also found the time to meditate in the cosy gompa and enjoy winter outside. To warm us up again afterwards, Sonia, Frauke and Henkjan cooked a delicious Italian dinner – for everyone to enjoy some time together before the holidays and to raise some money for moreEC.

Happy holidays from the EC team to everyone

We left a blank space on the cards for a good reason. Finally arriving home after a delayed journey back from South America, Lama Ole and Caty decided to ignore their jetlag and diligently signed every single one of the cards. While signing, they shared some stories from Lama Ole’s recent tour through North and South America.

Even though the EC was still without snow, we all tucked in expecting fireside stories about how it was to travel with Lama Ole so many years ago. All three of course shared stories from that time and also gave us a frame about how the times and people’s mindset were three decades ago.

But it was not only stories about their travels. They also explained why we travel with our teachers. We don’t strive for exciting holidays. We try to get to know our mind and therefore we leave our habits and concepts behind to learn from our teacher in a multitude of situations. Both Gabi and Tommy gave lectures and answered questions pointing out in detail the benefit of traveling with our Lamas.

We also had a moreEC Karaoke night in the Baucafé. It was a great evening featuring celebrities from all around the globe. We enjoyed Australian rappers, a German-Lithuanian AC/DC interpretation and even “Take That” made a spontaneous appearance.

And: Madonna ist eine Berlinerin!      – by Michael Gellings

We probably meet the five Buddhas more often than we are aware of: When taking refuge we become a “member” of one family; when seeing a stupa, a double dorje or prayer-flags; or when the Lama inaugurates a meditation room.

The five Buddhas Akshobya (the Unshakable – Diamond family), Ratnasambhava (the Jewel Born – Jewel family), Amitabha (Limitless Light – Lotus family), Amoghasiddhi (Meaningful Realization – Karma or Action family) and Vairocana (the Radiant One – Buddha or Tathagata family) are an expression of the tantric forms of Buddha Shakyamuni – Diamondholder, and should be experienced as being inseparable from him.

The teachings comprise the dissolution of the apparent opposites of the relative and absolute level. Many symbols like mudras, elements, colors etc. turn out to be solid methods in order to overcome one’s ego-illusion. Through these teachings practitioners more and more discover the qualities inherent in disturbing emotions and the skandhas in everyday life. - by Maike and Pit Weigelt

Such family afternoons give the parents time to meditate together while their kids enjoy themselves too – this Sunday they could get their faces painted, draw, watch a movie or just play with each other. Parents also found time for a chat, collecting ideas how to organize the EC childcare together for the benefit of everyone involved.

In return for the childcare, the parents could give a donation towards the moreEC – this way everybody got something out of it. It’s an activity we would definitely like to repeat. Thank you Childcare team!

Who knows more about glamour than the Austrians – so thanks to the Graz Sangha, everything from the red carpet to the chips to the handsome croupiers was perfectly organized. We just had to take a seat at the poker, Black Jack or Roulette table and play – after taking part in what was certainly one of the best-dressed meditation sessions ever seen at the EC.

The fact that no one was going to get a single cent for themselves out of it or that only fake cigars were permitted did not stop us from discovering hidden and quite passionate gambling talents in our friends – some did not get up once for hours from the poker table, others spent the whole night at the Roulette, now looking forward to retreat days at the Buddhist Retreat Center in Graz for their friends instead of money.

Enough said – we think that the pictures speak for themselves, so there are a lot of them this time.

Last weekend, the team leaders and representatives of the different EC teams met under Michael’s guidance to take look at how our work is organized and what could be improved. After an introduction into the latest knowledge on the subject we proceeded with mapping all our groups, their roles and how they interact with each other. The following presentations of each teams’ maps resulted into insights and action plans to be used as a basis for further development of how we do things here. We aim, as in all our centers, for the leanest organization possible – after all, it is only a tool on our way of human development towards liberation and ultimately enlightenment for the benefit of all.

Britta, Pit & Martin