Lama Ole Nydahl at the Summer Course team meeting, Feb 4, 2012

At the beginning of February the teams preparing the International Summer Course at the EC met for the first time this year. They updated each other about the current state of the planning. To many participants it did not even feel like an organizational meeting though. The experience of our Summer course “veterans” from previous years provides a solid basis of knowledge that makes it possible to focus on fresh ideas and more detailed questions concerning e.g. the kitchen area, child care or site-management already now.

By working together over the last four years, we developed further individually and as teams. We got to know each other and our complementary qualities and skills, learned how things work best, and improved in different areas and on many levels. So the organization of this year’s Summer Course is already well underway and we had a relaxed and joyful weekend together.

Inspired by the growing joy and friendship, we just took the time to chat and meditate together and enjoyed the sunny weather outside as well as the friendly atmosphere of an inspiring weekend.

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

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!

Upon arrival he surprised the EC sangha with a spontaneous session of questions and answers in the Diamond Room gompa – and afterwards joined a movie night for the benefit of moreEC.

Lama Ole and a film team spent the first project day recalling the decades of bringing Diamond Way Buddhism from Tibet to the West, filming a documentary movie about his wife Hannah Nydahl. In between he was photographed for a book of portrait pictures of Diamond Way practitioners that will be sold for the moreEC campaign.

As usual during his work days at the EC, emails by Lama Ole’s students were answered and project meetings took place. Also, a letter to all his students was written that will be sent out to the worldwide sangha soon.

Another interview was filmed on the villa’s terrace overviewing the Great Alpsee lake on the third project day. This material will be used to inform about Lama Ole’s book “Buddha and Love” in several countries, especially the USA, where the long-awaited English translation is going to be published soon.

After climbing one of the highest trees surrounding the EC, Lama Ole and Caty rounded off the last project day by meeting and meditating with the EC sangha and guests. On Friday morning after blessing a newlywed couple, it was time to say goodbye for now with the Lama leaving for the annual German center meeting in Braunschweig on Friday.

Time and again, Lama Ole´s project days give an insight into the tremendous amounts of work he does joyfully every day for the benefit of all beings.

Together with around 300 visitors from the Immenstadt region, we celebrated the founding of Gut Hochreute 100 years ago in 1911. The motto was “Past, Present and Future of Gut Hochreute”. In a special exhibition lots of pictures were shown from the times of the former owners,  the Martini and Herz families, as well as everyday items and rare documents from the last century in the precious Art Nouveau buildings which are today the Europe Center. If you would like to learn more about the history of this architectural jewel, please klick here.

It was also the yearly open house day of all Diamond Way Buddhist Centers in Bavaria – so guided tours of the historic exhibition and the villa were one option – another was listening to introductory talks and taking part in a short meditation. The visitors also had the opportunity to find out more about the plans of our future meditation hall and the new buildings north of the barn.

The atmosphere was relaxed and joyful. Amongst others, we enjoyed homemade cake and the Bavarian specialty Leberkässemmel in the garden, accompanied by live music from the equally traditional Bavarian brass band.

We were quite busy dismantling the course with the help of a lot of friends from Poland, Austria, Russia and many more countries (in fact, we were so busy that we forgot to take pictures! ;-) ). Many, many thanks to everyone who stayed to help!

Conça, her daughter Ananda, and Joachim served us the most delicious brazilian sweet specialties, told about Diamond Way Buddhism in Brazil, and afterwards even taught us how to dance the samba!

As part of the moreEC action, Cristina and Henkjan hosted a hilarious quiz night in the baucafé to raise money for the new EC building, and our South-North-American power couple Yomaira and Jeremiah spent days and nights planning the upcoming moreEC action in the Americas.

And last but not least, René and his beautiful bride Romana tied the knot officially at the EC – accompanied by rainbows. The villa’s yellow salon is an official wedding room of the city of Immenstadt for any couple that would like to get married in this beautiful place. Best wishes to the newlyweds from the EC team!