EC Blog Archive for the ‘EC family LIVE’ Category

With all the development, activity and events going on at the EC all year around, it’s great to sometimes just take the chance for our local sangha members and EC residents to get to know each other better and therefore become even stronger as a sangha. Normally being quite busy with running and supporting the Europe Center from day to day, we all liked the idea of spending a whole weekend together again.

Jesper kicked off the EC team weekend with a lecture about the sangha. The EC sangha consists of many friends coming from different cultural backgrounds with different levels of experience. Learning from “old rabbits” like Jesper and Charlotte living here and sharing decades of experience of how to build up and run a buddhist center AND have lots of fun doing it as well, is very precious and important to us.

On Saturday the rope climbing forest and the mountain huts on the other side of the lake saw an invasion of 50 buddhists. Balancing and dangling between ropes and hopping from one tree to another up to 15m above the ground was both a physical challenge and a great opportunity to observe one’s mind and how it functions in a rather extreme situation like this. No big surprise that lots of us happily went for the most difficult of 13 levels pretty quickly. Applying buddhist teachings to one’s everyday life and meditation do bring about fearlessness sooner or later! And pushing oneself “out of the comfort zone” has rarely ever been so much fun to us.

After recovering from this challenge by barbequeing and chilling in perfect summer evening weather, Ronald introduced us to the brandnew plans for the new EC building. In this phase of the planning it is very important to bring our EC team’s experience of daily challenges and needs of residents and guests and the technical knowledge of the architects together, in order to build a building that will really be fitting for whichever need comes up in every day, even more busy than now EC life in the future.

Sunday brought the next challenge – a tour of 15 (!!!!) flats inhibited by Sangha members in Immenstadt. We walked from flat to flat – causing quite a stirr on an otherwise quiet Sunday afternoon in Immenstadt. Somehow we managed to squeeze into all of the flats, being warmly welcomed by the inhabitants with lots of tasty snacks, delicious cake and drinks. Besides admiring the interior design skills of many sangha members, everyone enjoyed just cuddling up together on the sofas and chatting in the kitchens or on the balconies with amazing views of the mountains and finally celebrating a really memorable EC team weekend with a spontaneous party in Anne and Achim’s flat.

Thanks to everyone who made this weekend happen with their organisational talent and hospitality – probably we all felt our friendship growing over just those two days!

By meike

Thanks to the Ulm and Stuttgart sanghas’ activity last weekend, the Europe Center is shining even more now! Maybe also a little bit extra-inspired by Pit’s lecture on Bodhisattva activities on Friday night, they pretty much proved all those concepts about Germans being the most thorough cleaners on the planet to be quite true. No lamp was too high up, no window too far out(side) and no spiderweb too invisible to be spotted immediately by their eagle eyes!

However, they still had enough energy to chat and party the night away in the Baucafé, together with the EC sangha, Bernward, Holm and the Bavarian press group working in the Diamond Room Gompa over the weekend.

If anyone ever thought cleaning was boring – everyone present at the EC last weekend now knows one thing for sure: it can also be a whole lot of FUN!!!!!

By meike

Sometimes one week at the Europe Center feels like a whole month. Like the last one. It’s not even over yet, still already it was full of nice little spontaneous events. It started on Sunday with a sangha brunch and easteregg hunt for the kids, followed by at least two BBQs during the week. Some of us worked or meditated outside, others enjoyed the garden with their children under blossoming apple trees.

Tuesday night was packed with presentations. A report about Lama Ole’s recent 4 week tour through Australia and New Zealand gave impressions not only of the breathtaking scenery but also on the different development stages of Buddhism there compared to Europe. Just as an example – a Mahamudra course with Lama Ole teaching about the nature of mind that would probably attract at least 1.000 people in Germany would hardly exceed a number of 250 listeners in Australia at this point in time. Also in Australia and New Zealand there is definitely a growing interest in the Buddha’s teachings and meditation. However due to different conditions historically, culturally and practically, Buddhism is not yet as much the focus of interest as on this side of the globe – but well on its way for sure!

Caty and our resident architect Támas introduced us to the plans for the renovation of the Shri Karma Raja Maha Vihar Monastery at Swayambuh, which is located right next to the world’s oldest stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal. To Diamond Way Buddhism, this is a very special and historical place – not only is it the main residence for H.H. the 17th Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje when he is in Nepal, but it is the place where Hannah and Ole Nydahl met the 16th Karmapa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje for the very first time. A few years later, he asked them to bring Buddhism to the West and carry on his activity there…

… and today Buddhism in the West is so big that we need a new building for the Europe Center in order to accomodate more friends from all over the world! On paper, it is already taking on quite precise form. We got a peek at the architects’ updated plans during our center meeting. A blog with frequently updated information about the progress of the plans will be online soon.

On Friday evening we could hardly believe our eyes – a bright double rainbow stretched across the Alpsee lake for 15 minutes, right outside our windows. Afterwards, Pit Weigelt gave an inspiring lecture about the “Actions of Bodhisattvas”. A Bodhisattva is a fully realized being taking on rebirths in order to help others on their way to liberation and enlightenment – or someone with the wish to become enlightened for the benefit of all. A Bodhisattva works tirelessly out of active, respectful and loving compassion for everyone else’s well-being instead of his or her own.

“Doing the right thing in the right place at the right time for the maximum benefit of others – and therefore acting in a way that all people you meet will afterwards always feel it was worth their time that they met with you!”

By meike

Temperatures are already suitable for summer these days – some fearless ones are even considering to jump into the lake in order to cool down already… However, for now we decided to stick to cake and coffee in the garden and lunch on the terrace overviewing the lake.

Spring in Allgäu is short but immensely colourful. The meadows are all green and yellow, the little cherry trees we planted last year around the parking space are in full bloom for the first time, and the kids are very busy making flower garlands.

Talk about the EC kids – our youngest resident Robin was born last week and went for his first walk in the sun with mommy Verena today. Judging from his name, he is determined to follow in his dad’s footsteps in taking good care of our forest! Well, okay… maybe we give him a few years to grow into them first!

Congratulations and best wishes to Verena and Jürgen on their beautiful offspring!

By meike

Following a 100-year-old tradition of the Gut Hochreute (which is now the Europe Center), we had again the chance to process our own freshly cut wood. The team — Jürgen, Holger, Torsten, Michael, Alfons, Bea, Anja, Thies, Lotar & Berndt to name a few — has used a special wood-splitting machine to prepare quality firewood that we can use later for heating or even selling. The firewood is then placed in a newly built storage to dry properly.

To our great pleasure, the weather has substantially changed in the last days and hopefully left winter definitely behind us. Although, knowing the local proverb: “never trust a spring in Allgäu”, don’t take it as a malfunction if you see snowing on our live webcam soon again . Until then we’ll be enjoying the sunny, beautiful days…

By hubert

The EC Team weekend happens 2-3 times a year – we spend time together and try get to know each other better in a relaxed atmosphere. This time the “Schwarzenbergers”, our neighbouring sangha, invited us to their wonderful place and offered dharma teachings, their creativity concerning outdoor events and their precious time. There were meditations, personal stories, a Dharma-triathlon, free time, a lecture by Karola Schneider, amazing food, great DJs – all best ingredients for an enjoyable weekend which brought the group even closer together. We enjoyed it a lot!

By hubert

Before leaving for Hong Kong this morning, Lama Ole gave us yet another great gift to round off two weeks of project days at the EC last night – meditating together with around 100 friends, answering questions, and giving blessing.

We would like to thank the Lama and everyone who came and contributed to make this two inspiring weeks to remember for a long time. Never before did we welcome so many people coming here to meditate in the Lama’s powerfield, spending quality time together and helping to run the Europe Center during a retreat. Many pointed out how much the EC really has become home for them by now. So we are looking forward to having you all back here at home very soon!

By meike

We just had an EC residents and long term guests dinner. Getting together for an easy time over a meal makes everything flow much smoother in the center and we all enjoyed it very much and decided to do it regularly. Tonight we talked mainly about a paradox we often face here:

• we always seem to lack helpers for the jobs the daily center life and projects require
• many of our guests feel a bit lost here and don’t know how to help when they want to

With so many people coming and going all the time, it’s crucial to have a clear, easy-to-understand and ongoing way of matching these offers and demands together. We’ll try to learn from the great Summer Course’s job center and come up with something friendly and practical that will make the lives of both guests and residents at the EC easier.

And finally a small quiz for you: what do traveling teachers Florinda Czeija, Egle Rasimaite, Wojtek Tracewski, Gert Boll, Honza Matuska and Peter Malinowski have in common?

By Martin

After guiding a meditation course in Karlsruhe with 2000+ students over the weekend, Lama Ole arrived back at the EC last night, followed by “a couple” of friends. He will spend two more days of his work retreat here before leaving for touring Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Welcome home, everyone!

By meike

Last Sunday we sat down with 3 of friends to talk. It was very late after a busy Summer Course Team weekend, and one of us posed a simple question – how was your day? As we started to recount each other’s day, this impressive list of things that happened in the last 24 hours appeared:

• the EC Steering Team met, as every Sunday, to work on an agenda of questions, issues and tasks that accumulated over the past week
• Shamar Rinpoche greeted all while on the phone with Lama Ole
• Lama Ole finished a manuscript of a new question-and-answers book and a first part of a three-part article on transmission
• the Summer Course core team summed up the very successful weekend and fixed the program of the upcoming Summer Course 2011
• Manfred K. came from Munich to set up a new address book system for Lama Ole’s team (aka “the pool”)
• Bulgarian friends visiting the EC drove home happily with 3 new statues for their centers
• 2 film crews shooting documentary movies about Lama Ole and Hannah came to the EC to discuss their projects and their financing
• the Press Team sent out a statement about the recent events in the East
• a new Diamond Way Musicians international group was created, putting together sangha musicians who want to support various projects (e.g. movies) with their music
• old water boiler in the villa collapsed – accidentally, all the experts were around and replaced almost it immediately
• the new EC road sign was designed
• we (finally) sent out Lama Ole’s New Year’s cards

And this was just the 3 of us talking about things we were involved in mostly outside of the Summer Course team weekend program. The other 90 people attending the weekend would add much more to the list as their teams met to prepare the Summer Course: the gompa team, the transportation team, the finance team, the purchasing team, the registration team, the dharma shop, mini-market & merchandising teams, the cafeteria, the childcare, the sound team, the kitchen team, the medical team, the I-grow-EC! team… you name it.

Life’s never boring! Especially at the EC.

By Martin