EC Blog Archive for the ‘Lamas at the EC’ Category

Halfway through Lama Ole’s book February book retreat , here’s a glimpse of some the activity that has been going on and continues to go on.

To get the most out of these weeks for everyone visiting the EC, traveling teachers are guiding a meditation retreat in the Lama’s power field, with four meditation sessions per day. At the same time, Lama Ole has enough uninterrupted time to focus on writing the book together with Caty. The book will be about the different meditation practices of Diamond Way Buddhism. Before Lama Ole started to write, he gave a lecture about the meditation on the 16th Karmapa and spontaneously guided the morning meditation. The transcript of the lecture is now being used for the book.

In between the meditation sessions and meals everyone participating helps with the housekeeping, outside work, or restoring the villa for an hour; and of course there is also time to enjoy the EC winter wonderland.

In the evenings there is time to chat with friends from all across the globe, ask questions and listen to Dharma teachings. Guido and Florinda from Austria talked about Love and Partnership from a Buddhist perspective. The following night, Lama Ole decided to leave his desk for a few hours to join his old friends Pedro and Dorrit, recalling how the 17th Karmapa Thaye Dorje came to the West as a child. There was so much to tell and so many memories to share that Pedro spontaneously gave a second lecture the following afternoon.

The meditation retreat will continue for the duration of Lama Ole’s book retreat.

By meike

A kind of state of emergency happened at the EC lasting about 36 hours: During the book-retreat a heavy gale swept through the Allgäu region and brought more than one meter of fresh snow.

Despite four meditation sessions a day and the intense bookwork, friends from all parts of the world tirelessly shoveled the masses of snow  from morning until night. Lama Ole joyfully insisted on taking part, interrupting his bookwork several times and ploughed through the snowdrifts in his familiar powerful manner.

Supported by a snowplough and a wheel loader that kept the road free and pushed the piled up snow heaps to the sides, most of the visitors could arrive or depart without too big problems, also without getting stuck. Regardless the heavy storm which whipped into one’s face, made the clothes white and the neighboring shoveler disappear behind swirled up snow clouds, everybody’s mood was excellent – and for many a unique experience! As a nice close to the day, Lama Ole guided the evening meditation and then watched an exciting movie together into the night.

— by Pit Weigelt

By meike

Taking a short break from writing a new book about meditation in Diamond Way Buddhism, Lama Ole and Caty went for a walk up the mountain with the guests at the EC – enjoying the sunshine and the view across Allgäu at Siberian temperatures around -25° Celsius.

By meike

Lama Ole quite frequently spends his project days at the Europe Center. Therefore we worked on a concept to get the most out of those days and weeks for everyone.

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.

By meike

Actually – there is no business as usual at the EC. Every day is different and brings all kinds of challenges on many levels. So we caught up randomly with just some of the activity going on all over the place to give you some impressions.

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

By meike

One of the EC Sangha’s annual holiday traditions is taking a cosy evening to sign the EC New Year’s cards together. They are sent to each of the over 600 Diamond Way Buddhist Centers as well as several teachers and friends worldwide – that makes it just about 800 cards to sign.

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.

By meike

Life at the EC is fast – and Lama Ole is even faster.

In less than 24 hours, he arrived home after touring the Channel countries – just to repack the bags and drive off for a weekend course in Switzerland and afterwards the Americas tour starting in Canada next week.

The packing frenzy did not stop the Lama from guiding the morning meditation for the EC sangha, praising our gompa in the villa: “This is a very powerful, very blessed place!”

By meike

Last week Lama Ole arrived for some project days at the EC after giving lectures in Hungary and the Czech Republic for as many as 2000 people in Budapest.

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.

By meike

After he spent three weeks painting the two new pictures for the Villa’s yellow salon and opening the eyes of several Buddha statues, Thangka painting master Dawa from Nepal guided a course for those interested in learning the high art of thangka painting.

Thangka is a “scroll painting”; an ancient art form that primarily depicts images, such as Buddha aspects, or accomplished teachers from history. Tibetans are historically nomadic, and found it easy to transport artwork in a scroll form. A thangka is a complicated, composite three-dimensional object consisting of: a picture panel which is painted or embroidered, a textile mounting; and one or more of the following: a silk cover, leather corners, wooden dowels at the top and bottom and metal or wooden decorative knobs on the bottom dowel.

Dawa’s lecture about the different styles of thangka painting was the start of a whole week of diligent day and night practice in the villa’s dining room and winter garden, which were transformed into ateliers with a view for this purpose. The sky over Immenstadt provided some nice inspiration for the course – dramatic clouds and rainbows…

Below you can see some extracts of the precious paintings work in Karma Gadhri style that Dawa created on the walls of the meditation hall in Karma Guen, Spain.

Dawa was asked by H.H. Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje to teach his students in the West – so we would like to thank him for coming to the Europe Center in order to do this – and hope to welcome him again here very soon!

By meike