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

From the very first days of the Europe Center, friends coming together from all over the world to exchange the latest news, share their country’s challenges and solutions, and establish deep and lasting friendships has been a part of every day life. But this year, for the first time ever, 72 people from 32 countries were invited to participate in two full days of working meetings – the first International Center Meeting.

After preparing an informative poster for each country, representatives joined the first small group discussions, where those who arrived with “unique” challenges quickly discovered friends who overcame them years ago, and inspirational stories and ideas flew around thick and fast. In the afternoon, Lama Ole and Caty joined the meeting to listen as each country presented the state of their local sangha – their challenges, opportunities and inspirations – greatly enriched by the Lama’s stories about the history of Diamond Way Buddhism in each country. After a long day of exciting discussion, Lama Ole spontaneously invited everyone at the Europe Center to join him as he read and explained the Ganges Mahamudra text, sung by the yogi Tilopa to his student Naropa in the 11th century, sending us all to bed with smiles and refreshed minds.

The second day was for diving deeper into hot topics identified on day one: retreat centers, translation, kids, sangha connections, publishing, and much more. Rapid exchange in rotating working groups led to a valuable collection of experience and ideas, all with the goal of developing lasting teams to continue the exchange into the future. Results and information will be presented at the “market place” in the barn on the afternoon of August 12th. We look forward to seeing you and sharing with you then!

Matt, Australia

The renewal of the EC villa’s roof is well on the way – and it will be a very special roof: 14.000 tiles will cover the villa for at least a century – and we want every single one of them to have a wish for the benefit of all on it! So next time you come to the Europe Center, just “buy” as many roof tiles as you like – for whichever “price” you like – and write your wishes on them. All these donations will be used to support the new EC buildings.

You can also take your own piece of the house home or give it to a friend as a present – an old roof tile, sealed with the Diamond Way firewheel.
Diamond Way Buddhist Centers and Groups can pre-order a special rounded tile that will later go onto the top of the roof for 108 Euros by e-mail. The whole sangha can write their wishes on one – like the Hamburgers already did.

Lama Ole already wrote his wish on a sealed tile after returning from working in the forest this week – “For timeless growth of our Diamond Way!”. Lama Ole’s other wish that is going to be one of the thousands covering our EC villa:

“May all who stood here obtain every goal!”

Here comes the sun – after three days of monsoon-like rain, we finally dared to take a camera outside to show you the results of the hard work that has been going on regardless of the weather.

Many friends stayed to help after the 2nd build-up weekend, and we have never seen the big tents go up in such a short time. So many people having so much fun together despite being soaked to the bones while putting them up. We are truely amazed at the spirit in this year’s build-up phase and would like to thank everyone who came for their great support and diligence!

And then there was a very special supporter of the work – following a movie night together in the Diamond Room, Lama Ole joined the boys for some serious wood chipping behind the barn. Afterwards he returned to his desk to work on projects like an interview for “Buddhism Today” together with Caty and the team.

Still there is of course looots of work left until the course starts – so please come, put up your tent in the sunshine and join the fun!

On the pictures you can also see the new dishwashing machine for the course. No more bringing your own dishes and cleaning them yourself afterwards – just pick up plate and cutlery and enjoy the service! :)

On Sunday evening Lama Ole arrived at the EC directly after a phowa course in the Czech Republic. He will spend a few project days here before he leaves to Stupkalnis in Lithuania. On Monday we joined him on the walk around our property looking from the highest points of the land onto the Summer course building site. The Lama enjoyed the forest and he showed everybody the places he walked with the 17th Karmapa on his first visit to the Europe Center in 2007. To get the impression see the photos from Anastasia from Russia.

The further and longer the journey, the greater and even more heartfelt the welcome back home!?! Apparently! ;)

Close to 100 friends came to greet the Lama and Caty early last night. The two might have been jet-lagged after long flights home from New Zealand via San Francisco – however, it did not stop them from sharing some news and stories of the exciting past weeks in Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand later on in the Baucafé.

Lama Ole will spend a week in work retreat at the Europe Center before traveling on to the Czech Republic, Denmark, Warsaw and Berlin – mainly working on books, writing articles and answering his students’ letters and requests.

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!

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!

During Lama Ole’s stay, the EC fills up with friends from around the world. They enjoy being in the Lama‘s powerfield – meditating, working and enjoying each other.

The day started with a special gift – Lama Ole guided the morning meditation. He showed everybody how he would like us to read the meditation, where to give people time. Afterwards he again pointed out how important it is to go deeper and to pause, as every single word has deep meaning. How important it is to find „the space in between“… If we catch that moment of naked mind, it means big progress.

What a beautiful beginning of another meaningful day.

A few days before Christmas, Lama Ole came to the EC for so-called “project days”. Project days are a working retreat, a reserved time for the Lama and his team to focus on books, articles and other manuscripts in progress, for answering dozens of e-mails and letters from students and generally doing all the behind-the-scenes work that is not possible to complete on the road during teaching tours and travels. For us, Lama Ole’s students, the best we can do is to respect this time as a closed event – a retreat –and create the conditions for the team’s uninterrupted work.

This time, the project days were even more interesting, because apart from the normal work, Lama Ole did a series of audio recordings. What was recorded were selected meditations used in the Diamond Way Buddhist centers around the world – like the Guru Yogas on the 16th Karmapa and 8th Karmapa – that Lama Ole guided both in English and German.  Later, these will be available in our centers’ dharma-shops.

On the evening of Dec 23rd, before his departure to Copenhagen, Lama Ole managed to record a short movie about a planned joined “Americas Course” in 2012, addressing all North and South American students. After that he joined us in the dinning hall for a small get-together and we had the rare opportunity to be the first to hear the draft of Lama’s New Year’s letter that will be read just before the last midnight of 2010 in Prague and send to all Diamond Way centers and friends worldwide.

It is a precious occasion for the EC crew to be able to host Lama Ole and we are already looking forward to his next course or working retreat.

As you can see from the headline – we had quite a packed and intensive time during the last weeks…

Lama Ole spent  some days here on a book retreat, which was very successful and the book is almost finished. Just a few more proof readings and we can all look forward to a new book, which will guide us through the process of dying, the bardo state and being reborn again.  Lama Ole had also few free minutes to come outside  and cut the trees which are blocking some of the windows from sun and light.

Last but not least was a meeting with our architecture office, who are preparing the plans for the new gompa and building. Lama Ole liked the proposal, but as everything is still in  process, the final solution was not reached,  just lots of new ideas and new inputs. So we have really something to look forward to!