EC Blog Archive for the ‘Site progress’ Category

The EC never sleeps, even when the EC team is gone. While our team was gone off to Schwarzenberg, the Brühl sangha took over the EC and continued with their project to turn the rough-looking Diamond Room into a beautiful gompa. Enjoy their report and pictures from the weekend!

---

From our Brühl reporter:

On a cold thursday morning our Brühl sangha left their lovely hometown to head to the EC to finish a project that started in October 2010. Regardless of the annual carnival and the charming Rhineland tradition of “bützen” — you are being kissed by strangers in costumes on the street — we decided that building and meditation might possibly be of more benefit.

As soon as we arrived the whole EC team left… we felt a bit like “Kevin being home alone” but after having successfully checked the kitchen storage to make sure we would survive we relaxed… and got started. Over the weekend, we finished the refurbishing of the Diamond room – all walls are snow-white now all the way to the rooftop, emphasizing the original wooden-beam structure holding the roof. Our people did an astonishing job balancing on narrow wooden boards to reach to the very top, with this training they could now easily join any circus :).

One of the friends is working with a pro-designer and he used his experience to do a great job on the stairway. The ladies also sowed a white curtain to hide the shelves with meditation cushions and other material at the back of the room. As an add-on, we also finished covering the pipes at the basement of the villa.

Thank you, EC, so very much for having us and giving us the opportunity to be of help! We enjoyed it greatly and already have the next project on our mind: how about a slide from up the hill down to the lake? ;o)

Your Brühlers

Here’s a reason to celebrate in the centers around the world! After months of intense planning work by the architects, several presentations of the building plans and talks with the local citizens and authorities – the first very important step on the way to the new building of our Europe Center has been completed.

Last  week’s official vote in Immenstadt changed the zoning for our plot, so that we will be able to build the new building according to our architects’ plans!

Now we are free to go into architectural  planning. A final preliminary design is going to be finished until February 1st. Afterwards, the planning will go into every necessary detail until autumn.

For example, the rooms facing the lake will most likely become guest rooms, in order to give our visiting friends the joy of the beautiful view. There will be space for around 40 residents and 60 guests, and the room sizes will vary between approximately 12 and 18 square meters – wider than the model of a guest room shown during the  International Summer Course 2010 here at the EC. Some more spacious rooms for e.g. teachers or handicapped guests will also be available. The model of the new building on the picture will be updated soon. It’s to give you an idea where the new building will be, but the plans have been altered a bit since it was made. Expect an updated model soon!

Stay tuned for more details as they come up – for now: time to celebrate and thank everyone involved – especially the architects’ team for the amazing work they already did – which is just the start of what’s to come during the next three years!

Thanks to the efforts of the Brühl sangha and our resident restaurator Beate, our gompa for big events – the Diamond Room – really shines now. They spent the weekend neatly covering the walls with a white fire-proof fabric. And as if that was not enough, the Brühlers also refurnished the hallway in the Villa’s basement, carefully srcubbing the monument-protected walls with a paintbrush, then white-washing them and putting a new ceiling. The hallway appears so much wider and brighter now!

In between, everyone watched live-streaming from the Braunschweig center meeting, meditated together and enjoyed their morning tea in the sunshine.

It’s a nice example of what can be achieved with the joint efforts of just one small group of friends. If your sangha has an idea or would like to help with such a project, please just let us know. It’s a great way of growing together as a sangha and making our jewel Europe Center shine even more!

Another sunshiny autumn day – ideal to pick up on our cutting-trees-with-the-Lama-tradition again. In accordance with the plans for the new building and the authorities, some of the old trees will be taken down during the next years and healthy young ones are going to be or have already been planted (one of them is still so tiny that it lives in a little red bucket and you can hardly spot it on the photo… ;-) )

Today Lama Ole and the boys had a good time taking down about 15 trees – and it was already exciting enough just watching the huge trees fall! Now we certainly have enough firewood to heat the EC this winter.

Lama Ole arrived for a few project days at the Europe Center this week. The main purpose of project days is to give our permanently traveling Lama the possibility to focus on “office” work like book writing and answering his students’ letters in a quiet environment. So of course he spends most of the time in the house, working with the team on these tasks.

Project days also give everyone who’s here the precious opportunity to meditate in the Lama’s powerfield… or  to go for a spontaneous walk across the wide and snowy EC grounds with him to have a look at the progress on the site – like we did yesterday!

Spring and fall are known to be very short in Allgäu – we can confirm!

The first snow fell right on top of blooming roses and autumn-coloured (partially even still green) trees during the last days and it’s quite chilly already. Thanks to the sunny weather, the ten centimeters of snow are melting away again quickly, though. Good thing – because we still need to mark the road with long sticks to save us from driving down the hill “off-road” when there will be a lot more snow soon. ;-)

For now – here are some snowy autumn impressions for you to enjoy.

This week Lama Ole spent some project days at the Europe Center – mainly to write articles, answer his students’ emails and letters and to support the ongoing construction work in the old barn that will be transformed into the new EC meditation hall. Before driving here, Lama Ole spontaneously spent a relaxed evening talking to friends at the nearby Schwarzenberg Retreat Center.

A lot of cleaning-up action together with the Lama took place in the barn – the work was so dynamic that we really had trouble taking focussed pictures… The newly built shoe shelves for busy weekend events were immediately tested by one of our youngest inhabitants – he obviously approved! ;-) The very active day was followed by a cosy movie-watching evening in the Baucafé.

We waved goodbye to the Lama even before the sun came up on Thursday – wishing him and everyone joining a great time in Hungary, Skandinavia, Russia, Ukraine, and Spain!

In sunny autumn weather there was a lot of tidying-up action at the EC this weekend. Besides removing all sorts of summer course leftovers, tons of wood have to be sorted and stored, woodsheds have to be built to keep the wood dry in the snow… basically, everything has to be ready for six to seven months of winter and snow very soon. The golden fall is usually very quickly followed by the first snow. Of course, in between we also found enough time to enjoy the sunshine while meditating, having breakfast, lunch, and meetings outside and playing with the kids.

And last but not least, more deligent helpers came on Sunday to also polish the Villa – preparing everything for someone very special to arrive tonight for the next days… we will keep you updated!

After a summer of hard work by many, hindrances like injuries and long periods of rain that prevented the continuation of the work – we had a lot of reason to celebrate yesterday: Edwin and his team put the last tile on the roof of the 2nd House, took down the scaffolding right afterwards and celebrated the fresh and clear view from all sides together.

Lots of thanks to all the friends who spent hours, days and weeks of their summer on the roof to get this done – please come back home soon to see the results of your great work (before it’s all covered by snow! ;-) ).

Even the cows on the meadow seemed to be wondering what was going on today. Lots of chainsaw sounds in the middle of peaceful, quiet Allgäu?

Well, to literally cut it short – our resident arborist Jürgen and a team of helpers took down the line of big trees separating the 2nd House from the parking lot. To improve the view, secure the house and to bring bright sunshine into the rather dark dormitories. New trees have been planted already and more are still to come. It’s about time to do all this, since there is already the first snow on the mountain tops…

Okay, from the outside it might look a bit like a battlefield at the moment – with the tree logs and the not yet finished new roof. ;-) However, EC residents Charlotte and Tamás immediately inspected the new view across the mountain meadows and the lake from the dormitory windows. They were obviously delighted with the result of the “tree action”!

And as if it had not been enough action and challenge already, the guys afterwards tried some rope acrobatics in the garden…