EC Blog Archive for the ‘EC Event’ Category

Friends, the course will start really soon and surprisingly there was not heavy rain so far, but you never know with this mountain weather. Anyway, the place is getting more and more ready for welcoming Lamas and all of you, who are taking part this year.

Yesterday the big course kitchen started to cook, cafeteria is already making great capuccinos, shuttle servis is working perfectly, stage is going to be arranged and the tent next to the villa is always full for regular morning and evening meditations.

Beautiful, warm and sunny days made a great setting for the second transmission weekend. Many friends made their way to the EC on Friday to hear Matt Huddleston tell many interesting and exciting stories about the Karma Kagyu transmission lineage. With his English style he really brought the history to life.

Saturday, after an hour of Ngöndro practice, Pedro Gomez kept the gompa fully concentrated with stories of how H.H.the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa was found. Hardly anybody moved, not wanting to miss the beautiful descriptions and anecdotes Pedro shared with lots of humor.

In the evening Pedro and his wife Dorit illustrated the incredible stories with pictures and videos. Mäc (Matthias Weitbrecht) continued with more pictures and fact finding, complimented by Pedro, Michael van den Hoet and Caty. After the pictures the panel talked about how the 17th Karmapa controversy unrolled.

Then on Sunday, Michael van den Hoet shared his wealth of knowledge. Caty concluded the second transmission weekend with questions and answers and talked about how our modern and western style has been developing over the years.

Dear friends, even though this was only our second transmission weekend, it is clear we have established a strong EC tradition!

After nearly two months (with some short breaks for a few small courses), Lama Ole and his team have finished the book retreat in the EC. This  book project is almost over, and just a few friends like Caty still need to make some corrections to the text in order to publish the book as soon as possible. As you can imagine we all had an amazing time with the Lama working over our heads, and also with all of you who came to spend some days in his strong powerfield.  Nevertheless, everything goes very fast,  and at first light this morning the Lama gave a quick blessing and left, and in the evening the team will be already landing in New York city.

We all love it when a plan comes together, and it looks like the second International Summer Course is going to be great. As you can imagine, organizing a course for so many people is quite a challenge. At the last meeting before the course, 150 friends came together to put the finishing touches on the designs, plan some surprises, and make and enjoy strong friendships. It was impressive to see how the friends who showed their qualities last year, the old dogs, and the fresh new faces came together. Undoubtedly these joyful heroes will make the next course a great success. With our new EC motto „Come and join in“ we warmly invite you to help before, during, and after the course.

Over the last weeks, an international group has been sweating hard in darkened rooms over hot keyboards to produce the new leaflet with all the information about the course, and a brand new registration form, which will both be out very soon. Stay tuned :-)

Today Lama Ole officially inaugurated the statue exhibiton in the historic rooms of the main villa. Many small and big statues are now opened to public every Sunday afternoon until 26th of July. We are very happy that we can share with friends and visitors all these beautiful statues made according to buddhist precious art technics. Not just us, but everybody can enjoy the blessing and symbolism of aspects which open the deep levels in our minds. As all wonderful guests who came today, you are warmly welcome! If you need more information have a look at Events at EC webpage.

The big project called international preparation for filling the EC statues was assigned to us by the 17^th Gyalwa Karmapa himself, during his last visit to the EC in summer 2008.  Seeing so many beautiful, small and large Buddha statues, he expressed the wish that all of them would be filled before the international summer course in 2009.  He told us: „Filling these precious statues will be like filling a stupa.“

Statue fillers actually started the preparation for this joyful event in the autumn of 2007 as soon as we got the EC property in Immenstadt. They rolled the mantras in Schwarzenberg once a month during 2008 and, of course, during the summer course at the EC.

After the first meeting of the international statue fillers on the last weekend of January 2009, this activity was spread to all friends worldwide, who have the special knowlege for rolling mantras. Our friends from Germany, Slovenia, Netherlands, USA, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Ireland, Hungary and Italy got the assignment of rolling various mantras. You can have a look at the pictures from  different countries and places. Many friends took part by collecting precious things for filling and friends from Venezuela also felled a special tree on their property and donated this wood for the life-trees.

As Caty said: “The filling of the statues at the EC, the heart center of Diamond Way centers around the globe, will be accomplished by involving and drawing on the power and activity of every country”.

We are very touched by this inspiring activity and are happy about the special course in May, which will be the very first international statue filling course with international statue fillers (11. to 24. May)! We are happy to transmit our knowlege of this subject, have fun and enjoy your friendship!

All people who are interested are invited to take part!

On the travel plan of Lama Ole you might find the word „retreat“ since the middle of March. This project time is reserved for the book retreat and our Lama and his team are using these days to work intensively on a brand new book. Everybody is very focused and concentrated and we are all looking forward to the fresh „birth“ of the Death and rebirth book. During this book retreat all friends coming to the EC are invited to use this precious chance together with the residents to meditate in our Lama’s powerfield.

International travelling teachers meeting took place in the EC last weekend. Around 50 teachers came from all around the world to meet, get to know each other and talk about different topics such as thankfulness, sangha, EC and also how to meet more often and how to deepen the friendship.

Whole weekend was full of inspiring talks how different people became traveling teachers, stories about interesting lectures one gave or memories of those who met with 16. Karmapa.

That three days were covered in a very nice atmosphere and it seems that this international TTs winter gathering will become an annual tradition.

Last Thursday evening the EC villa filled up with many friends who spontaneously gathered to celebrate Lama Ole’s 68th birthday. After singing in the main hall when Ole came down the stairs we all shared a gigantic delicious cake. Everybody appreciated the chance to congratulate the Lama and receive a blessing before he returned back to the book retreat.

May you live longer, may all your wishes come true, may all your work grow and all your students develop for the benefit of all beings!

From February 24th to March 1st, a small group of very talented friends from Poland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Germany came together for a wonderful thangka and statue painting course, guided by the painting master Tashi Gyaltsen of Dharamsala, and Silke Keller of Munich. Schwarzenberg’s resident statue painting group and Petra from Braunschweig also joined in.

The first step was to learn the measurement construction of a Buddha. Then the group started to draw Buddha faces using a special raster system. We then practiced drawing a Buddha’s hands, feet and robes. Finally we learned how to paint the faces of statues.

We enjoyed the course in a bright and lovely room, the EC’s winter garden. Outside, we had a view of a beautiful winter landscape. The snow and sunshine made it look like a fairy tale. Many thanks to the EC team for their warm hosting and tasty meals.