EC Blog News & Reports

It was about time for our close neighbours, the Austrian Sangha, to take over the Europe Center for a weekend! The Austrian Country Weekend was all about transmission in every direction – between the Europe Center, its international sangha and Austria as well as in between the Austrian centers themselves. Also sharing a lot of fun  meant growing together more and getting to know each other better in unusual situations for many of the participants.

The meaning and vision of the EC became clear during a spontaneous questions & answers session with Caty. “Now we really identify with the EC and – apart from that – also with our own center, our roots and our culture. We realized that the challenges we experienced in our centers are the same as in other centers in the world. We shared so much fun and creativity – it was amazing to see how much surplus we had together to organize this big thing!”

Another friend put it this way: “Hey, this is great, we can be at the EC whenever we want. It is ours!!!”

Thank you for a very unique and inspiring weekend!

By meike

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!

By meike

One might think that January is a quiet time with a lot of snow and little action…
Not at the EC! The first weeks of the new year were packed with spontaneous talks and presentations, looong breakfasts and evenings with friends from all across the globe – and almost no snow.

Diamond Way Buddhism in the US was the focus of three nights. Joshua and Jeremiah dug deep in their piles of pictures and memories from the times when a few very inspired and active friends in the US drove for days and nights in order to listen to a public lecture by Lama Ole or meditate together. This was the start of eight centers with a lot of members in the Heartland, the Midwest of the United States, today. To round this up, a report on Lama Ole’s recent US tour gave us an insight on the recent happenings in North America.

Roman from Melbourne made clear that driving is not really an option “down under” – the distances between the meditation groups are way too big. So as an Australian buddhist, you sometimes have to hop on an airplane to meet your friends from the next town for a weekend or listen to a travel teacher’s lecture. Breathtakingly beautiful beaches and the characteristically Australian need for one’s personal wide space have not kept Buddhism in Australia from developing impressively over the last years. In Melbourne, there are eight friends living together in one center, other centers are also growing quickly, and a beautiful retreat house at the beach for meditation was just purchased for all members of the Australian sangha to meet at.

For Europe, Karolina, Ilona and Danas gave an inspiring insight on the dynamic development of Buddhism in a comparatively small country like Lithuania. They showed that with devotion a relatively small group of friends can bring Buddhism into a whole country. Today there are four centers, and the big retreat center is getting ready for the visit of H.H. the 17th Karmapa Trinley Thaye Dorje.

Our new weekly movie night premiered with the fascinating travel documentary “Searching for the old Tibet” by Maria from Gdańsk and Thomas from Berlin. You’re more than welcome to come and join our movie nights in the cosy lounge!

By meike

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.

By klara

Allgäu Winterwonderland provided perfect conditions for our 24 hour meditation on Loving Eyes (tib. Chenrezig, skt. Avalokiteshvara), the embodiment of the love and compassion of all Buddhas. With below -10°C and half a meter of snow outside, we had a wonderful time meditating together in our cosy gompa in the EC Villa. On Saturday evening, we rounded up the meditation with an inspiring lecture by buddhist travel teacher Pit Weigelt about love and compassion – and a nice get together afterwards in our snowed in Baucafé.

The kids definitely got their weekend’s highlight on Sunday afternoon. They decorated the beautiful christmas tree in the hall of the villa – right in time for welcoming Lama Ole for a few days of bookretreat at the EC, starting tomorrow…

And then there are three more friends we were finally able to welcome this weekend: our new resident family Nastia, Martin and little Nik from Prague. Great they’ve finally come to stay!

By meike

Friday evening

Thanks to heavy snow in Austria, all the participants came much later than it was planned, therefore Hungarians took over the EC only in the evening. Everyone was welcomed by a bit of Hungarian palinka (schnaps), meanwhile the cooks started to prepare the dinner. After evening meditation we got a nice teaching from Didi and Zsuzsi Rowek about the beginning of Hungarian Buddhism. Didi and Zsuzsi were the first traveling teachers who started to teach in Hungary many years ago.

Saturday

7.30 wake-up with live Saxofon music, meditation and traditional breakfast. After this early start the contest among 9 mixed groups in 9 locations in the house took place. Tasks were really joyful: archery, building Buddha-statues from snow without talking, protecting flying eggs with different tools, finding out what is Hungarian invention etc.

After presentations about the history of Hungarian buddhism and videos from the past we enjoyed an unbeliveable cultural evening in the BauCafe: folk songs (presented by professional Buddhist artists) and folk dances with amateur friends.

Sunday

Wake-up music again, but with a bit bigger company (Saxofon, ancient Hungarian drum, violin and a singer) visiting again all the places where people were sleeping. After breakfast we went on with the presentations of the Hungarian buddhist history and then 6 traveling teachers made a session of questions and answers creating constant smile on the faces of the audience. For lunch there was of course a nice goulash with cottage cheese ball as dessert. Quick cleaning of the building and good bye (everyone got sweets and sausage with bread for the way home).

Well, that was a blog written by Majki from Budapest accomanied with photos and videos from Hungarian friends, who came in 7 minibusses and 6 cars. In the EC we had more than 85 Hungarians, several friends from Vienna, Transylvania, Uzhgorod and Greece  alltogether with many visitors. They all consumed 20 kgs of sausages and several kgs of Erős Pista (chili sauce)!

By klara

On the last weekend the EC hosted the Ngöndro days with several traveling teachers, who explained  the background teachings for Foundational Practices to around 60 people. Inspired by the program we had guests from close and also far away centers.

During these days we could hear the voices of Karola Schneider, Charlotte Jorgensen, Hinrich Vollmer, Roman Laus and Frank Huhn talking about teacher and student relationship,  the meaning of refuge, Bodhisattva attitude, cause and effect and the two accumulations. On Saturday evening there was a session of Questions and Answers with all the speakers.  We went deeper into our practice during a longer meditation sessions and it again showed us how important is to meditate together.

For the Ngöndro weekend more than 30 friends from Berlin sangha came to run the EC and thanks to them the EC Team could attend the full program and also get to know the Berliners better!

By klara

Again a weekend is over in the Europe Center. For the first time we had the pleasure to host an ITAS weekend here. For those who don’t know ITAS, ITAS is the International Institute for Tibetan and Asian Studies based in lovely Karma Guen in Spain. Around 20 people came to talk about how ITAS can bring the most benefit to as many beings as possible in the longest time. They talked about the future and the present: processes of ITAS, new IT projects, e-Learning, financial issues and much more. Finally they could meet in one place which gives a lot of possibilities to exchange opinions, make clarifications and get to know each other better. That is one of the reasons why we have the Europe Center – meet and connect!

Other friends came for a weekend to help and enjoy the time together. Everyone found their areas to work and time to meditate. Finally every evening all of us met at the Bau-Cafe – the most famous bar in the world

After the ITAS workshop was over the EC Team came together on Sunday evening to do the Phowa practice – like all other Diamondway Centers around the world we do it 4 times a year (including summer course). That night the full moon was extremely breathtaking…

By hubert

This weekend the Europe Center was invaded by some 100 bavarians! It was about time, since it is located in the big German federal state of Bavaria. The Bavarian centers were and are much involved in the long process of finding the EC and building it up afterwards – and of course they can get here within a very short amount of time. Therefore they are quite important to keep the Europe Center running.

We heard very inspiring stories about the history of the EC and of Buddhism in Bavaria from the “old dogs”, brainstormed how to get the Bavarian sanghas even more actively involved in the Europe Center activities, and learnt a lot about the world-famous Bavarian culture – especially about the delicious food and the traditional clothing – “Dirndl” dresses and leather trousers. And the translators had an extra-challenging job this time – they had to translate from Bavarian dialect to English – and vice versa, of course!

Oh… if you should be wondering if accidentally some summer pictures slipped in between – this is not the case. We had “Weißwurst” brunch outside in the sun –  in the middle of November and weeks after the first snow in Allgäu. Anything is possible in Bavaria!

By meike

It’s November, it’s Immenstadt – and that means we have another good reason to get up early. One beautiful sunrise is followed by the next. Here’s just two of them… but we might have to post follow-ups because it’s just breathtaking and veeery romantic almost every morning.

By meike