EC Blog News & Reports

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!

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

By Martin

The EC Team weekend happens 2-3 times a year – we spend time together and try get to know each other better in a relaxed atmosphere. This time the “Schwarzenbergers”, our neighbouring sangha, invited us to their wonderful place and offered dharma teachings, their creativity concerning outdoor events and their precious time. There were meditations, personal stories, a Dharma-triathlon, free time, a lecture by Karola Schneider, amazing food, great DJs – all best ingredients for an enjoyable weekend which brought the group even closer together. We enjoyed it a lot!

By hubert

Over the last weeks we enjoyed lots of spontaneous talks on different Buddhist topics. Only to mention a few friends – our “resident” international traveling teachers Charlotte, Cristina, Maike and Pit, plus Steve from London, Honza from the Czech Republic, Peter from Liverpool, Maxi and Gerhard from Austria, Wojtek from Poland, Egle from Lithuania, Gerd from Northern Germany and Karola from our neighbouring center in Schwarzenberg.

Some of them Lama Ole already asked decades ago to travel and teach Diamond Way Buddhism on an international level – in order to support his efforts of making Buddhist teachings available in the modern Western world. So what exactly makes a traveling teacher a traveling teacher?

Lama Ole Nydahl: “Our traveling teachers are asked to teach because of their life experience, Buddhist understanding, and completely keeping their bonds. They represent Buddha’s three ways in a transparent manner. Outwardly, they harm beings as little as possible. Inwardly, they enjoy working for others. They have compassion, and enough understanding of emptiness to see things as inspiring, dreamlike and in a broad context. This stability must not falter in the face of their own upcoming difficulties. They must always be willing to risk their skin for the benefit of others. Secretly, they should have a firm conviction and some experience that space equals joy, and therefore radiate this confidence into the world.” (taken from Buddhism Today, Vol.4, 1998)

We think they are doing precisely that and would like to thank all of them for sharing their time and knowledge and inspiring us deeply!

By meike

Looking back, we were quite lucky with the amount of snow we had for our first skiing weekend in February – shortly before there most almost no snow, and afterwards the white magic melted away again as well. It has been a very mild winter in Allgäu this year. Since we all had a wonderful time both inside and outside, we will certainly have another Skiing & Meditation Weekend next year – we only have to decide on the date and which of the hundreds of beautiful slopes surrounding the EC we want to ski or board down!

Our skiing traveling teachers Maxi and Gerhard from Graz in Austria shared inspiring stories of how they started the first western Diamond Way Buddhist center in 1972. After studying Buddhism in the Himalayas, Lama Ole Nydahl for the first time gave people in the West buddhist refuge – the entry into the buddhist path. Ever since then, many high Lamas and Rinpoches visited Graz, a stupa was built – and over 600 centers were founded worldwide until today.

By meike

Last weekend friends from the Diamond Way buddhist center in Cologne/Germany came to present their new project. Their “Maarweg Roadshow” was a great adventure for us. We got to feel the Cologners’ passion about finding a place after eight years of searching for it. We had a chance to discuss their vision, taste the traditional food and drinks and… chorus together „Let’s do it Maaaaarway!”. Surprisingly, at the same time we also had guests from Düsseldorf – it seems those two centers always show up together What to do – we meditated, worked on the EC’s road and had fun together. And now we understand why Lama Ole said “The Maarweg is the first class!”.

After this exciting weekend, thanks to our guest and neighbour, we got to know two centers in Latin America. Macarena and Sebastian fulfilled our wishes and took us on a story-telling trip trough the buddhist center in Buenos Aires/Argentina and the retreat center Karma Dechen Ling (KDL)/Uruguay. Anecdotes about a phowa course in KDL with 200 friends from 20 different countries and a collaboration of Spanish speaking countries touched us deeply. Suddenly everybody felt a connection to our friends on the other continent and wished not only to hear stories and look at photos – but also to visit those places for real one day. And… we are all warmly invited to do so!

By hubert

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!

By meike

We just had an EC residents and long term guests dinner. Getting together for an easy time over a meal makes everything flow much smoother in the center and we all enjoyed it very much and decided to do it regularly. Tonight we talked mainly about a paradox we often face here:

• we always seem to lack helpers for the jobs the daily center life and projects require
• many of our guests feel a bit lost here and don’t know how to help when they want to

With so many people coming and going all the time, it’s crucial to have a clear, easy-to-understand and ongoing way of matching these offers and demands together. We’ll try to learn from the great Summer Course’s job center and come up with something friendly and practical that will make the lives of both guests and residents at the EC easier.

And finally a small quiz for you: what do traveling teachers Florinda Czeija, Egle Rasimaite, Wojtek Tracewski, Gert Boll, Honza Matuska and Peter Malinowski have in common?

By Martin

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!

By meike

Last Sunday we sat down with 3 of friends to talk. It was very late after a busy Summer Course Team weekend, and one of us posed a simple question – how was your day? As we started to recount each other’s day, this impressive list of things that happened in the last 24 hours appeared:

• the EC Steering Team met, as every Sunday, to work on an agenda of questions, issues and tasks that accumulated over the past week
• Shamar Rinpoche greeted all while on the phone with Lama Ole
• Lama Ole finished a manuscript of a new question-and-answers book and a first part of a three-part article on transmission
• the Summer Course core team summed up the very successful weekend and fixed the program of the upcoming Summer Course 2011
• Manfred K. came from Munich to set up a new address book system for Lama Ole’s team (aka “the pool”)
• Bulgarian friends visiting the EC drove home happily with 3 new statues for their centers
• 2 film crews shooting documentary movies about Lama Ole and Hannah came to the EC to discuss their projects and their financing
• the Press Team sent out a statement about the recent events in the East
• a new Diamond Way Musicians international group was created, putting together sangha musicians who want to support various projects (e.g. movies) with their music
• old water boiler in the villa collapsed – accidentally, all the experts were around and replaced almost it immediately
• the new EC road sign was designed
• we (finally) sent out Lama Ole’s New Year’s cards

And this was just the 3 of us talking about things we were involved in mostly outside of the Summer Course team weekend program. The other 90 people attending the weekend would add much more to the list as their teams met to prepare the Summer Course: the gompa team, the transportation team, the finance team, the purchasing team, the registration team, the dharma shop, mini-market & merchandising teams, the cafeteria, the childcare, the sound team, the kitchen team, the medical team, the I-grow-EC! team… you name it.

Life’s never boring! Especially at the EC.

By Martin

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.

By Caty