Archive for the ‘Event reports’ Category

Lama Ole Nydahl’s visit to the UK, November 2011

Saturday, November 12th, 2011
Lama Ole Nydahl teaching in Manchester, November 2011

Lama Ole Nydahl teaching in Manchester, November 2011

Lama Ole Nydahl visited the UK from 8-10 November 2011 to teach in Manchester, Exeter and London. Here is a report of these exciting three days. Click on any of the thumbnails to enlarge the image.

Lama Ole arrived St Pancras International by Eurostar from Belgium, having already taught in Paris, Rotterdam and Brussels during the previous days on this year’s “Channel Tour”, an annual part of Lama Ole’s teaching schedule in which he is invited by his centres in the countries along the English Channel – France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. Typically this tour is made via coach, with a full travelling group of about 60 students who, as well as attending Lama Ole’s public lectures, use the opportunity to spend more time together with their lama and sangha friends, strengthen connections and use the long coach rides for personal questions and interviews. On this leg of the journey though, Lama Ole took the Eurostar to make enough time to visit the Diamond Way Buddhist Group in St Albans.

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UK Sangha in Karma Berchen Ling

Monday, April 25th, 2011
Karma Berchen Ling, Greece

Karma Berchen Ling, Greece

We want to produce Buddhism, not consume it“. This is how Lama Ole Nydahl started a very inspiring talk given in San Francisco in 1995. We all have and enjoy this wonderful possibility to produce Buddhism in every day life in our groups and centres all over the UK. This year however, such a precious opportunity for the UK sangha also appeared in a distant corner of Southern Europe. For the whole month we had the honour to be responsible for running one of our Diamond Way Buddhist retreat centres. In March 2011 the UK sangha became the host of Karma Berchen Ling centre in Greece.

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Tomek Lehnert in Edinburgh

Saturday, April 16th, 2011
Tomek Lehnert in Edinburgh

Tomek Lehnert in Edinburgh

Our Edinburgh Buddhist group recently had the opportunity to host a great teacher of Diamond Way Buddism, Tomek Lehnert. Tomek was the right hand of Lama Ole Nydahl for 20 years while traveling with him around the world. He has been involved in setting up Karma Kagyu Buddhist centres in the Americas, Australia and New Zealand, and Russia as well as Western and Eastern Europe. He’s also the author of the book about the Karmapa controversy, Rogues In Robes.

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Report from Diamond Way Buddhism UK Northern Retreat 2011

Sunday, March 13th, 2011
Yorkshire Dales National Park

Yorkshire Dales National Park

Inspired by Lama Ole Nydahl‘s advice and wishes from his last New Year’s Letter “The coming year and on is the time for meditation!”, the Manchester Sangha decided to organize an event which would enable us to deepen our meditation practice. Thus the idea of Northern Retreat originated some time in January this year. After searching a while for a suitable venue we found the perfect place for this purpose.

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Opening the Buddhas’ eyes in the London Centre

Sunday, November 21st, 2010
Intense concentration is needed to paint the fine details of the Buddha's eyes

Intense concentration is needed to paint the fine details of the Buddha's eyes

When Lama Ole Nydahl visited London in September 2010 and blessed the newly-filled Buddha statues (see this blog entry) he recommended that we “open their eyes”. So earlier in November 2010, our London Buddhist Centre was transformed into a workshop, where a group of friends spent a long weekend working with these centre statues as well as a collection of smaller statues belonging to individuals. This delicate “eye-opening” process involves painting the heads and faces of the statues with gold and specially prepared paint, as well as adding precious stones in places such as the crowns and ornaments of certain forms. Leo Grzyb was invited from Slovakia to London to guide the workshop. Leo has spent several years studying traditional Kagyu Buddhist art under the close tutelage of Denzong Norbu, probably the greatest living master of the Karma Gardri style of thangka painting who received its transmission directly from the 16th Karmapa. We’d like to share some impressions from the workshop, click on the thumbnails below to enlarge.

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Nyungne in the heart of England, 29 October – 1 November 2010

Monday, November 1st, 2010
1,000-arm Chenrezig

1,000-arm Chenrezig

As we mentioned back in June, the UK Nyungne retreat took place from Friday 29 October to Monday 1 November 2010. 30 friends from around the country gathered in Bedfordshire in the heart of the English countryside to take part in a long weekend engaged in the fasting practice of the 1,000-Armed Loving Eyes (Skt. Avalokiteshvara; Tib. Chenrezig).

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Report from Europe Center Channel Countries weekend

Monday, October 25th, 2010
EC Channel Countries Weekend flyer

EC Channel Countries Weekend flyer

Here’s a report from the Europe Center blog about the recent channel countries weekend (23-24 October 2010):

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Statues in our London Buddhist Centre

Friday, October 15th, 2010
Diamond Mind and Loving Eyes Statues in the London Diamond Way Buddhist Centre

Diamond Mind and Loving Eyes Statues in the London Diamond Way Buddhist Centre

We’d like to share some impressions from the filling and blessing of the beautiful Buddha statues in our London Buddhist Centre. The filling took place back in February (19-21) 2010 when we had the privilege to host our great friends from Germany – Dagmar, Steffi and Sebastian – who are trained in the traditional art of statue filling.  The statues are of Loving Eyes (Tib.Chenrezig), Diamond Mind (Tib. Dorje Sempa), and Green Liberatrice (Skt. Tara), as well as one of the 16th Karmapa holding the Black Crown.

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