A Snapshot…
The sound of upbeat music mixed with the busy clank of big pots being moved about is drifting from the spacious industrial kitchen, where the preparation of lunch is under way. Upstairs, in the beautiful and expansive meditation hall, located under the restored roof of the historic barn building, people are meditating. Next to the kitchen, inside the airy common room known as the “pub“ (where no alcohol is served) and on the outside terraces, small groups of people are sitting or standing together, sipping coffee, and enjoying a break in the sunny Alpine weather. A group of kids is busy with a game of soccer on the central courtyard lawn. Farther down, towards the lower gardens at the historic manor house, local students and visiting practitioners are circumambulating a small granite stupa while others are meditating on the sloped meadow around it.
In the near future, the place will be transformed by thousands of small and several enormously large tents to host the biggest annual Diamond Way Course of the year and will welcome students from all over the world. Every bed in town and on-site will be booked, and thousands will be accommodated, fed, and given the opportunity to practice and learn together. It’s a sunny and happy scene of community life at the Europe Center (EC), one that can be observed there, more or less like this, many times over, during the warmer season of any given year. Yet this snapshot reflects just one facet of the extraordinary dharma place the EC has matured into and the manifest potential of what it can grow into in the years to come. So much has been done already, and so much is still planned for the future to maintain and further improve what is already today a jewel of a place. The EC is a home for the dharma and its international Diamond Way sangha.
Roots
As of the time of writing this article, it has been sixteen years since the Europe Center was acquired by the International Diamond Way Buddhism Foundation of the Karma Kagyu Lineage in 2007, and thus it is still relatively young, as large Buddhist centers go. Yet, through the frame it provides for dharma activity, in this short time, it has already partaken in a respectable share of intense growth, joy, and achievement and also challenges and change, as would be expected for an endeavor of this size. Its existence today, like every Diamond Way meditation or retreat center, is first a testament to the immense blessing of the lineage and to the inspiration and wishes that have carried from His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa to Lama Ole Nydahl and his wife Hannah, in their fifty years of sharing Karma Kagyu teachings and methods in the West. It is also a testament to their unrelenting hard work and devotion, not only to their own practice and development, but also to making those teachings accessible to others in the future. Finally, it is a testament to the hard work and devotion of their many students who dedicate their time and skills to helping grow Lama Ole’s work.
Throughout, the unwavering support, warm friendship, and continuous care by our highest lineage lamas, like Gyalwa Karmapa and Kunzig Shamar Rinpoche, and by so many other treasured lamas, was and is an essential part of this growth. Enriching smaller and bigger courses with the blessing and transmission passed through their empowerments and teachings, such visits are often a special highlight for the Diamond Way sangha, attracting thousands of students at once and thus sharing the benefit with as many students as possible. In fact, these types of large courses, drawing an international crowd of thousands, is of course how the idea of a place like the EC began many years ago.
The Idea
It was an easy and logical wish to have a piece of our own land, to be able to host the International Summer Course and other courses like it. This emerged from seeing the steady growth of large events, particularly the annual International Summer Course in Kassel, Germany, which was held on rented grounds until 2007. Owning such land would not only give the feeling of being at home, but would also enable us to build some permanent infrastructure, and combine this frame with a large year-round international meeting place specifically meant to thicken the glue of shared experience and friendship within the Diamond Way sangha as a whole. From the beginning, Lama Ole made it clear that this center, while providing enough land for a large course site, would at the same time be centrally located, right in the busiest heart of Europe, with easy travel access and short supply routes. It was crucial that the site would be near a network of cities or towns, where it would be possible for a big enough local sangha to live sustainably and, in the long run, to earn a living and support their families, while also running the center on behalf of the international sangha.
Lama Ole and Hannah Nydahl’s decades of work in the name of their root teacher, the 16th Karmapa, had long shown that practicing the dharma as lay practitioners integrated well into society. Their centers were brimming with practicing students and those who were just curious, who wanted to learn more. In this context of feeling well-established already, none of us initially recognized that this project would not only provide an internal use to us, but also would become a natural representation of Buddhism in Western society; it was an accomplishment that arose almost by happenstance and rather despite ourselves. As a physical place and providing all the needed conditions to practice, meet, share, and learn as an international sangha, the EC would thus also be an important element in carrying Lama Ole and Hannah’s lifetime of effort in the dharma into the future on even more solid ground—literally.
The Search
While a striking, historic estate in Southern Germany is where the search concluded in 2007, it is not where it began: the name “Europe Center” for the project was conceived early on, at the annual Kassel course in 2000. At the same time, a project group formed with a mandate to more clearly define future needs and criteria for the property. One of the early project meetings took place at the oldest German retreat center, in Schwarzenberg (Eng. Black Mountain), at the southernmost tip of the country, and in a region famous for its mountainous beauty. Incidentally, the Schwarzenberg Center had also acted as an international connector for Lama Ole’s activity since 1983, but had become too small as a home base. It was a fitting place to start organizing the search.
The concepts tossed around ranged widely, but in the end it was decided that first efforts would be centered in the middle of Germany and focused on former military sites, which would, by definition, provide the needed space, flat terrain, and relative proximity to infrastructure and access roads. Countless possible sites were explored as the months and years passed, yet nothing seemed to stick. It was a test in patience and perseverance.
Meanwhile, a fundraising effort was underway. It had begun with an enthusiastic first spark around a kitchen table and a call to two hundred close friends, each committing one thousand Euros towards the estimated cost of two to three million Euros, and then it slowly gained momentum. Early on, a decision was made that we would put ink to paper only if we were able to raise the purchase price in full and avoid the risk, dependency, and burden of a long-term mortgage. This clarified the path forward on a financial level. The only way we could dream of making this happen would be in the sheer number of supporters: if everyone within our world-wide sangha who felt connected and was rooting for the project donated an amount they felt good with, then it could work out, maybe… well, surely it would! And so, the fundraising continued, while the energy invested in the search returned no tangible results.
In 2004, the scope of the search was widened to include Southern Germany and a wider range of property types. With this decision, a shift in perception finally ripened that would turn out to be essential. After being turned down for a property in the home town of the then newly-appointed Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, it suddenly became obvious that instead of apologizing for our unusual project and unfamiliar intended use, we needed to project outwardly what we already knew we brought to the table: that we were a serious and financially-able buyer for the type of property usually not easily sold, and we were eager to contribute as full members of the community. More than that, with our large events and the expected revenue they would bring to local businesses, we would be a true asset to the districts we would join.
By the spring of 2005, building on personal contacts and the positive reputation of the Schwarzenberg Retreat Center, representatives of the project gave a presentation to the City Council of Immenstadt. Immenstadt is a small rural town within a few hours drive of the borders of three European countries (Austria, Switzerland, and Italy), and several major airports. It is located next to two beautiful lakes and leans on agriculture, tourism, small businesses, some mid-sized businesses, and one or two large industrial manufacturers for its economy. Furthermore, it is also in commuting proximity to several other towns and villages of similar socio-economic makeup. For all these reasons, Immenstadt seemed like a very good fit for us— but would we seem like a good fit for them?
The time and place were finally right; the community was interested. Soon after that first presentation, the project group received suggestions of properties to consider in the area. One of the earlier ones was even inspected by Thaye Dorje, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa and Hannah, who at that point had been weakened by an aggressive form of cancer diagnosed only months earlier. Just a few weeks after the visit, the city suggested that we take a look at the grand and historic estate above the lake, which had become available recently. It had been owned by generations of the builder’s family, who had been a wealthy landowner in the 1900s. The estate had been completed in 1911 after three years of construction. At the time, the estate was a modern wonder, equipped with electricity (the local town was not), and built wholly in Art Nouveau style with custom furnishings to match the ensemble. With the matriarch of the family getting too old to care for the place herself, her surviving son was looking for a buyer with plans that would do his family’s heritage honor.
In pouring rain, our friends drove up a winding dirt road to check out the complex and take pictures. On that day, it all seemed a stretch: the weather had dimmed the mood, the winding road alone would pose a challenge, the buildings were protected as monuments and the acres of nature with sloped meadows were in a nature preserve. Having sent a report and pictures to Lama Ole and Hannah, the answer, though, was swift and decisive, “This is the place! This is it.”
Buying The Europe Center
From that moment on, everything came together. In an enthusiastic final push, fundraising support soared until we reached the asking price of 4.2 million Euros. In January 2007, the International Foundation made an offer to buy the historic Hochreute Manor and its surrounding 125 acres of land. The county administration had agreed that the necessary use and building permits would be granted under a set of conditions. On March 26, 2007, the contract was signed and celebrated—only days before our precious teacher and the mother of Diamond Way Buddhism, Hannah Nydahl, passed away.
Weeks later, the first crew of “EC pioneers” moved in. The group splendidly represented the international vision of the EC with a colorful mix of languages and countries of origin. English would be the official language of the EC. The effort to make this happen went so far as that whenever groups of people from the same country would stand together and chat in their own language, they would quickly be reminded to speak English to avoid projecting to others that theirs was a closed circle. Although this was a bit strange at first, the international mindset and the unity this discipline gave the entire sangha soon became second nature to all. Today this is a natural element of center life that allows every new sangha member to integrate easily and quickly, regardless of where they come from.
Aside from these adjustments, there was so much work to do! The sleepy, historic, rural estate, which had not had much work done to it for decades, needed to be transformed into a place fit to house and feed the hundreds of friends who came to help and prepare everything for the first International Summer Course on our own land, planned for the summer of 2008. We had to grade and prime the outside grounds, widen the road, and reroof the second residence. Meanwhile, we also had to manage the loving and painstakingly slow restoration of the interior of the historic buildings, as well as prepare the stately rooms of the main residence and the more standard rooms in the second residence to be suitable to house our lamas, their guests, center residents, and helpers. At the same time, the frame of a regular center program, such as guided meditations and lectures, needed to be established. From the start, and based on Lama Ole’s expressed wish, the crew began and ended each day with a guided meditation on the 16th Karmapa, a tradition that has continued ever since that time. The hours in between were filled with little else but work. Those who lived through those weeks and months have only one thing to say about it, “It was a crazy and really, really tough time—but we managed!” And so they did. In August of 2008, the vision of so many years finally came true: with Gyalwa Karmapa, Sherab Gyaltsen Rinpoche, and Lama Ole Nydahl teaching, giving empowerments and guiding meditations in front of several thousand students from all over the world, the International Summer Course of 2008 truly was a beginning to remember.
After The First Summer Course
The locals, who stayed behind as all the guests of the course and the hundreds of helpers dismantling the course site left, were exhilarated and just plain happy. It did not take long, however, for the pressures and expectations of the EC to settle in as permanent roommates. The project had entered a new stage. The first Summer Course had been a truly auspicious birth, but now what? The place was in its early infancy and literally everything needed to grow into place, be worked out, tried out, organized, and settled. With the Buddhist world watching (as well as the cautiously friendly but simultaneously carefully suspicious town folk), the EC was for now little more than a beautiful and well-suited—but also aging and yet incomplete—container. Would it deliver what everyone was counting on not just once a year, with the help of the experienced and proficient summer course team taking care of the course logistics, but throughout the year and in the long run? The task at hand sounded easy and daunting at once: make true the vision of a place that would bring everyone together.
To support this first and crucial phase, Lama Ole asked several of his students, who had international and/or long-term center experience, to help in the effort by moving close by or into the EC as residents. After all, much was at stake— outwardly and inwardly. So many had contributed and rooted for the project, and everyone expected the best.
With enthusiasm and dedication to meet the high expectations, the still relatively small, freshly assembled local sangha set out putting on a seemingly endless string of courses, transmission weekends, public lectures, open houses, statue exhibitions, and work weekends. Over the next few years, the EC hosted amazing visits, teachings, and empowerments by our most treasured lamas. The joy and blessing they brought, despite the unfinished conditions of the site, was a gift to all, and although we were just getting started, it seemed that everything was already accomplished.
However, inwardly, everything wasn’t going quite so smoothly. The exertion needed to offer this type of program continuously, while also managing a big and complex construction site, was taking a toll on a human level. As soon as possible, the existing barn needed to be converted into a usable space and an additional residential building needed to be added. If 2007 to 2008 was a sprint, then 2009 to 2015 was a marathon. As another important milestone, in 2014 the meditation hall (Tib. gompa) inside the splendidly refurbished barn was finally inaugurated by Sherab Gyaltsen Rinpoche and Lama Ole on the birthday of the 16th Karmapa, a full moon day.
Inauguration of the New Buildings and Organizational Changes
One year later, in the summer of 2015, everything was finished at last, including the construction of the new building to the East. The inauguration day was festive in almost every way. Under a clear blue sky, there were speeches and music and cannon balls were fired. Hundreds attended and soaked in the celebratory atmosphere amidst a magical polyphony of traditional alpine longhorns and Tibetan wind instruments. Gyalwa Karmapa, Sherab Gyaltsen Rinpoche, and Lama Ole welcomed the officials and representatives from regional and local government. The new residential wing as well as the restored barn, which had not been officially shown to the public, were admired.
Today, in 2022, the EC’s activity is carried by a strong and experienced local sangha comprised of people from around twenty nations. It is supported by hundreds of individuals from around the world and more than fifty countries worldwide. A continuous flow of sangha friends visiting from around the world has become its natural pulse, making true the vision of a place for genuine dharma exchange on a broad international level. Whatever the challenges and conditions of the coming years, it is of course up to each of us to accomplish the teachings we receive here and elsewhere. In this, the EC is an amazing gift, which will hopefully bring endless benefit to countless beings in the years to come. As Gyalwa Karmapa put it in 2015, “All of this would not be possible without two main ingredients: that of our heart and our aspiration, and then the same kind of aspiration in the form of the blessing of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, meaning those who have fulfilled that aspiration. When those two points meet, then all of this wonderful environment becomes possible.” Karmapa finished with the wish for the long life of Lama Ole, and for our bonds to be strengthened more and more. What else is there to say?
