Karma Berchen Ling

After this incredible initiation we had a wonderful mahamudra course with Lama Ole. Four days highest teachings and a lot of posture in order for questions and answers. Lama Ole also married several couples in front of the stupa. He left on 27th of August for the Balkantour.
Lama Chogdrup Dorje enjoyed a few more days in Berchen Ling togehter with his brother – holiday in the beautiful mountains of the Peloponnese.
After the course a lot of people stayed to enjoy the place and to help building down and preparing the site for winter. Everything happened so fast and smooth, in the evening we also had a lot of time to really meet each other.

The dream became a reality. In the mornig at 9 am after Lama Ole finishied the non-stop meditation on the Buddha aspect of Kalachakra our wonderful stupa was inaugurated. The ceremony was headed by Lama Chogdrup Dorje and Lama Ole Nydahl. The weather changed completely during the inauguration, everything was very auspicious. Everyone, without whom this special event would not have been possible was thanked.

Together we made it happen!

In the evening a special ceremony was held for representatives of local communities. They offered their support for our projects for all times.

May many beings develop and get enlightend in the power field of the Karma Berchen Ling Kalachakra Stupa.

Since this afternoon a beautiful Buddha statue is gazing from the stupa. The stupa is also being blessed by a non-stop Kalachakra meditation guided by Lama Ole and Lama Chogdrub Dorje.
We started yesterday in the morning and continued through the rest of the day and also the night. The meditation will finish together with the stupa empowerment that will take place tomorrow at 9 am.

Today, Lama Ole and Lama Chogdrub Dorje put the tree of life into the stupa. Filling the stupa with the tree of life is one of the most important moments in building a stupa. Also, on the same day the whole building of the stupa has been finished. Lama Ole unveiled the beautiful umbrella and now the stupa is shining through the whole valley. To participate in this event, many friends from all over the world has come and now we are already more than 1800 people.

Yesterday, the biggest element of the granite construction has been placed on the stupa. The top of the bumpa weights 8 tones! It has arrived on a big lorry together with other elements.
In the meantime our KBL fridge became an ideal place for tormas storage. The tormas were used for blessing pujas that were held during last days.
Today, the big statue of the Buddha is being filled. We also expect that more than 800 friends will arrive today to participate in the ceremony of putting the life tree into the stupa.

On the night of August 14th we had a very unusual event – we had a video conference with Lama Ole in Europe Centre. So the friends in Allgäu could see us gathered around the stupa. For such a remote place where there is not even a phone line, it was very special.
We showed a presentation with the latest images from the stupa. At the beginning, pictures from Tsechu Rinpoche and Lama Ole were to be seen, because we could feel their presence all the time.
In this way, we also showed how the infrastructure looks like – we already enjoy the new kitchen and cafeteria.

Yesterday, the stupa became one level higher. There was also a blessing-ceremony to eliminate the obstacles. The stupa starts looking more and more like a stupa and… it is so beautiful.
Beside that activities, the gompa tent was set up. At the moment we are 160 people on site and everything is now waiting for all the people from all over the world.

The course preparations are running at full speed, right now. Today the kitchen will be set up (3 days in advance!). The water tanks are already waiting for the yogi bathrooms that are being installed. Also the dining tent is almost ready as well as the gompa tent.
Meanwhile, the stupa waits for the next filling that will happen on Friday 13th of August.
This gives us the whole next week to try out how well everything works.

Yesterday, we had the next important moment in the stupa building process. This time, the Mandala of Kalachakra was put in the lotus flower lever. To make it possible, the lotus had to be lifted and installed. It was amazing to observe the huge pieces flying in the sky – as well as the two eagles that appeared during the ceremony of placing the mandala.

Right now Lama Chogdrub Dorje makes a 3-day retreat, doing pujas. In this way the Kalachakra Mandala inside the stupa is being blessed.

The last day, we continued with the filling of the Kalachakra Stupa. We started the work yesterday at 7:30 am and continued almost without a break for 23 hours. The work was very smooth and joyful, and everybody had a chance to participate. When the chamber was closed, we could turn our heads to admire a beautiful sun-rise.

We were also given a cherry on the cake – Patricia has shown a great Kalachakra thangka that will be hanging in the main tent during the course.

In the recent days more and more helpers came to the site. At many places there is hard work going on.
Right now, the granite slabs are attached to the stupa. The material came from Poland some days ago with a heavy duty truck. Some parts of it are so heavy, that it takes 12 men to carry them.
Two days ago, the team has arrived, which aims to put up the tents at the site and at the location next to Karma Berchen Ling.
The finishing of our long term project, the strawbales-house behind the kitchen insprired us to use the material for another little house down at our neighbours place, as well.

As you all know, Karma Berchen Ling is one of our international Buddhist Centers. And as it is situated in Greece, also the Greek sangha (Athens and Thessaloniki) supports the place, especially in the long term run. For instance, they produced special magazines about the retreat place and the stupa. Different people come for weekends and join all actual tasks, like producing tsatsas and mantra rolls, cooking, and building.

More and more, also our neighbours from the surrounding villages come and visit us at the site and offer their business and help.

Three years ago, we planed to build a house made by straw bales in KBL. But we never managed to do more than the foundation. Now, a group of strong and well organized Bulgarians builded the straw-bales-house in less than two weeks! It is not only great work, but also a really nice house…

In the middle of June a group of 15 Hungarians arrived in KBL. Within of ten days, they improved the water tank situation and builded the drainage around the Kalachakra Stupa. The wall of white stones, they builded in front of the stupa, had to be changed a few times, because KBL is just a Milarepa place…

Yesterday our new container arrived. It replaced the old one, often called “chicken house”. The new container is located between the Club House and the hut of “Jaquline”, the generator. It will give us the possibility to store bigger tools and materials for the course, like tents etc.

Like allways in KBL the weather is changing all the time. A few days ago we had summer with 35 degrees celsius and more. Now a strong wind blows everything around, that is not fixed and it’s getting pretty cold.

To get our new container on the place, we had to knock down the famous KBL gate partially. It took us almost a whole day to pull down the arch. The gate was build togehter with the Sangha House and became somehow one of the symbols of Berchen Ling. Now the gate will get new heads on top of the pillars.

During the time, the stupa is drying we use the chance to continue with the preparation on site. Some people still producing tsa tsas, others finishing the shower house – now proudly is called the “Club House”. Our generator Jaqueline is working day and sometimes also in the night and the two new water tanks get some additional technique. Thanks to the diligent girls in the kitchen, everybody can enjoy delicious food.

Dear Friends,

yesterday we finished the first phase of the stupa building. The concrete foundation is ready and has to dry now. We will continue in a few weeks…

Thank you all very much for your help!

At Sunday, May 23, we had a beautiful, sunny and clear day (since a long time)! At noon, Lama Choghdrub did a small puja to bless the new praying flags and people helped to tide them up. Now, one can see them from all over the mountains.

Simultaneous, the 72-hours prostration retreat continued with power and enthusiasm. And the Russian travel Teacher Lena Leontieva gave a lecture in the other gompa. It is amazing – now, we have two gompas functioning: one for prostrations and one for the lectures…

Update: We just finished the 72-hours protration retreat. People from ten countries made togehter 105,961 prostrations!

Dear friends,

as you all know, we will have the huge Kalachakra Stupa Course including a Mahamudra (Great Seal) Course this summer. Therefor, all people, being responsible for one or more departments like kitchen, cleaning, registration and so on met on site, to draw the final solutions. It was a great and inspiring meeting. “Together we can make it happen!”

After finishing the second foundation of the stupa, our great Polish team set the next layer on top, in the last two days. Then, we had to transport the prepared shuttering to the foundation. All people put together their strengh and: “Togehter we can make it happen!”

Step by step, the Kalachakra Stupa assumes a form…

Today, Lama Chogdrub Dorje did a blessing ceremony at the finished Stupa foundation, which was filled with precious Buddha aspects (Tsatsas). Strong winds – as usual at KBL – were present at the ceremony.

Today, in a second step, we build a square shuttering with nine boxes. These little squares will be filledaccording to the traditional Buddhist texts with Tsatsas and so on.

At the same time, we already prepared a shuttering (on the first two pics) for the socket, which will be build later on.

On May 10, we managed to finish the hole for the lowest concrete foundation with an excavator. As you can see, a lot of complex shutterings are needed to build the special forms of the Kalachakra Stupa foundation. This preparation took us two more days and today we filled in the first concrete.

Today, we also painted the Tsatsas for the filling of the foundation.

Lama Ole Nydahl talked to the DWBN-News about the Kalachakra Stupa in Karma Berchen Ling:

Kalachakra–stupas have been used for the last thousand years in Buddhist Asia to defend such timeless values against any retrograde forces of suppression which history may bring up and they work everywhere.

You can read the full interview here…

Dear friends,

after a long period of preparations the construction of the Kalachakra Stupa in KBL has begun. Lama Chogdrub Dorje is on site and guides the particular steps. He is supported by the architect Wojtek Kosowski who planed and build all the stupas togehter with Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche. And of course, there are a lot of people helping and joining the progress.

After the measurings and planings, on Sunday, May 9, Lama Chogdrub Dorje was doing an Earth Puja. Afterwards all people started to digg the hole for the stupa foundation.

Our Bulgarian group came to Karma Berchen Ling in the first week of April (3rd-10th). With a joyful mind and Lama Ole in our hearts, we made A LOT of tsa tsas. Meanwhile few guys tiled the floor in the new building of the big gompa, while others made strategies how to catch the mouse which was actually a rat that tried to eat our food in the storage.

One of the most exiting things that happened to us, was the unexpected appearance of two Bulgarian friends (a father and a son), who came by foot to Karma Berchen Ling. Arriving from Derveni the previous night, they got lost because of a misleading GPS map. They managed the last 8km following only the geographic coordinates and knowing from pictures what the retreat place looks like. They were our heroes of the day, until the next day, when we broke the “world wide record for making tsa tsas in KBL per day”.

At the end of the week we left the place and our lovely host Eva exceedingly happy … for the good of all beings.

“a 9 days week we never forget”

Our story started on Thursday at Bratislava centre during Piotr’s lecture about meaning of Kalachakra stupa. At that time none of our group knew he, or she, was going to buy tickets the very next day and depart to Athens on Monday. Simply said, the planning was poor but we learnt there’s no limit for an inspired and flexible mind. You can ask Zuzka, Johnko, Kuko and Tomas about it

We arrived to Athens on Monday night, jumped into a rented Focus and focused the wheels to our goal – Karma Berchen Ling. At early morning in Xylocastro question was raised whether we should enjoy a sleep at the beach or continue up to the hills. The magnetism of KBL decided without much of doubts and dear Eva had to wake up once again at 3am to meet happy newcomers.

After awakening we were quickly introduced to all tasks required to start Tsa Tsas production including special quests like cooking and shopping. Few days later friends from Czech sangha joined our group which was very international already thanks to Alfons (NE), Guoda (LV), Marcin (PL), Eva and Katrin (AT), Tini and Josef (DE).

Everybody found his, or her, place in the team and we started to enjoy what we found a complete retreat at the end – constant work with our minds for benefit of others. And enjoying it together with KBL’s ever changing outer and inner conditions was a real joyful effort. Evenings with the best company, little “beer” babies and Piotr’s stories were very helpful in this challenge.

But still there was something missing. No I’m not talking about a bungee jump, everybody did it (still thank you Andy). I mean something special … yes, an auspicious sign Well, we got a BIG one – Island volcano erupting just to stop all air traffic above the Europe so we could stay 3 more days and continue in Tsa Tsa production till next group from Hungary came.

Thanks to everyone who make such experiences possible.

On 31 March, the KBL-Stupa team met again with Lama Chogdrub Dorje and Wojtek Kossowski, the architect. It was an inspiring conversation:

Two cars with 9 friends started after a delicious supper and many farewell-good-wishes from the Vienna BUddhist center on march 26th towards Greece. The whole night we drove through Hungary & Serbia. South of Belgrade the sun came up and we had a nice breakfast break. After very interesting conversations about the situation and life in Serbia with the coffee owner who had worked in Switzerland for years, we continued our way through beautiful landscape in Macedonia and Greece.

The many toll stations, the boarders and the necessary stops to follow the biological needs of our body could only slow down our outer approach to KBL. But in our hearts and feelings we were already there.
This way to approach KBL driving together for about 27 hours is the beginning of the retreat with a lot of fun and when you are on the mountain you are really there in a state of freedom and joy.

Up there we had everything: joy, work, laughter, meditation, work, tears, joy, good food and good drinks. And sun, wind, fog, wind, sun, a little bit of rain, a full moon and even a rainbow around the sun. This week was a completly protected retreat with lots of mantras while producing the Tsa Tsas. Common meditations, good humor, many, many beautiful Tsa Tsas and close friendship helped us to transform our quite intense inner processes into maturing experiences.

To check our mind and open up even more we rounded this week off with a common bungee jumping into the canal.