London at the Brno Buddhist Centre

As the wheels of the RyanAir plane squeaked down onto the runway at Brno, they threw up clouds of sparkling dust into the air. The miniature airport and the fields around were dusted with snow. For Londoners, snow is a rare treat, and the powdery scene just heightened our excitement that we were here, on the latest of a long list of adventures. We had never really made a wishlist of where we wanted to go – it just seemed to happen. And then it kept on happening.
Rewind to 2009, and we are in the middle of our project to find, buy, and renovate a building for a new home for Diamond Way Buddhism in London. A group of friends in the London sangha decide that the best way to learn how to build a big, vibrant, well running Buddhist centre would be to visit existing large, wonderful Buddhist centres, and just ask them how they did it.
Soon we got an invitation from the Graz Diamond Way Buddhist Centre in Austria to come and talk about our own project to build a new home for Diamond Way Buddhism in the centre of London. We gladly accepted, had a great time, and learned a lot from our generous and experienced hosts. Later in 2009 we helped to organise the entertainment at a public event run by the Berlin Buddhist Centre, at which hundreds of Buddhists from centres all over Europe attended – and the international London Centre Roadshow was born.
For the next three years we travelled to some of the most amazing Buddhist centres in Europe, finding out their stories, making friends, and gaining experience.
In Zurich and Amden they told us that the first place a community sets its heart on is rarely the one they end up with – and that same year the building that we had made so many plans for was indeed sold to another buyer. We didn’t have long to dwell on this ‘setback’, however, because soon an even more amazing place appeared – the Beaufoy Institute in Lambeth, south London, which we have since bought.

The Beaufoy Institute, our new Buddhist centre, in the snow

In Copenhagen, the city where in 1972 Lama Ole and his wife Hannah Nydahl started their life’s work of spreading Diamond Way Buddhism in the West, we soaked in the blessing of the very powerful meditation hall, and experienced first-hand the powerful nature of the Danes, who have built what was a one-room affair into a huge Buddhist centre spanning three buildings, in the prestigious diplomatic district.
Vienna next showed us her cultural side, with tours of the exquisite coffee shops of the town alternating with Buddhist lectures and discussions of their plans to expand from the apartment they were in and renovate the first floor and basement of the building. The Vienna Buddhist Centre is now relocated and many times bigger.
The story of Stupa House, the Warsaw Buddhist Centre, where we visited in 2011, was one of heroism and hard work. Renovating the tall building, resembling a tower, or Buddhist monument called a stupa, through the bitter Polish winters and all manner of hardships, was a Milarepa-like task.
Hamburg allowed us to join in with the demolition of some walls, preparing for one large residents’ kitchen. They shared with us their great experience in how to represent Buddhism on a large scale – the Hamburg Buddhist Centre often has 150 people for the daily meditations!

The mighty Budapest Buddhist Centre finally gave up its secrets to us last year. We gleaned a huge amount of practical information about how to manage a large, multifunctional building, and we very much enjoyed a trip to the town’s cavernous bath complex, fed by hot mineral springs. The centre is now in the middle of a huge rebuilding project.
Over these years, along with joint ventures, presentations, and visits to centres like Altmühle, Emmendingen and others, we built up a lot of experience and close contacts. And just before Christmas, we had the privilege of taking the London Roadshow to Brno.

The Brno Buddhist Centre is a purpose-built, two-storey building designed from the ground up to function as a place for meditation and community living. As soon as you enter the building you have the feeling of space. The stairs, the corridors, and the common rooms are slightly oversize, with clean lines and solid colours, which gives it a very friendly feel. Of course this friendly feeling might be less of an architectural artifact than a byproduct of the members of the Brno sangha, who exhibit an excess of that open, straightforward engagement with people and uncomplicated warmth that is characteristic of strong meditators in general and the Czechs in particular.
After a bit of sightseeing (if you go to Brno, be sure to check out the huge, mysterious clock in the main square), we had a dharma lecture by Veronika from Brno. On Saturday there was some great food, some meditation, and another lecture by Crissie from London. We gave a presentation of our own project to buy the Beaufoy Institute as the new London Diamond Way Buddhist Centre, and there was a lively Q&A. The Brno sangha was so inspired by our project that they spontaneously and very generously offered £1,000 towards the large Buddha statue that we want to have made for the new London Buddhist Centre – one of the special items on our Wishlist. Then it was time to relax and socialise. London and, especially, Brno performed some comic sketches – more or less faithful interpretations of Monty Python. We discovered that the two nations have very similar senses of humour. The evening rounded off with a party and plenty of time to get to know each other.
On Sunday, after English Breakfast (we always try to export the best parts of our culture, and English Breakfast has proved to be popular everywhere we’ve been), we exchanged experience of running meditation centres.

As a Karma Kagyu centre, the Brno Buddhist Centre is organised around meditation. They do the meditation on the 16th Karmapa together every day except Fridays, when there is a Ngöndro meditation session. They organise some experienced members of the sangha, or perhaps travelling teachers, to explain the Ngöndro meditations quite informally every second Thursday; in this way they avoid ad-hoc explanations on traditional meditation practices by newer members and ensure the standard of transmission of information is kept high.
And as befits a lay Buddhist centre, they are also organised around eating together. Someone cooks pretty much every day, and the huge dining/social area is where people can be found most of the time. Eating together is a crucial part of the way that our lay Buddhist communities function. Eating and chatting together in a relaxed atmosphere, people get to know each other on a different level than when taking part in centre work or strictly dharma activities.
As Lama Ole always reminds us, travelling to other countries and other centres helps to broaden our outlook by sharing ideas and experience. The Brno sangha told us that they make special effort to travel and to support other projects. Indeed, we’d met a carful of Brno sangha in Budapest at the last roadshow, and we were happy to accept their invitation to also visit their centre. Once a month, they also have a meditation in English.
As Diamond Way centres are autonomous and run by local volunteers, one could expect a wide variance of organisational styles. On our travels though, we found very similar patterns, with slight national colouring. In Brno, decisions like who should have keys to the centre or who should live in the centre are made by a ‘board’ of seven Brno sangha members, who are voted in every year by the whole sangha. They try to have a mix of ‘old dogs’ and newer people on the board, to pass on experience and to keep the energy fresh.

The information session was so interesting that we decided to forgo lunch in order to talk more, and ended up rushing to the airport, after a final quick meditation session together.
Exhausted but happy, all the Roadshow Knights agreed that the trip had been a great success:

The London roadshow is about the joy of being with other sanghas to share ideas, make friends and feel inspired. Plus have lots of fun, travel and build something together! – Rita

It was great to see how a big center works, how equally everyone is treated and how everything is based on a very strong friendship. I felt immediately included. It was a wonderful event; it felt like a proper transmission. – Jana

A fantastic opportunity to learn how the Brno centre works and have a lot of fun. Truly inspirational, thank you Brno. – Sian

What struck me the most about the whole experience, was the welcoming nature of the Czech sangha, as well as the creativity they displayed in their sketches. The weekend was a great opportunity to tap into the sangha’s “key learnings” and to experience, in the flesh, how a well-functioning center operates. I definitely won’t forget this weekend and I really hope we’ll be able to share a similar experience on Black Prince Road and show our Czech friends the same level of hospitality. – Michael

We very much look forward to our upcoming roadshows to the Brussels, Rousse, and Schwarzenberg Buddhist centres in 2013. Join us!