Centers

Today I would like to spend few words on the role and function of centers.

Centers are places where the dharma is being taught, where community and communal life should come into being, be cherished and upheld. By learning to respond to the needs of others in this framework in little, we can actively train in altruism that we learn about so often during teachings, being the basis for the Buddhadharma.

Centers are hence not sites for events, offering a rich range of seminaries to be chosen from according to our taste but are places of the community’s active life: for people to practice there together, upkeep the locality together and take on its responsibility together.

Centers are not places for living egoism and the regular madness that is being practiced outside its walls. Most of us behave in these places just like in ordinary life, take on the role as (gang) leaders, generate hierarchies, put ourselves above others and hence stain practice with it. As soon as being defrocked from those, we lose interest in the center and return to the games we play in daily life.

Please take the precious opportunity that is being offered to you with an open heart and your soul will harvest in abundance.

Chöje Lama Palmo