Short Report from the Khordong Dharma Centre "Drophan Ling" in Darnkow about the Retreats in 2003
Dear friends in Dharma,
It has been raining a lot lately in Darnków as if the weather is making it up for this year's hot and extremely dry summer. This year summer course in Darnków seemed to be the first one with such a great weather (do you remember summer course of 1998 when it was raining the whole month through?), there was almost no rain for month and a half. This is also, a little bit of exaggeration, as after all we had problems with water, streams have almost dried o ut, at the end of the course there was no water at Rinpoche House. I hope that next year's course will take place at moderate weather conditions.
I think that this year's retreats were successful not only because of the weather.
The retreat with Tulku Thondup Rinpoche at the end of May/beginning of June was a very important one. Rinpoche was visiting us for the first time, but he has heard a lot about Darnków from our Rinpoche. He liked Darnków very much and used to say that it reminds him of Tibet. Many times Rinpoche underlined that we have a very special place for a buddhist centre and that we should cherish the treasury (of teaching and practice), which we received from His Holliness Chhimed Rigdzin Rinpoche.
I do not know whether Tulku Thondup Rinpoche will be able to visit us as early as next year, he has plans to visit India and Tibet, but he promised to visit again.
The summer retreat was long, but thanks to that it was also rich and each of almost 200 participants could find something for himself/herself. Many people came for Padmasambhava initiation, which was given by Ugen, son of our Rinpoche. As he said: you should not think that this initiation is given to you by Ugen, but by Rinpoche, and I am only a "tool". This was the first initiation given in Darnków after Rinpoche left, and I hope that it will be the first out of many to follow.
I had an impression that all retreats, that happened during this summer course were very good. I think we should do it this way every year: not only organize lectures with teachers, but also find time to practice together. As it was the case during a week of Dordje Drolo practice with Frauke, the Green Tara with Gudrun, or Vajrakila with Martin Boord.
At www.khordong.net, in "news" you may find the letter from Martin Boord on his visit to Darnków.
And, of course, we cannot forget the Butterlamps offering. This year we have tried a new way to organize this retreat. We have been collecting money for oil from sponsors in order to lower costs of participation in Butterlamps offering. This financial solution occurred to be successful - we raised almost the whole amount needed for oil purchase, but we offered only 75 000 butter lamps. It seems that, even though the participation price for Butterlamps offering was lowered, not enough people came, or we did not have enough time or motivation to offer 111 111 butter lamps. Maybe it was so, because the butter lamp offering was connected with other practices. We may need to change organization of this course next year. If you have any comments or suggestions how to better organize the Butterlamps Offering practice, please write. What was good for sure, and which will stay the same is sponsoring of the oil.
Also, during this year's course, the general meeting of members of the Association took place, which, among others, elected new Board of the Association: Chairperson - Anna Siwecka, Vice-Chairperson - Wieslaw Góral, Treasurer - Krzysztof Trembaczowski, Secretary - Malgorzata Wilska, Member of the Board - Pawel Ostrowski.
During summer course we were also collecting money to build a stupa of Rimpoche in Siliguri; we have collected (from "box" and an auction of the figure) an amount of 1.047 Euro (approx. 4.500 PLN), which I gave to Ugen.
