A minor miracle

Dear friends in Dhamma,

Since our last Dana appeal, a total of €2,685 has been donated in addition to the monthly standing orders.

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed.

Idaṃ dāna-kammaṃ nibbāna-paccayo hotu, no niccaṃ
May this work (kamma) of giving be a condition for Nibbāna for you forever.

As described in the previous email, financial resources are running low and further funds are needed to finance the upcoming work in August and September, in order to then also draw on the subsidy from KfW Bank.

With the completion of the work on the heating system, our heating engineer was able to invoice us for the entire job… and to his and our surprise, the total cost of materials and labor hours was considerably lower than originally calculated.

Since some of the plastering work can only be done in the fall, there is still some money available for the work in August….

So it continues!
 

The fact that the situation has turned out this way for August allows me to look back on the creation of Dhammacari as I, Angelika, experienced it:

When I started practicing this Vipassana technique according to the Most Venerable Ajahn Tong almost 24 years ago, with Hildegard as my teacher, after the first retreats I felt that it was not enough for these retreats to take place only twice a year in different places. It should be possible to do such retreats on a permanent basis.

When I told Hildegard about this, her response was that she had long since received a “request” from Ajahn Tong to establish a permanent place in Germany.
So now there were two of us with this inner mission.

We talked about it again and again and exchanged ideas on how to make it happen: How do you find the right place? And where will the financial resources come from? …and we also took a few concrete steps.

Then Robert began practicing meditation with Hildegard and offered to make a larger financial contribution to help realize this project.

So we were able to start looking for a suitable location… and that too is a wonderful story with many coincidences…

…and Sonnenthal was found… and there are stories of coincidences here too…

Of course, none of this happens by itself; a lot of work and effort by many people goes into this project. …and many times I felt the spiritual push: “Keep going, it wants to be finished!”

At the time, some people had doubts as to whether it was really necessary to found such a meditation center…after all, things had worked fine up to that point.

After almost 20 years, I am certain that there are many people who are glad that we followed that impulse back then.

Now, with the expansion, we are in the midst of a major growth process that is not only taking place on a material level, but also, and above all, requires spiritual growth and transformation.

We consider ourselves fortunate that we were able to consult our Most Venerable Ajahn Tong at the beginning of the expansion process. His advice and answers still guide us today.

Just as beautiful coincidences have repeatedly paved the way for us throughout this expansion process, enabling us to implement the project step by step, the latest developments show once again that it is nearing completion and that the doors will soon open for many more seekers on the path of Dhamma.