The Polish weekend

It all started out innocently. The EC sangha invited Artur Przybys?awski and Rafa? Olech for a weekend to give teachings and share their experience.

The Polish EC sangha members soon decided to turn this visit into “The Polish Weekend” with everything that went with it. We made plans for decoration, food and the party of course.

On Friday 31st January – the first day of the course – we decorated the pub and for the rest of the weekend the colours red and white were dominating the pub, turning it into an even more cosy place.

For the following two days only Polish food was being served – red beet soup, sour rye soup and pierogi…lots of pierogi, over 1500 pierogi – those Polish dumplings.

For Saturday evening we had live guitar music, performed by a Polish friend, who came from London especially for this weekend. So all the outer circumstances were truly wonderful. But the teachings given by the two gentlemen were even more special. Rafa? and Artur had never taught together before, but it turned out that they made a perfect match. All the lectures were hands on and quickly turned into sessions of questions and answers, as everybody wanted to use such an opportunity to get their questions answered and their doubts dissolved.

Both Artur and Rafa? have been students of Lama Ole for more than two decades, so they had quite some insights to share, stories to tell and deep teachings to pass on. We had a “full gompa carpet” for each of the four lectures as over 200 friends had registered for the weekend, turning it into one of our big events.

The magic was still in the air on Sunday afternoon when the friends were slowly starting to leave…see you all again very soon!

(Marta)