OUR FIRST CENTER

By 2003, Carmen had rented a room on the second floor of a two story building in Miraflores. She told us they were renting out the rest. It was a small apartment with a large living room good for a Gompa which had a balcony. There was also a small kitchen and one bedroom and a bathroom. Carmen’s room was also on the second floor, but on the other side of a wall. Soon we would tear down that wall.

We had been meeting Mondays at Rosa’s school and Thursdays in Carlos’ apartment. Michaela had advised it would be good to start a live-in center and we were eager to try. I was happy because the new center in Ribeyro street was three blocks away from my house.

Alfonso moved to the only bedroom and Mauricio and other friends helped with the painting. This was in 2003. In September 2004 Javier would also move in after the wall was torn down. On the other side of the wall on the second floor there was an office, a bathroom, Carmen’s bedroom. Then by itself, on the other side of a staircase was Javier’s room which had a bathroom. So then we had three persons living in our center. Natalia made a movie at the time we tore down the wall.

Carlos would direct Meditation on Thursdays. We also met on Mondays and Javier was always there, so he would open the door, greet the people and direct the Meditation, which since he was blind, he had learned off by heart. This would make Alfonso jealous, so he would ask that Mondays, the ones in charge would be the young ones, namely himself and Mauricio. Alfonso would never be there because he was working and Mauricio would not show up; so Javier would end up being in charge again out of responsibility. This would be cyclical until we had a larger Sangha and Lama Ole came up with the Ten Minute Egg, which made the attention shift from one person to another and so egos did not become bloated.

The kids wanted to paint the walls sky-blue. The lama came and blessed the place. He came to give a lecture in Petroperu Auditorium in February 2004. Now we were practicing Buddhists, we had a place of our own and it had been blessed. We could only grow from then on.

THE YOUNG ONES

The new Millenium also brought young ones. He had been a drug dealer but wanted more out of life. She would take drugs and walk for hours down Lima’s streets listening to her walkman. He was tall and heavy. She was beautiful, and they were friends. They showed up one day and they stayed.

As Karmapa came out of Tibet his energy field became stronger; said Lama Ole. We soon had a lot of young friends. There was Alvaro our best Yogui, the one who finished Ngnondro first. Mauricio was the cleverest and Alfonso had a very strong connection with Lama Ole. Soon they brought their friends and we had two groups: those who were middle aged and the young ones.

In the beginning there were complaints from the older group about the vocabulary, conduct and drug use of the young ones though not all had that conduct. Some people with stiff concepts left. But those people hadn’t  ever been serious Buddhists in the first place. They had come to have a nice time.

The Sangha became a group of practitioners, young and old. The young were obviously friends with the young, but both groups got along well. Now there were more hands to help out pasting posters whenever there was a public lecture and they were very useful using the internet which had become a handy instrument to spread the word.

With time Valerie returned to live in Lima and became an important member of our Sangha. She would take care of the Dharma shop. She would travel to Germany also and bring books. Soon we had a big Sangha with many lovely young people.