Teaching Weekend in Antwerp

On Friday 9 and Saturday 10 of December 2016 Ayya Vimala had been invited to teach at Ehipassiko Buddhist Centre in Deurne-Zuid close to Antwerp / Belgium.

On Friday night Ayya gave a Dhamma talk based on the documentary “The Buddha’s Forgotten Nuns” by Wiriya (find the documentary on our video-page). The documentary shows quite clearly the difficult situation of Buddhist nuns today. After the talk it gave rise to a vivid discussion about how nuns live, the gender inequality in several Buddhist traditions, why monastics are keeping so many precepts, and so on.

On Saturday there was a one day meditation workshop guided by Ayya Vimala together with Paul Van hooydonck, the founder and main meditation teacher of Ehipassiko. The small meditation hall was full to bursting with interested people who spent the day in silence, following the meditation instructions offered by the teachers. In between the meditation sits they went to the nearby park for walking meditation.

Deurne-Zuid is a little town in the close surrounding of Antwerp. We were the guests of two kind members of Ehipassiko in the picturesque town of Berchem close by.

Even if situated in a very simple location with basic facilities, the Ehipassiko centre is able to maintain an atmosphere of kindness and peace and attracts many people to get to know the Buddha’s teachings and train themselves in the cultivation of the mind through meditation.

Get some impressions with these pictures: