Dharmaloka Chan Buddhist Community in Zagreb, Croatia, started a long time ago. It was a small group of Dharma enthusiasts meeting regularly in private homes. Twenty years ago, the first Buddhist educational institution in Zagreb was established, serving also as a Buddhist Center with a study library and a meditation hall.

Today, the community is fulfilling its long-standing vision of building a retreat center dedicated to the cultivation of inner and outer peace, deeper understanding and enlightened care for all people and the world we inhabit.

The official opening ceremony of the new retreat center will take place on May 18th 2019.

Major international conferences and summits in 2015 – on financing for development, sustainable development, and climate change – have defined a new sustainable development agenda for the next 15 years. At all levels, from global to local, eyes will now be turned on implementing this ambitious agenda. A change in understanding is needed, a deeper recognition of the interconnection between all. Stakeholders began to utilize approaches that examines sets of issues as a whole and focus on the connections between them. The concepts of interconnection and interdependence have entered the mainstream and are words commonly used today. How will this understanding help us address the climate and ecological crisis, which is also connected to the crisis of poverty, disease, and injustice? What is the deeper link that binds these problems together?

After ending the 49-day Chan Retreat in Poland on Sept. 2nd, Venerable Guo Yuan (果元法師), Abbot of the Dharma Drum Retreat Center in New York with Venerable Chang Hu (常護法師) travelled from Luxembourg to London in order to propagate Dharma teachings. It is hoped that their efforts would help foster the merit of Chinese Buddhism in Europe. Venerable Guo Yuan thus led a one-day retreat and made a lecture in the Congregation Des Franciscaines, Luxembourg.

“Human happiness is closely tied to all living beings. Therefore, human’s action to protect all earthly living beings equals to protecting human rights.”

On August 25, the Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Centre Malaysia Children’s Life Education Kindness Class organized an outdoor activity for 16 children; these children were excited about going to the forest.

Meditation is the most powerful tool to promote a child’s peace of mind and by extension, peace of the world. On August 26, 12 small children completed a whole series of eight-form moving meditation without taking any break. Before the course, these children shared that “We are blessed because we are healthy”.

Dr Wendi Adamek’s lecture on Sept 22 at the Vancouver Chan Meditation Centre addressed this seemingly simple question thoughtfully and comprehensively. As Buddhism has moved from culture to culture, and as it has developed over the ages, unique ritual forms and beliefs have developed. Today, as Buddhism moves into the West this process continues. As a new Western Buddhism forms, as the influences of Modernism, science and the scientific method, as well as technological change, influence its development, what must be preserved to still be truly Buddhism?

On Saturday September 29th Dr. Wendi Adamek of University of Calgary presented to us the study on why the idea of the Four Inversions: “permanence, bliss, self, and purity” is one of the central concepts in the Nirvana Sutra, even though the Four Inversions have always been described as human’s failure to see the truth about the world we are in.

Venerable Chang Hwa (常華法師), Director of DDM Chan Medication Center in New York, and Venerable Guo Jiann (果見法師), Director of DDM Los Angeles Center together with other Catholic and Buddhist representatives from Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, visited Pope Francis in Vatican on Sept 12, 2018, hoping to receive Pope’s recognition and support on the projects that have been planned and promoted ever since the last dialogue in June, 2015.

It was 17 years after the Terrorist Attack on 9/11, 2001. As the result of death and injuries, wars, horror, hatred and conflicts, it is still unforgettable after so many years.

Today, the 4th Meal Pack for NYC was held at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, 46th Street in Manhattan. This event was initiated in 2015 by Tomorrow Together / 911Day.org, that actively promotes the ideal of unity, empathy and service among young people throughout the United States.