Chintamani Community

Nearly nine years ago three other men and I moved into a flat in Auguststraße in Berlin Mitte to form a Buddhist men's community. It had been one of my first intentions on moving to Berlin to live with other practitioners as a mutual support to practice, as well as being a practice in itself. Initially we had to convince the person letting the flat that we were actually quite harmless, his first response to our proposal to live together was along the lines of "It is disgusting! Four middle-aged men wanting to live together" (our average age was about 40). However he did give us the benefit of the doubt, apparently on discovering that I am English.

We stayed in Auguststraße for about 18 months, calling the community 'Chintamani', the wish-fulfilling jewel carried by the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, and decided to move on as the rent increased by about 50%. After a long search we found our present flat on the fourth floor in Alte Jakobstraße, Berlin Kreuzberg, less than ten minutes from the former Checkpoint Charlie. There has been some comings and goings in the community, and there are now six men, three of the original four (Karunada, Satyasthira and myself) as well as Christian, Dharmapriya and Mokshasiddha.

There are four bedrooms, though each is divided into two rooms vertically as they are so high creating eight rooms in all. There is a small but very pleasant winter garden in the middle of the flat making the flat very light. We get along harmoniously together and appreciate one another's qualities. At the start we agreed on three conditions that we would all fullfill: we would meditate together in the mornings, we would eat one meal a day together, and we would have a community meeting once a week. On the whole we continue to follow these 'rules', we meditate at 7 o'clock, we eat breakfast together and we try to meet as a community regularly, even though we rarely meet as frequently as we would like.

Although we have quite different lifestyles and routines, we have the practice of the Dharma in common and this naturally forms a common bond between us all. Over the years our friendships have developed and I would say we have to some extent at least loosened our egoistic clinging to personal preferences. Although sometimes challenging, living in this way is definitely helpful to the pursuit of a spiritual life. Having lived in such communities since 1994 I have no doubts about their benefits.