New Buddhist Centre opens in Valencia

Another belated report has surfaced on the FWBO News desk - proof of a very a busy summer for our small team! This time it’s our pleasure to bring you news of the opening of the new FWBO Buddhist Centre in Valencia, Spain.  (We should mention that in  the-speaking Spanish world the FWBO is known as the AOBO - los Amigos de la Orden Budista Occidental.

There’s been an AOBO centre in Valencia for many years, and over the years they’ve built up a Sangha to be proud of - besides the classes at the Centre itself there’s right-livelihood businesses, translation work, prison visiting, Breathworks, and - most recently - Café Azul. Café Azul is a vegetarian cafe situated inside the Centre itself, and aims to promote vegetarianism in a country where meat-eating is still very much the norm.

To back this up, the Cafe Azul section of their website contains a long section on the reasoning behind vegetarianism, vegetarian recipes, and quotations from famous vegetarians, for instance Albert Einstein. We quote a little section here (English courtesy of Google Translate)

Why Café Azul?

Blue is the name chosen for our small Buddhist cafe in downtown Valencia. It was chosen in homage to Akshobya, the Blue Buddha of the East, of water, of touching the earth, the Buddha who is supported by the elephant (the largest animal that can now walk the earth), whose Buddha-family are the protectors of the Dharma and the Bodhisattvas of compassion in action.

Blue Cafe is a place dedicated to the Dharma, its dissemination and development. Especially, it is a place where we try to spread vegetarianism in an ethical, supportive and sustainable manner.

we can choose a vegetarian diet, and start a new form of diet, knowing that it will assist us to stop being complicit in the sacrifices that are made of thousands of animals each day.

By choosing vegetarianism, we choose to save the lives of animals, knowing they are simply our fellow beings on this Planet - not our servants, much less our enemies.

Here's a video and a slideshow of the celebrations -

http://picasaweb.google.com/fotosAOBO/LaInauguracion





Sadhu Valencia!