Deutsche Buddhistische Union ("German Buddhist Union", abbreviation: DBU) is a German national umbrella organisation for Buddhist associations registered in Germany. DBU has estimated that there are 250 000 Buddhists in Europe and the religion is growing. [1] As of June 2021 DBU has 62 member organizations. [2]
DBU was founded in 1955 by Buddhists from Berlin, Munich and Hamburg. At first the union was called "German Buddhist Society" (German: Deutsche Buddhistische Gesellschaft). The name was changed in 1958. As of 1981 DBU has been recognized as a non-profit organization. [3]
DBU is a member of the European Buddhist Union. [4] The union is also closely associated with the Network of Buddhist Women in Europe. [5]
The magazine of the union is Buddhismus Aktuell . [6]
Anna Lührmann is a German political science professor and politician of Alliance 90/The Greens who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag since the 2021 German federal election. In addition to her work in parliament, she has been Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office in the Scholz cabinet since 8 December 2021.
The World Fellowship of Buddhists (WFB) is an international Buddhist organization. Initiated by Gunapala Piyasena Malalasekera, it was founded in 1950 in Colombo, Ceylon, by representatives from 27 nations. Although Theravada Buddhists are most influential in the organization,, members of all Buddhist schools are active in the WFB. It now has regional centers in 40 countries, including India, the United States, Australia, and several nations of Africa and Europe, in addition to traditional Buddhist countries.
Albert von Le Coq was a Prussian/German brewery owner and wine merchant, who at the age of 40 began to study archaeology.
Ole Nydahl, also known as Lama Ole, is a lama providing Mahamudra teachings in the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. Since the early 1970s, Nydahl has toured the world giving lectures and meditation courses. With his wife, Hannah Nydahl (1946-2007), he founded Diamond Way Buddhism, a worldwide Karma Kagyu Buddhist organization with over 600 centers for lay practitioners.
The European Buddhist Union (EBU) is the umbrella organization of Buddhist communities and national Buddhist unions in Europe. The EBU is open to all schools and traditions of Buddhism in Europe wishing to unite on the basis of Buddhist teachings and work together in spiritual friendship and respect for diversity. According to the 'EBU Statement of Mission and Vision' the aims are to facilitate international exchange and promote spiritual friendship amongst European Buddhists, to support social action and ideas motivated by Buddhist values, and to amplify the voice of Buddhism in Europe and worldwide.
Buddhism in Germany looks back to a history of over 150 years. Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the earliest Germans who were influenced by Buddhism. Schopenhauer got his knowledge of Buddhism from authors like Isaac Jacob Schmidt (1779-1847). German Buddhists or Orientalists like Karl Eugen Neumann, Paul Dahlke, Georg Grimm, Friedrich Zimmermann and the first German Buddhist monk Nyanatiloka Mahathera were also influenced by Schopenhauer and his understanding of Buddhism. But also German Indologists like Hermann Oldenberg and his work ”Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde“ had an important influence on German Buddhism.
Buddhism is a minority religion in Switzerland. According to the 2000 census, 21,305 Swiss residents self-identified as Buddhists. About a third of them were born in Thailand.
The Germany women's national rugby union team are a national sporting side of Germany, representing them at rugby union. They made their first Rugby World Cup appearance at the 1998 tournament in the Netherlands, and made their last appearance at the 2002 Rugby World Cup in Spain. They regularly compete in the Rugby Europe Women's Championship.
Herbert Ludwig Rusche is a German politician and LGBT activist.
Albert Grünwedel was a German Indologist, Tibetologist, archaeologist, and explorer of Central Asia. He was one of the first scholars to study the Lepcha language.
The German Environmental Prize is a government-sponsored award for protecting the environment. Worth €500,000, it is one of the most valuable environmental awards in Europe.
The German Dharmaduta Society is an organization established to promote Buddhism in Germany and other Western Countries, and was founded by Asoka Weeraratna, in Colombo, Sri Lanka on 21 September 1952.
WikiWoods is a group of volunteers who plant trees with the joint aims of preventing climate change and inspiring people to be environmentally aware. Founded in 2007, around 3,400 volunteers have planted 163,100 trees to October 2016. The group is based around a wiki, which enables people to register their own tree planting events, to find like-minded friends in their region, and to network with foresters and other tree experts. As of 2016, events have taken place in Berlin, Brandenburg, Göttingen, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany as well as in Hîrbovăț in Moldova. It is hoped that the idea will spread, with further volunteers getting involved in organising tree planting events using the WikiWoods software as a coordinating platform.
Das Buddhistische Haus is a Theravada Buddhist temple complex (Vihara) in Frohnau, Berlin, Germany. It is considered to be the oldest and largest Theravada Buddhist center in Europe and has been declared a National Heritage site.
More than 60 percent of Berlin residents have no registered religious affiliation. As of 2010, at least 30 percent of the population identified with some form of Christianity, approximately 8.1 percent were Muslim, 1 percent were Jewish, and 1 percent belonged to other religions. As of 2018, the number of registered church members has shrunk to 14.9 percent for EKD Protestants and 8.5 percent for Catholics.
Lama Jampa Thaye is a teacher of the Sakya and Karma Kagyu traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. He has been teaching for over 30 years and is the spiritual director of the Dechen organisation of Buddhist Centres. He is the author of several books on Tibetan Buddhism and has a PhD in Tibetan Religions from the University of Manchester. He is renowned for being one of the first Westerners who are authorised to transmit Vajrayana teachings.
Paul Dahlke was a German physician and one of the founders of Buddhism in Germany. He wrote extensively about Buddhist teaching and living and translated Buddhist literature into German. In 1924 he established “Das Buddhistische Haus” considered to be the first Buddhist temple in Europe.
Johannes Nobel was a German indologist and Buddhist scholar.
The Zeitschriftendatenbank or ZDB is the central bibliographical database for title and ownership records of ongoing collections in Germany and Austria, for example from trade journals, magazines and newspapers. The ZDB holds records of almost all German scientific libraries and many other public libraries and is freely available on the Internet. The journal database is managed by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (SBB) in cooperation with the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB), the German National Library, which is responsible for the technical system support and further development.
Bikeygees e. V. is an intercultural project in Berlin (Germany) dedicated to women with a migrant or refugee background. In trainings organized by Bikeygees, volunteers teach the women how to ride a bicycle. The goal of the organization is to promote empowerment by helping women to become more mobile.