Aaaw, I’m so touched you’d go to those lengths to make me feel at home and like everything is normal. 
Warmest to you all. 
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Nothing but a bad karma washout, just before the grand opening day!
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It’s better that it’s happening this week rather than next weekend, though, right? Like in the theater when there’s a stinko dress rehearsal. You have time to fix things. 
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After the disasters, work is going on: cutting tiles 
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I may post this in a kitchen over here. =D
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Tilorien Monastery: We are open! 
These grey kutis only exist in our dreams so far. The small one might be finished before the winter if we are lucky. The larger double kuti is still a long way away. We have the building permit but no funds yet. But hopefully one day we’ll be able to build that too.
If anyone is in the area, we now have regular meditation group sits on Satuday evenings at 6pm from 10th November onwards. Feel free to drop by!
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Wonderful news!
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Finally, our kitchen is set up:
and after much flooding, our bathroom is in place, too:
So we can pack up our preliminary shower:
Anumodana to everyone who contributed in various ways to make this possible! 
And the work still continues…
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The ceiling in the ground floor is also finished now…
…and we can install lamps…
…lay the floor in the guest room in the ground floor…
…and most importantly finish the platform for our garden house kuti!
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It seems every brick, nail and piece of wood
Every wire, pipe and drain
Every, lick of paint and clod of earth
drop of sweat, tear and laugh
Are full of love, devotion and perseverance
May this place bring wonderful fruit to all on the path
Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!
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When do you theravadins do the rains retreat during europe’s 4 seasons? Is it in winter? If I find a chance in my busy schedule, I would love to visit!
We have the rains at the same time as everyone else, from the July full moon to the October full moon.
But since we didn’t have a retreat this year because of the building works, we will do a winter retreat from January to March. During this time, the monastery is closed to the public and everyone here will be in noble silence. It is not possible to visit.
People are welcome to visit the monastery again from April onwards.
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My interaction with monasteries in euro-American environments have been primarily with Tibetan Buddhist practicing Dharmagupta nuns. They do their rains retreat in the winter… so I wasn’t sure if Theravadins had made similar adaptations!
Anyway. Thanks for the info. Not sure I can make it on such short notice and not sure I will still be in Paris when you come out of retreat! But I have a home base here, and I am sure I will be back!!! Can’t wait to visit you some day in the future and see all the exciting work you have done! 
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That looks like a cabin kit? I’ve seen those and wondered how easy they were to put together.
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We’ll let you know when we are done… 
So far, it’s a bit more complicated than building IKEA stuff, but not too bad. The main problem is that some parts are really super heavy, and that we didn’t get proper instructions with the kit, so it’s quite a bit of trial and error…
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The work on the kuti is continuing, and despite the cold weather, we had a volunteer yesterday to help us out:
First thing: Putting in the window, which is really heavy. Then building up the walls…
Building the walls
Checking the plans… Good excuse to have a break 
Putting up the last board for today
Yay, we are finished — for today! (and frozen 
)
Covering the kuti for the upcoming snow storm
And a picture from this morning: After the storm
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