Karl Schmied

Karl Schmied

Karl Schmied (* February 1933 in Zwittau , Czechoslovakia ; † May 7, 2006 in Fischbachau ) was a German Buddhist meditation teacher and pioneer of Buddhism , lecturer and meditation teacher in southern Germany.

Life

Karl Schmied had to leave his homeland with his family in 1946 and built up a business as a merchant in southern Germany. In the 1970s he found Buddhism and founded the Stuttgart Buddhist Circle in 1981 . From 1984 to 1988 he was chairman of the German Buddhist Union and later its honorary council. He was co-founder and partly editor of the magazine 'Intersein' and from 1994 head of the 'Intersein Information Office'.

Originally (1980) member and from 1983 also Dharma teacher in the order Arya Maitreya Mandala of Lama Anagarika Govinda , Karl Schmied met the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh in 1988 and became a member of his Tiep Hien order in 1991, in which he became Dharmacarya in 1994 ( Meditation and Dharma teachers). For many years he coordinated the activities of Thich Nhat Hanh in Germany and the publication of his books in German .

In 1991 he founded the "Association for Mindful Life, Bavaria eV" and supervised several meditation groups in the region. In May 1992 he and friends created the Maitreya Fund eV to provide financial support for social projects such as kindergartens, schools, leprosy stations and orphanages in Vietnam . In 1998 he initiated the Intersein-Zentrum Hohenau in the Bavarian Forest, where he often gave seminars and lectures. In 2004 he realized the practice and meditation house project in Schliersee .

For many years Karl Schmied was active as a representative of German Buddhism in the interreligious dialogue , including in 1999 at the 28th  German Evangelical Church Congress in Stuttgart.

Works

• Karl Schmied: No way - just steps. Mindful through the day. Theseus, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89620-165-4 .

Web links

• Karl Schmied on blog.gal-bayern.de
• The aid organization “Maitreya Fonds” on maitreya-fonds.de