Buddhist home and non-profit projects in Lindetal, Germany

Details

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  Description

  I am a sociologist, author, and a practicing Buddhist (Zen and Vajrayana). Since spring 2025 I've been building a Buddhist retreat house at a historic former parsonage in the Mecklenburg Lake District. It's run by the registered non-profit association, which organises all retreats here. This is the only capacity Workawayers help in — you'll never be asked to help with tourist rentals or spaces used by paying guests.
  
  Müritz National Park is 20 km away, the Baltic Sea 80 km. Direct trains run hourly to Berlin (90 min) and every two hours to Szczecin, Poland (80 min).
  
  The parsonage has a baroque main house with a historic smoke kitchen, now our communal kitchen. There's also a stable and bakehouse still awaiting renovation, and a workshop where a sauna is nearing completion. An orchard meadow with 20+ old fruit trees surrounds it, centered on a pond with a pavilion where we gather for meals.
  
  I've always loved to travel, and this project has tied me to one place for the first time. Hosting through Workaway lets me bring that exchange home.
  
  Days here are shared, not assigned: we cook together, work in the garden and orchard, and help finish the sauna side by side. I'm working with you, not handing out a task list. Days here follow a quiet rhythm: two optional meditation sits, at 6am and 8:30pm, and shared meals together.
  
  On free days I love taking guests hiking in Müritz National Park, or on day trips to Szczecin, Rostock, or the Baltic coast. I hope to learn as much from guests as they do here.
  
  I am vegetarian, and I also read tarot cards professionally — free for Workawayers during their stay.

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Help with Eco Projects

  Creative DIY projects

  Creating/ Cooking family meals

  Light maintenance
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  Interests

  

  Vegetarian or vegan

  

  Sustainability

  

  Pets

  

  Culture

  

  Charity work

  

  History

  

  Music

  

  Plant care

  

  DIY & crafts

  

  Books

  

  Gardening

  

  Cooking & food

  

  Blogging

  

  Writing

  

  Drawing & painting

  

  Carpentry

  

  Animals

  

  Yoga / Wellness

  

  Nature

  

  Camping

  

  Water sports

  

  Outdoor activities

  

  Hiking

  

  Politics / Social justice

  

  Hitchhiking
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  UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

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  What's this?
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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  I'm well woven into village life: a lovely yoga group meets weekly in our meditation room, and I'm a regular at services in our tiny but warm-hearted Protestant congregation. I'm also close with my neighbors, who always delight in meeting interesting guests. Several friends helping build this project live in Berlin and bring their own rich network of contacts, which guests are welcome to draw on too.
  
  The retreat house's spiritual director, is a senior lama from Kathmandu, Nepal, who visits regularly — and through him, we're connected to his students across Germany and beyond. Each morning and evening I practice mindfulness meditation in our meditation room and in addition a Riwo Sangchö, a traditional Tibetan Buddhist smoke offering, which guests are welcome to join.
  
  Beyond the work itself, guests leave with a rare window into rural village life in northern Germany, a small Buddhist community taking shape from scratch, and — for anyone curious — a first taste of mindfulness and Tibetan meditation practice they'd be unlikely to encounter elsewhere.

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  Help

  I know the list of projects below probably reads as a lot. It's simply everything we're hoping to tackle here at the parsonage over the next while, and where we'd be glad of a hand. If you're interested in staying with us, I'd love to talk it through beforehand, one-on-one, so we can figure out which of these speak to you and plan around that. And once you're here, we'll keep deciding together what fits — cold, rainy days aren't much good for garden work, for instance, but they're perfect for the sauna or the workshop.
  
  The parsonage
  The parsonage stood empty for a couple of years before I bought it last year. The project is just getting started.
  
  Vegetable garden
  The vegetable garden sits on wonderfully fertile soil that fed families here for generations. Right now we're rebuilding it from scratch, step by step: mostly physical work like digging, clearing weeds and their roots, and shaping new beds. This is help that asks more for strength and stamina than gardening expertise — no experience needed, just a willingness to dig in.
  
  Sauna
  A wood-fired sauna for up to ten people, built into the workshop, meant to bring rest for body and mind after a hard day's work in the garden. A carpentry firm has already put up the frame, and electricians and sauna benches will come in right at the end, once everything else is done. What's needed now is insulation and cladding — no special trade skills required, just careful hands and patience for a job done well. Anyone who helps with this is warmly invited to be among the first to enjoy long, quiet sauna evenings once it's finished.
  Tipi
  We're planning to put up a large tipi for twenty people in the orchard: removing the bark and sanding the long wooden poles once they've dried, preparing the ground with a bed of gravel, raising the tipi together, and building the wooden floor's frame and boards.
  
  The grounds
  Five thousand square meters in all. The lawn around the house gets mowed regularly through the warmer months, while the two large orchard meadows are cut only in spring and autumn, with a scythe mower, so wildflowers can bloom in between — they're a vital food source for the insects that in turn feed the many birds and bats living here. After mowing, the dried grass needs raking up and clearing away. I'd welcome a hand with all of it: mowing, scythe-mowing, and raking. There's also ongoing work cutting back weeds along the property boundaries and digging out their root stocks, where extra hands are just as welcome.
  
  Firewood
  During the heating season, I'd welcome help tending the fire and the firewood. The house is heated by a modern central heating system that runs on a log-fired boiler — in winter, logs need feeding in every two to three hours through the day, and once a week, split firewood has to be wheelbarrowed over from the big woodstore in the workshop and stacked in the boiler room.
  
  Everyday tasks
  Tidying the workshop, hauling bulky waste to the tip together, that kind of thing.
  
  Cooking
  Anyone who enjoys cooking, or just chopping vegetables, is warmly welcome to help prepare our meals together.

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  Languages

  Languages spoken
  English: Fluent

  This host offers a language exchange
  I'd love to improve my English, especially through everyday conversation. I'm also happy to speak German with guests who want to practise, though I should say upfront: I've never trained to teach German as a foreign language, so this is casual conversation, not structured lessons.
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  Accommodation

  I have two comfortable guest rooms: one with a double bed, and a second with a single bed, where I can add an extra mattress if needed. The double room has its own bathroom with shower and bathtub; guests in the single room share my bathroom. Both rooms are part of my private apartment (100 square meters), which also includes an open kitchen-living area where up to four people can eat together. Guests are also welcome to use the pavilion by the pond (unheated) or, for larger groups in winter, the historic smoke kitchen.
  
  I place great value on a warm midday meal, though I usually skip dinner myself. During the week, I cook lunch for my guests, and in the evening I make my kitchen — along with basic ingredients — available for anyone who'd like to cook for themselves. Weekends work the same way when I'm around, but I'm sometimes away too, in which case guests look after their own meals.
  
  As the parsonage is also a Buddhist retreat house, I keep it alcohol-, smoking-, and drug-free, and value a calm, contemplative atmosphere throughout.

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  What else ...

  The nearest train station with direct connection to Berlin is in Burg Stargard, 5 km away, where you'll also find two supermarkets (Aldi and Lidl). During the week, a bus runs every two hours to Burg Stargard and to Neubrandenburg, the district town 12 km away. I'm happy to pick guests up from the station and drop them off again. For trips to the lakes (the nearest are 4 and 9 km away), you'll need a bike (I can lend one) or a car. On weekends, I enjoy taking guests on excursions into the national park for hiking or sightseeing — I drive a van, though it only fits three passengers at a time. We have WiFi and a fiber optic connection.
  
  Nights and early mornings here are often quite cold, so please bring warm clothing. For garden work, bring clothes that can hold up against nettles and blackberry brambles.
  
  The parsonage is a retreat house, so we maintain a quiet, contemplative atmosphere. Alcohol, smoking and drugs are not permitted in the buildings or anywhere on the grounds.

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  A little more information

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    Internet access

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    Limited internet access

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    We have pets

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    We are smokers

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    Can host families

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  Can host digital nomads

  For digital nomads: we have WiFi and a fiber optic connection, so working remotely alongside your stay here shouldn't be a problem. I'm flexible with working hours and happy to adjust around your core office hours.

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  Space for parking camper vans

  The orchard meadow is wonderfully suited for caravans and campers. There's a standard power outlet on the outside wall of the workshop, and two dedicated caravan-compatible connections are in the works. Fresh water is available, and camper guests can use the bathroom and dryer in the retreat house, with their own separate access through the garden, so they can come and go independently. A washing machine is currently in my apartment, but a second one — already planned for this August — will be installed in the retreat house bathroom as well, making laundry even more self-sufficient for camper guests.

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  More than two

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  My animals / pets

  

  Spätzle, Basha, Mikesch, Baruch, Marijeska

  There's also a cat family living at the parsonage — a mother, a father, and three young cats, born in the stable in May 2025, just before I moved in. The parents had to survive for years without any care and were very wary of people. The mother cat used to be a house cat, but was likely severely abused. In early December 2025, I trapped all five cats using humane live traps to have them neutered. At the vet, it turned out they were all seriously ill, suffering from pneumonia and lungworm — and the mother had been shot; the vet surgically removed three lead pellets from her body. Over the winter, I nursed them all back to health in my apartment, and in March, Radek installed a cat flap in the apartment door. The father has become quite trusting since then, the young cats are affectionate but don't like to be petted, and the poor mother remains just as shy and fearful as before.

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