COVER STORY

A Quiet Revolution
By: Chukora Tsering Agloe
Photo: TIBETODAY

A quiet revolution is taking place, breaking fresh grounds.

On a bright autumn day, a sight of a nun walking on a narrow lane caught my attention. Soon she suddenly vanished into thickets. Then after walking for a while I found myself in front of Dolma Ling Nunnery much to my amazement. I have only heard about Dolma Ling Nunnery but never seen it before. As a curious observer I walked hesitantly towards the entrance door of nunnery. Not long before, I realized that I was about to be greeted by an inspiring encounter. In it lies a marvellous story of survival, revival and evolution. This is the tale of Dolma Ling Nunnery under the Tibetan Nun’s Project (TNP).

Test of Adversity
History tells us very little about lives and times of Tibetan nuns in Tibet. However, it is amply clear that Tibetan nuns for a long period of time in history lived in the shadows of monasteries. It wasn’t the case of female gender not able to produce scholars, yogins belongings to highest esoteric class of Yoga Tantra. There were quite many of them in the guise of dakinis, yogins, siddhas, adepts and women of the highest realizations. Perhaps, chroniclers of the past may have failed to document and mention their Namthars in the Buddhist hagiography.
Surely there were many realised female masters; many of them lived as wandering ascetics as was the case for the realized men of the times. During the times of Lord Buddha and subsequent spread of Buddhism in

Fleeing Into Exile
The following ten years of collaboration and cooperation with the Chinese failed miserably. His Holiness the Great Fourteenth Dalai Lama fled Tibet on the night of 17th March 1959. Thousands of Tibetans followed him in what has been one of the great exoduses of the twentieth century. As it happened, the Dalai Lama and the exile government in India have been busy tackling immediate and long-term challenges facing them in the next twenty eight years. The epoch dedicated to the reconstruction and preservation of Tibet’s unique culture and religious heritage in exile in the face of systematic destruction and demolition in the homeland.

Mao’s death in 1976 paved the way for Deng’s rise to echelon of power. Fortunately Deng’s ten years of liberal policies inside Tibet offered space for Tibet’s culture and religious heritage to revive and rise from the ashes of Cultural Revolution. The golden decade of revival was optimally utilized by the Tibetans inside Tibet under the charismatic leadership of the tenth Panchen Lama. In ensuing years, few of the Dalai Lama’s delegations were sent to Tibet for facts finding missions. In due course of time, patriotic fervour suddenly gripped Tibetans in Tibet amidst visits by delegations and soaring hopes inside Tibet. Then in 1987, from out of blue, the first pro-independence movement broke in the streets of Bakor comprised mostly of monks and nuns. The uprisings although ruthlessly crackdown and suppressed but didn’t fail to send shock waves to the high walled Zhounanhai residence where the China’s most powerful leaders lived. However, it was not the last peaceful demonstrations by the Tibetans. Again in 1988 and 1989 the similar pro-independence demonstrations and protests gripped Bakor streets of Lhasa. Those two of uprisings were severely suppressed by an iron fist.

The ninety percent of demonstrators in Tibet were monks and nuns, tens and hundreds of them were jailed and tortured in some of Tibet’s notorious prisons. There was no question of their future inside Tibet. Many of them fled to exile India to find new hope and freedom. Soon, the draconian crackdowns and denial of religious freedom inside Tibet drove almost thousands of nuns into exile. It was evidently became very visible and almost a common sightings to see fresh arrivals of nuns from Tibet. The plight and misery of Tibetan nuns caught the attention of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Soon it became very evident that the Tibetan nuns in India would receive a messiah’s blessing. In a stroke of auspicious karma, Dolma Ling a non-sectarian nunnery was born.

The Rising from the Ashes
Kasur Rinchen Khando Choegyal in an air of great fulfilment narrated her journey of Dolma Ling and other nunneries to me. She is a rare personality with a thorough western educational upbringing yet profoundly influenced by traditional Tibetan values and customs. She knew it instinctively that being a sister-in-law of the Dalai Lama is a great privilege but also profoundly aware of her duties and responsibilities in looking after the well being and needs of ordinary Tibetan commoners in exile. She derived heavily of her craftsmanship in organizational management from her Kalon days when she administered the Department of Education. Although materializing the Tibetan Nun’s Project is a Herculean task but her simple nature coupled with deep spiritual outlook on life make it like a fabled magician spinning gold out of straw.
At present under the Tibetan Nun’s Project, she looked after five major nunneries in various parts of India such as Dolma Ling, Geden Choeling, Tilokpur, Shugsep and a nunnery in Mundgod, South India. However, in the last many years, she mostly devoted her energy and work on Dolma ling, the biggest of the nunnery projects that took seventeen long years to complete. It was during her Presidential term of the Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA) in 1987, with an auspicious blessing from the His Holiness the Dalai Lama that Dolma Ling Nunnery was first conceived without a single penny. More over today she is supporting hundreds of nuns undertaking their retreat meditations in various parts of Himalayas.

In the case of Dolma Ling, it was started from a scratch without a single penny along so many years of backbreaking labour and hard work. Today, Dolma Ling is reckoned as an model nunnery for the twenty first century Tibet where modernity and tradition meets in a perfect harmony, both complimenting each other to attain the highest state of human consciousness. Science and modern education had a rather difficult co-existence in the western world, however, in the case of Tibetan Buddhism, both finds a commonly shared experience of reasoning and analytical approach in search of conclusive rational explanation of complex universe and phenomena.

A Bend In The Course of River
As I stood mesmerized by the sight of nuns debating during their debate session, my attention was drawn by a coy face of a nun at a corner of courtyard not far away. Her name was venerable Sonam Choekyi and aged twenty two years old. I mumbled out few words to her, rather hesitantly. In a shy smile she told me, “I came from Tibet in year 2001”.

In 2001, she dared to cross the death defying Himalayas in search of an audience with the Dalai Lama, she held to be the soul of her existence. After receiving the audience with the Dalai Lama, her relatives discouraged her to return back to her native Bawa village in Tibet, explaining to her that she wouldn’t find an opportunity to receive education and a bright future. She choose to stay back in exile and gleefully explained to me that His Holiness and exile had given her a new lease of life as well as a precious opportunity that cruel adversity had presented to her.

Inspired by initiatives and supports given by the Department of Religion and Culture, today Tibetan nuns are vehemently confident about restoring and reviving the Gelongma tradition back to life. The forty four years old venerable Tenzin Dolma after a little pause remarked to me that it would spell auspicious and wonderful for Buddhism in general if Gelongma tradition is revived. She argues that Gelongma along with Gelongpa would be like a meeting of method (Upaya) and wisdom (Prajna). The two aspects necessary for attaining the supremely enlightened Buddhahood.

In backdrop of His Holiness’s guidance, the research was carried out on the revival of Gelongma tradition. The meeting was concluded this year in Norbulinga but still lot of challenges lurk ahead. His Holiness made it very clear the Tibetan Buddhist alone cannot decide on the issue, the Buddhist communities around the world have equal share of right and responsibility in deciding the future of Gelongma tradition. However, the present Kalon Tripa Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche clarified during the third seminar of Vinaya Scholars about the Gelongma Tradition convened on 22nd -24th May 2006 at Dharamsala that some consensus must come out of the meeting that will take place in July 2007 in Hamburg, Germany. If some consensus in favour of reviving the Gelongma tradition come into being, then it would enable nuns to study Vinaya texts which is a step closer for nuns to become a full fledge Geshe. This would go far to contribute to the preservation and propagation of Buddhism in general.

Another positive development, the tradition of Jang Gonchoe formerly an exclusive religious debate for the monks in Tibet is now being introduced in Tibetan nunneries in exile India. The Co-Director Venerable Lobsang Dechen shared from her experience that the introduction of Jang Gonchoe, the annual religious debate in Tibetan nunneries greatly enhanced the academic standards amongst the nuns. Every year this Jang Gonchoe annual debate held in the month of September. TNP sponsors twenty nuns from each nunnery in all parts of India and Nepal during the occasion of Jang Gonchoe.

From fleeing the persecution in the homeland to tattered robes and bare feet, from a penny less to visionaries like Kasur Rinchen khando Choegyal. Today, the Tibetan nuns have found a safe haven where they receive religious education and training. TNP is immensely successful in preserving and keeping the dying faith alive in exile. Moreover, they dare to explore the frontiers of modern education apart from traditional pursuits. This is all due to the kind and generous support given by generous individuals and institutions across the world.
Hope spring eternal that one day story of nuns’ success permeates the land of snows. This is the most heartening tale in a NUN’S TALE. [The Poet Geoffrey Chaucer would be greatly delighted to hear this nuns’ tale].