The Lobersing Nuns – First Donation Appeal

-1986

Conditions in the Tibetan camps have been challenging for everyone. Most residents are managing reasonably well. Their lives may not be plush, but they are becoming a bit more comfortable: wholesome food, weatherproof housing, and schools for the children. However there is one small group of nuns that still live in the most extreme poverty; students of the accomplished yogini, Ani Jetsun Dolma.

Ani Pema Kata is 67 years old. She lives in a shack in the jungle just below where Ani Jetsun lived. She has inherited the snakes that were Ani Jetsun’s constant companions. They come when she is doing practice and drink water from her offering bowls.

Pema Kata became a nun when she was 23 years old. Her parents had arranged a marriage for her against her will, as she was the only daughter of seven children. She had an interest in the dharma from an early age and had always wanted to be a nun. In the dead of night she ran away from her parents home. She walked for 15 days to a nunnery near Mount Kailash. There she became a student of Ani Chimba under Degyal Tulku. When he passed away his body was preserved. She and her fellow nuns carried the body out of Tibet when it was overrun by the Chinese. It is now enshrined in the Gompa in Lobersing. Ani Kata studied with Ani Jetsun for five years. She is charming and a great storyteller.

Ani Padma Chingzon lives in a hovel by the roadside. At 75 years of age she walks with a certain amount of difficulty. She suffered some health problems and was kept in the old folks home for a while. Although permitted to remain after her recovery, she left because she felt it distracted her dharma practice. She ran away from home at 17 taking her nun’s vows from Kagyu Lama Tatsom Palup. She became a student of Degyal Tulku and helped to carry his body out of Tibet. She is very outspoken, a powerful woman.

Tsultrim Palmo was from a Nomadic family in eastern Tibet. She lives in a hut in the jungle and was a student of Ani Jetsun’s for several years. She became a nun after the death of her husband and her son. She is 56 years old and often has health problems. Watching her climbing around in the jungle where she has her hut, one must admire this quiet and steadfast woman.

When they were asked if they found the dharma less accessible to them or their lives more difficult than a man’s who made the same commitment, they emphatically answered “No!” Ani Chinzon was particularly strong about this question insisting that the dharma was a matter of personal effort.

These women are fiercely independent. As no one supports them on a regular basis they beg for their food from door-to-door. As soon as they get the bare necessities they return to their hovels to retreat, study and practice dharma. Due to their age they on occasions suffer ill health, a situation that can have tragic consequences.

Western donors have supported them from time to time and they expressed their gratitude in the most beautiful ways. Ani Kati gave me some herb that had been under His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s throne when he gave the Kalachakra teachings in Boudgaya. Ani Padma brought some medicine dusti prepared in the village. Ani Tsultrim brought a simple cotton kata that had seen many miles. “We will all die soon,” they told me, “but seeing you is our golden chance to think those donors who made it possible for us to continue our practice. We feel we can die peacefully now.”

Senge-la and his wife Tseten Dolma have been doing their best to provide food for these nuns, but the resources are limited. They have five children to feed and school. They request donations of $10 per month for each nun. They spoke of five nuns. These three I had the privilege to meet.

Please consider sending a monthly stipend for the care of these women. Let their last years be eased by your generosity. They will bless you with their prayers and love.

Prema Dasara