THE SNOW LION BUDDHIST NEWS & CATALOG

Thereafter, she started investigating various centers, first studying with Sri Lankan teachers, then visiting TMC. There, she met Khenchen Konchog during the 1991 Losar celebrations, just before he took off for a year in India. There was only time for him to tell her,"Keep coming here," which she did. "Since this was the only instruction I had from any Lama," she says, "I obeyed."

When Khenchen returned the following year, he began inviting her to dinner on Wednesday nights, meetings for which she came prepared with notebooks full of questions—everything from the simplest, such as "What is a mala?" on up to "What is emptiness?"

As time went by, Khenchen started involving Khenmo in the administration of the center where, in her words, "I served the Lama in every way I could think of, as the traditional texts advise. I filled out forms, wrote letters, made calls, meanwhile learning more at his kitchen table than I had learned anywhere else." Early on, Khenmo-la told Khenchen that she wished to be ordained, but he refused to discuss the matter for at least 5 years. "I actually went home and marked my calendar for five years down the road!" she recalls.

Meanwhile, Khenchen advised her to contact virtually every other Drikung nun in the US to find out what ordained life was like. And without exception, these women all said, "Don't do it!" They felt that without societal support it was just too hard.

Undaunted, Khenmo-la went forward with the initial (getsulma) vows in 1998. Meanwhile, she began editing Khenchen's translation of Gampopa's Jewel Ornament of Liberation.

Six years later, she traveled to Los Angeles to receive the full (bhikshuni) ordination which, because the tradition was broken in Tibet, had to be received from a nun in the Vietnamese tradition. To date, she had had no formal training apart from the wisdom lessons she was receiving personally from Khenchen.

"The Tibetan system works the opposite of the way that, say, the Christian system works," she explains. "A Catholic will go to seminary and take ordination at the end of her training. However, because the Buddhist vows are not supposed to be revealed to lay people, one can't receive training as a lay person. So you make the commitment first."

At the end of 2006, Ani Trinley (as she was then known) received a letter from the Drikung lineage head, Chetsang Rinpoche, reading in part: "Khenchen Konchog Gyaltshen has requested to give her the title of Khenmo, and I am granting her the same as a token of thanks for her service." When she learned the news, Khenmo Trinley was stunned and deeply touched, knowing that since Khenchen normally shuns trappings, this gesture had deep significance. Previously, only one other woman, Khenmo Drolma, had received the title. Typically, Khenmo Trinley states, a Khenpo is fully ordained and highly educated. Since generally such training does not exist for women in Tibet, the female equivalent was unknown. (A possible exception is the Abbess of Samding monastery, considered an emanation of Vajravarahi.)

Khenmo Trinley thus becomes a model not just for ordained women, but for all Western ordained, who can now see that it is possible to attain a high level even when not operating in a conventional monastic setting. (To support herself, Khenmo-la has long held a responsible position at the Dept. of the Interior.) The lay community also benefits from witnessing the respect in which the Tibetans must hold serious practitioners, since they are willing to give them the imprimatur of legitimacy.

For more on this subject . . .

Books:

• Calling to the Lama from Afar
• Pearl Rosary: the Path of Purification

Other Links:

• Tibetan Meditation Center
• Khenchen Konchog Gyaltshen