|
APPEALS
Preserving A Threatend Spiritual Treasure
In an isolated corner of the high mountains of Tibet, more than 3,000 nuns
practice ancient yogic methods day and night, carrying on a thousand-year-old
unbroken chain of spiritual transmission. A large number are Togdenmas, female
yogis who lived isolated in mountain caves, reaching remarkable levels of
attainment; some have practiced in retreat for more than 50 years. Many have
achieved mastery of methods like the Six Yogas of Naropa, Dzogchen and Mahamudra
– practices of the most adept spiritual teachers of Tibet. Bodhicitta,
enlightened love and compassion for all beings, lies at the heart of their
practice.
Before the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, there were five to six thousand
nuns living in more than 60 convents in the region. All those convents were
destroyed during the cultural revolution, the nuns scattering to fend for
themselves. By the 1980s, 300 or so of the most accomplished and dedicated nuns
had come back to cautiously rebuild their convents. Drawn by their example, one
by one thousands of Tibetan women have joined them, becoming nuns
themselves.
Founded in the 19th century by the first Tsoknyi Rinpoche, this robust system
of nunneries remains virtually unprecedented in Tibetan history. Tosknyi
Rinpoche saw not just the need to establish practice centers for women, but
envisioned a time when these nuns would be among the most outstanding
practitioners in the Buddhist world of their day.
That day has come. Because of the spiritual depths of the most accomplished
nuns, the “Tsoknyi nuns” are being asked to journey to newly rebuilt monasteries
to teach their practices to monks there, who are still struggling to revive the
spiritual lineages broken during the turbulence of the 1960s.
An Endangered Species
The Tsoknyi nuns carry on their spiritual work despite extreme poverty and
physical hardships -- and a looming threat to their very ability to continue
their ancient way of life.
The nuns’ daily routine captures a time bubble from the past. Organized in
nunneries comprised of several “Ani houses” (dwellings where up to 15 nuns live
together), they do a lifetime retreat just as yogis like Milarepa recommended a
thousand years ago. Each nun inhabits a three-foot square space where she sits
all day doing her meditation and yogic practices, and sleeps sitting up –
practicing Dream Yoga. They do their spiritual practice in a group, nuns
teaching and helping each other all their lives.
A typical day starts before dawn, around 3:30 a.m., as the nuns wake and
immediately start their first three-hour practice session of the day. After a
short break for breakfast, they resume their second session, ending at lunch.
The third session occupies the afternoon, and after a light evening meal they do
their fourth session. They then sleep sitting up, as they practice Dream Yoga
through the night.
But this remarkable opportunity for a lifetime of deep spiritual practice has
come under threat.
Traditionally, each nun was supported by her family -- farmers in the
neighboring valleys – who offered her a portion of their crops. That system
worked well for centuries – until today. Now those farmers are being lured to
cities by government incentives and the promise of jobs, selling their farms and
their yaks to pay for an apartment far away. Once there, they find daily life
much more costly, and typically struggle just to pay their own expenses. In one
village, half of the 500 or so families moved away.
That means the nuns increasingly have no one to support them. The traditional
family system that provided the ecological niche in which the nuns’ spiritual
practice could thrive has begun to erode, making the nuns themselves an
endangered species. In the last ten years, more than 200 aspiring nuns have had
to leave the Ani houses, rejoining their families as babysitters, cooks and
housekeepers.
The Tsoknyi Nuns Project
The Third Tsoknyi Rinpoche has recently visited the nuns; moved by their
plight and realizing the urgent need to protect their way of life, he has begun
to raise funds for them. Their needs can be seen in the troubles of:
• Pema, 15, who has an aunt who has been a nun since childhood. Pema finds
herself drawn to the same way of life. But her aunt’s small hermitage has no
more room – not even the small space one more nun would occupy. The Ani house
itself badly needs repairs.
• Tsultrim, 81, who has lived in an Ani house for 55 years; during the
Cultural Revolution she managed to continue her way of life while hiding in a
cave. Tsultrim has been one of the most accomplished of the nuns, a main
teacher. But in Tibet, the elderly are cared for by their children – and as a
nun she has no children. While the other nuns look after her daily physical
care, Tsultrim has no money to get the medical treatments she badly needs.
• Dolkar, 35, who has been a nun for 18 years. Dolkar’s family, farmers in
the local village, gladly brought her food from their own crops. But the promise
of paying jobs in a distant city led them to move away – only to find themselves
barely scraping by. Unable to help Dolkar any longer, they sent for her to join
them.
The Tsoknyi Nuns Project seeks to provide the help these women desperately
need: medical help and care for the elderly, repairs and new facilities – and
perhaps most important, new means for self-sufficiency. These remote hermitages
are too far away from medical care – a two day journey from the nearest
hospital, making treatments almost impossible. The nuns used local mud-and-stone
methods to build their housing, a method that inevitably crumbles with time; a
three-year retreat center collapsed last year. And with the withering of the
traditional family system for supporting individual nuns, the Project has an
endowment to help the women support themselves through owning small farms and
stores.
Beyond such immediate needs, the Project looks to the future of the Dharma in
Tibet. The oldest generation of teachers became nuns before the fall of Tibet in
1959, and many of these have died. Tsoknyi Rinpoche has begun to identify and
train as teachers a new generation of accomplished nuns who one day can teach
not only those in the Ani houses, but monks and nuns in the surrounding
vicinity.
None of these hardships has lessened the devotion and determination of the
nuns to continue their enlightened activity. These are practitioners of the most
accomplished level, and so represent a treasure in the world’s spiritual
heritage. It will be a tragedy if their lineage fades away, eroding by the
pressures of modern life.
But now they need our help. The beneficiaries will be not just these nuns,
but the world at large.
How To Help
The Tsoknyi Nuns Project seeks to establish an endowment that will generate
$100,000 each year to distribute among the 53 nunneries for repairs, medical
care, living expenses for the neediest nuns, and to support teacher training and
travel.
Send tax-deductible donations to:
Tsoknyi Nuns Project
Pundarika Foundation
P.O. Box 57
Crestone, CO
81131
|
