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Nepal's kung-fu nuns break conventions

2023-02-28T15:16:03.930Z


In Himalayan Buddhism, the religious roles of nuns have long been restricted by rules and customs. NAGARJUN, Nepal—As the first rays of sunlight broke through the clouds shrouding the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas, Jigme Rabsal Lhamo, a Buddhist nun, drew a sword from her back and swung it at her opponent, knocking it to the ground. “Eyes on the target! Focus!” Lhamo yelled at the downed nun, as he looked her square in the eye in front of a whitewashed temple in the Druk Amitabha nunnery,


NAGARJUN, Nepal—As the first rays of sunlight broke through the clouds shrouding the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas, Jigme Rabsal Lhamo, a Buddhist nun, drew a sword from her back and swung it at her opponent, knocking it to the ground.

“Eyes on the target!

Focus!” Lhamo yelled at the downed nun, as he looked her square in the eye in front of a whitewashed temple in the Druk Amitabha nunnery, on a hill overlooking Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

Nuns practice kung fu with swords at Druk Amitabha Nunnery.

(Saumya Khandelwal/The New York Times)

Lhamo and the other members of her religious order are known as

"the kung-fu nuns

" and are part of an 800-year-old Buddhist sect called Drukpa, which is the Tibetan word for "dragon."

Throughout the Himalayan region and in the rest of the world, her followers currently mix meditation with martial arts.

Every day, the nuns change their brown robes for a dark brown uniform to practice kung-fu, the martial arts of Chinese origin.

It is part of her spiritual mission to achieve

gender equality and a good physical condition;

Nuns pray for the sick or the deceased at the Druk Amitabha convent, on a hill overlooking Kathmandu, Nepal. (Saumya Khandelwal/The New York Times)

their Buddhist beliefs also exhort them to lead an environmentally friendly life.

Mornings inside the convent are filled with the thuds of heavy footsteps and the clang of swords present at the nuns' training under Lhamo's tutelage.

Amid the subtle rubbing of their baggy uniforms, the nuns cartwheel and punch and kick each other.

Nuns practice fung fu early in the morning at Druk Amitabha Nunnery. (Saumya Khandelwal/The New York Times)

“Kung-fu helps us break down gender barriers and develop inner confidence,” said Lhamo, 34, who came to the nunnery more than 10 years ago from Ladakh in northern India.

“It also helps us care for others during crises.”

For as long as Buddhist scholars can remember, women in the Himalayas who seek to practice their religion alongside male monks as spiritual equals have been stigmatized, both by religious leaders and by general social mores.

Women, who are prohibited from participating in the intense philosophical debates fostered among the monks, were confined to tasks such as cooking and cleaning inside the temples and monasteries.

They were denied activities involving physical exertion, leading prayers, or even singing.

Nuns perform a kung fu demonstration at Druk Amitabha Nunnery.

(Saumya Khandelwal/The New York Times)

In recent decades, those restrictions have become the focus of an intense battle waged by thousands of nuns in many sects of Buddhism in the Himalayas.

Change's agents

Kung-fu nuns are leading the charge for change.

His drukpa lineage began a reform movement 30 years ago under the leadership of Jigme Pema Wangchen, also known as the 12th Gyalwang Drukpa.

The leader has been willing to disrupt

centuries of tradition

and wants the nuns to carry the religious message of the sect outside the monastery walls.

“We are changing the rules of the game,” said Konchok Lhamo, a 29-year-old kung fu nun.

"It is not enough to meditate on a cushion inside a monastery."

Today, drukpa nuns not only practice kung-fu, but also lead prayers and walk for months on pilgrimages to collect plastic waste and raise awareness about climate change.

Every year for 20 years, except for a break caused by the pandemic, the nuns have cycled some 2,000 kilometers from Kathmandu to Ladakh, high in the Himalayas, to promote eco-friendly transport.

Along the way, they stop to

educate

people in rural Nepal and India about gender equity and the importance of girls.

The nuns of this religious group were introduced to martial arts in 2008 by a group of followers from Vietnam, who had come to the convent to learn the scriptures and play the instruments used during prayers.

Since then, nearly 800 nuns have received basic martial arts training and some 90 have gone through intensive lessons to become

trainers.

The twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa has also been training nuns to become chant masters, a position that used to be reserved for men.

He has also provided them with the highest level of teaching, called

mahamudra

, which in Sanskrit means "great symbol", and which consists of an advanced system of meditation.

The nuns have become well known both in Hindu-majority Nepal with about 9 percent Buddhists, and beyond the country's borders.

However, the changes in the religious group have not come without intense backlash.

Conservative Buddhists have threatened to

burn down drukpa temples.

During their journeys up the steep slopes from the convent to the local market, the nuns have been verbally attacked by monks from other sects.

But that, they say, does not deter them.

When they travel, with their shaved heads, in their open-bed trucks, they can see themselves as soldiers ready to be deployed on the front lines, capable of facing any prejudice.

The sect's huge campus is home to 350 nuns, who live with ducks, turkeys, swans, goats, 20 dogs, a horse and a cow, all rescued from butchers' knives or from the street.

The women work as painters, artists, plumbers, gardeners, electricians and masons and also run a library and a medical clinic for the lay population.

“We not only take care of our religion, but also of society.”

“When people come to the monastery and see us working, they begin to understand that being a nun

is not being 'useless,'

” said Zekit Lhamo, 28, referring to an insult nuns sometimes receive.

Attraction

Her work has inspired other women in the Nepalese capital.

“When I see them, it makes me want to become a nun,” said Ajali Shahi, a graduate student at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu.

“They look so cool, it makes you want to leave everything behind.”

Every day, the convent receives at least a dozen inquiries about joining the order from as far away as

Mexico, Ireland, Germany and the United States.

“But not everyone can do this,” said Jigme Yangchen Ghamo, one of the nuns.

"It looks attractive from the outside, but inside it's a hard life."

c.2023 The New York Times Company

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