On the Internet, I had seen a headline about Clinton and Obama, and at Cloud’s End I saw a newspaper lying on a table outside my room. It was before 4 am, when I woke from a disturbing dream. In this dream, a newspaper lay on a small table in front of me. I learned that Hillary Clinton had had a bad experience with a taxi driver—I forget what the argument was about, but the driver murdered her whole family in vengeance. I was shocked and horrified with this news, such evil behavior, and suddenly I woke up.
These are photos that I took at the Dolma Ling Nunnery in Dharamsala. It's the site of the Tibetan Nuns Project, which is about educating nuns on the same level as monks, since they have been neglected in what is yet another patriarchal culture.
We took several taxi cabs to the Dolma Ling Nunnery, a large grouping of two- to three-story white and red buildings that look pretty new. The architecture was simple and streamlined, and I’m tempted to say it looks more Indian than Tibetan, but it was impressive nonetheless. We met up and a couple of young women in chupas led us in. We walked across an attractive paved courtyard with steps and bushy plants. Surrounding the courtyard were white columns forming a sort of cloister. We climbed the steps into one of the buildings and thus entered the main hall of the Dolma Ling Nunnery.
The main hall is set up like a basic traditional Tibetan prayer hall, with long red cushioned benches facing each other and running parallel to the length of the room, and with a dais at the far end of the room, facing the doors. In the center of the dais was a brocade-draped throne displaying a large framed photo of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Behind the throne was a huge, colorful appliquéd tapestry, and to either side of it were glass cabinets holding traditional manuscripts and statues. Shantum led a meditation sitting, and I felt relaxed. Then he asked one of us to read from a sutra, originally given by the Buddha’s buddy Shariputra, on ways to put away anger. It is called the Discourse On the Five Ways of Ending Anger and was originally recited in Sravasti.
Courtyard, where the debates take place.
Entrance to meditation hall
Throne in meditation hall; a photo of the Dalai Lama sits on the throne. Behind it is an appliqued wall hanging.
The Dolma Ling Tibetan Nuns Project was set up in the early 1990s when nuns started coming here. The seventh Dalai Lama set up Dolma Ling in (scribble) arts and crafts—that’s here.Some people are taking a quick trip to Norbulingka Center and going to the Dalai Lama’s teachings. The rest of us followed a couple of Tibetan women to the video room to see a film called A Day in the Life of Dolma Ling.
I wrote some notes based on the documentary. The nunnery was established in 1991: 180 nuns from Tibet, Spiti, and Ladakh. It also includes a few female laypeople. The construction was completed in 2005. The nunnery will have a solar hot water system, but it’s not constructed yet. It has a clinic and even an Internet room. The nunnery includes a staff of about two hundred, including teachers. The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Nuns Project have helped to give women opportunities for study, progress, and respect—for them to obtain full ordination. They have their own cows and sheep and fields and produce a lot of their own stuff, but they don’t yet grow their own vegetables, but will at some point. They also make their own tofu.
http://www.tnp.org/ = Tibetan Nuns Project
Tibetan manuscripts (top left shelf) and statues in cabinet
Views of the appliqued wall hanging behind the throne. Sakyamuni Buddha and Green Tara.
Avalokiteshvara (Bodhisattva of Compassion) and Buddha
Sand mandala preserved under glass. Usually these are destroyed shortly after they're made, demonstrating impermanence.
View from roof (as are most of the following photos)
Water supply for the nunnery
We took a tour that included, among other places, the computer room and the library upstairs. We took our time in the library, a spacious room with many rows of glass-door bookcases, most of which had plenty of space for more books. I noticed that some books were in English. In a far corner was a wooden and glass cabinet containing a sand mandala. We stepped out onto a balcony with a stunning view of the mountains. Some of them are topped with snow in the distance, and the sky was bright blue. Someone asked why a row of trees was chopped up so much, concerned that it might be for the ironic reason that the trees obstructed the view; but no, it’s because the branches are used for firewood and they will grow back. We stood on the large balcony, which had tubular gold ornaments at the corners, and we looked out at the water system tank, which involves a tank (the water kind), a building, and big black cylindrical tubs. We went back inside, to a large room with a cabinet displaying free copies of Tibetan Nuns Project newsletters and post cards, and we helped ourselves.
Snow lion sculptures over a doorway
Back to the courtyardRinchen Kunun, a Tibetan woman in an elegant dark green chupa, is Head of the Tibetan Nuns Project, and she also runs the guesthouse Kashmir Cottage, where about half of our sangha are staying. She has worked for the Tibetan government in exile, but her pet project is the Tibetan Nuns Project. She has been the head of the Tibetan Women’s Association in the past. She also happens to be married to the Dalai Lama’s brother, Tenzin Choegyal, who was identified as a Rinpoche but stepped down because the job didn’t suit him. We had a great interview with her at a long table, where we munched on snacks and drinking tea.
I took way too many snacks, having not considered that we’d be eating lunch before terribly long. The flaky sugary cookies were irresistible, and unfortunately by the time it occurred to me that I shouldn’t have taken so many cookies, it also occurred to me that I’d better clean my plate rather than waste food. Flakes for the flakey.
Hello, Himalayas Among other things, as we neared the end of the talk, someone asked, “Are the nuns now writing commentary on texts?”
Rinchen Kunun replied, “Yes, they’re beginning to do it, and it’s so exciting to have commentary from a female point of view.”
Appliqued wall hanging with names of donors on leaves 
