Kung Fu Nuns & Shaolin Nuns

[GeneChing]

Xingzheng passed in '87 and was only abbot for one year officially, but he served as acting abbot on and off for some time prior. Xingzheng was already blind at that time. At least, that's my understanding.

[Shaolinlueb]

are the nuns hot? chicks with shaved heads can be hot.

[richard sloan]

From the stories I've heard he did not go blind all at once, but one eye went and then the other...even blind and sick he was still a firecracker with his cane or walking stick, apparently if he did not like you he had no problem laying down some "action" language. I heard a story once about some government officials who were trying to muscle into the temple and Xing Zhen literally kicked the crap out of them.

If I recall correctly he was in and out of hospital for about 2 yrs or so...before he finally passed on. Amitabha.

The nuns in this pic are on the furthest left and furthest right on the bottom row...although I guess the one on the right is the second row...sorta...

[GeneChing]

...but the best story of the day. It even beat out Kingdom of the Little People doing Shaolin kung fu.

Page last updated at 14:58 GMT, Wednesday, 14 April 2010 15:58 UK
Kung fu empowers Nepal nuns
By Jo Jolly
BBC News, Kathmandu

Interest in becoming a nun has grown dramatically since Kung Fu classes began at the Amitabha Drukpa Nunnery

It is early in the morning at the Amitabha Drukpa Nunnery on a hillside just outside Kathmandu and hundreds of devotees are walking clockwise around a golden statue of Buddha.

But rather than being immersed in prayer, up on the roof something different is happening - they are practising the same kung fu fighting made famous by the Bruce Lee films of the 1970s.

Young Buddhist nuns from the 800-year-old Drukpa Buddhist sect are being taught by their Vietnamese master.

The martial art was introduced to the nunnery two years ago and the nuns practise up to two hours a day.

'More powerful'

Rupa Lama, a 16-year-old nun from India, says kung fu helps her concentrate.

"It's good for our health. Meditation is very difficult and if we do kung fu, then afterwards meditation becomes much easier," she says.

Another nun, Konchok, also from India, says she likes kung fu because it gives her strength.

"It's very helpful for our safety. If somebody teases us or something, then we can hit them and be more powerful," she says.

The confidence shown by these young nuns is unusual. Buddhist nuns in the Himalayas are normally seen as inferior to monks.

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, an Englishwoman who became a Drukpa Buddhist nun more than 30 years ago, says traditionally nuns have been neglected and overlooked.

"The main problem for nuns has always been that they have not normally had a good situation in which to live, they have not received the support from lay people that monks receive and they have not been educated.

"So often nuns became basically just household servants for their families or working in the kitchens and the gardens in the monasteries," she says.

Kung fu was introduced into the Amitabha Drukpa Nunnery by the leader of the Drukpa spiritual sect, His Holiness The Gyalwang Drukpa.

'Well-equipped'

The Gyalwang Drukpa is the 12th incarnation of the leader of the Drukpa - or dragon - sect of Buddhism, which is the main religion of Bhutan and is widely practised in countries across the Himalayas.

He says that he felt that previous spiritual leaders had not done enough to advance the rights of women.

"When I was very small, I was already thinking that it was not right to suppress women in our society," he says.

"But then when I grew up, I started to think what can I do for them? Then I thought what I can do is to build a nunnery and then give them an opportunity to study and practise spiritually," he says.

The nunnery built by The Gyalwang Drukpa, the Amitabha Drukpa Nunnery, is a modern, well-funded and a well-equipped place of worship and study.

"Not only [is it] just beautiful to look at, but it is a nunnery with the guidelines and the full support from their master, me," he says.

He says he encouraged the nuns to take up kung fu when he saw nuns from Vietnam practising it.

Emphasis on meditation

For the past week, the nuns have been giving demonstrations of their new skill to thousands of pilgrims who are attending the Second Annual Drukpa Conference.

The Drukpa sect, which places an emphasis on meditation, is popular throughout the Himalayas and also with Westerners.

Jan Duin, who is attending the conference from the Netherlands, says he has been impressed by the kung fu practice.

"I think it is very helpful physically and also psychologically because they do a lot of sitting practice," he says.

"In meditation you practise concentration and you also practise concentration with kung fu."

Buddhist nun Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo says that she'll be introducing kung fu into her own nunnery which is based in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.

"It's excellent exercise, secondly it's very good for discipline and concentration, thirdly it arouses a sense of self-confidence which is very important for nuns, and fourthly when any young men in the area know nuns are kung fu experts, they keep away," she says.

Jetsunma says since nunneries have begun to offer better education and physical programmes like kung fu, the number of young women who want to become nuns has grown dramatically.

"Many of them say, wow, if I become a nun I can study, I can practise, I can do these rituals, I can live together with all these other lovely nuns and lamas will visit us and give us teaching," she says.

"It's a beautiful life option to getting married, having a baby every year, working in the fields, doing the cooking, doing the cleaning.

"You know for them this is a huge opening up in a whole world that had previously been closed to them."

[David Jamieson]

are the nuns hot? chicks with shaved heads can be hot.

This explains that whole "mannequin" incident doesn't it.

[TenTigers]

it is said that Ngoh Mei P'ai has a women's sect.

[GeneChing]

...nevertheless, Tibetan nuns doing dragon dancing sounds like fodder for a decent half hour doc.

BBC World News to air Kung Fu Nuns documentary
Avantika Gaikwad
September 1st, 2011

New Delhi: “Kung Fu Nuns” is the intriguing title of a documentary film which will be telecast on BBC World News on Saturday, 3rd September at 10:00 am and 11:00 PM with repeat telecasts on Sunday 4th of September at 4 p.m and 11 p.m. Directed by Indian documentary film director Chandramouli Basu, this 22 minute film by 24 Frames is produced by Arjun Pandey and Ambica Kapoor. The documentary is a part of the TVE (Television for the Environment) Life series on the BBC World News.

This is the story of an incredible transformation taking place among Buddhist nuns in some Himalayan communities. The film shows the struggle of a group of nuns of the Drukpa lineage who break centuries of tradition to cross barriers of male dominance which have excluded them from some practices and learning, and kept them secondary to the monks.

Their cause has been decisively pushed by one man - His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa, the spiritual head of the Drukpas. No other master of Tibetan Buddhism has done what he has - given nuns a status equal to monks in his order– through training them personally in higher scriptures and a range of secular skills, including Kung Fu. While Kung Fu may be a familiar sight in China or in martial arts movies, it was never before a part of the practice of Buddhist nuns. His Holiness has encouraged the nuns to perform ceremonies that have been the exclusive domain of men so far including the ‘Dance of the Dragons’. This dance has typically been performed only by all-male teams in the Himalayan traditions.

The film is told through the eyes of Kunzang, a 29 year old nun. They are rehearsing to perform a spectacular Dragon Dance. For the 10 nuns who have to move each unwieldy, tubular dragon in coordination with the beating drums, the task requires technique, concentration and determination. For the Drukpas, the Dragon Dance is more than just an auspicious dance. It is a way to showcase their commitment to women’s empowerment.

Talking about the film, Arjun Pandey, Producer and CEO, Twenty Four Frames said, “Women have always been the neglected lot across the globe. But the scenario is now fast changing. There is a rapid transformation taking place. This transformation of the Nuns in Ladakh is history in the making. The hitherto male bastion is fast witnessing a positive change and we are glad to be the ones bringing it to the entire world.” Speaking further on the film Arjun said, “it’s a poignant story through Kunzang, the protagonist brought alive by the amazing colors and visuals of Buddhist culture and tradition.”

Besides this, the nuns must paint and prepare their nunnery to receive thousands of visitors who would be coming in just a few weeks for a huge event – the Annual Drukpa Council. People from all over the world and top masters of the Drukpa Lineage attend the Council. The nuns have to show all the visitors that despite the held belief that women cannot achieve this, they are more than equal to the task.

Set against the starkly beautiful Ladakh mountains, in the crown of Indian’s Himalayan state of Jammu & Kashmir, the film follows Kunzang and her friends as they count down the four days they have to do a full performance for their teacher. They need to convince him that they can pull it off; otherwise this just might be the last Dragon Dance that they perform! Will they be able to do it?

To find out, watch Kung Fu Nuns on BBC World News at 10:00 am and 11:00 PM India time on Saturday, 3rd of September or 4:00 pm and 11:00 PM on Sunday, 4th of September 2011.

[GeneChing]

Buddhist nuns embrace the power of kung fu

Nepalese monastery is enjoying a surge in popularity after spiritual leader introduces martial arts classes
Syed Zain al-Mahmood in Kathmandu
guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 September 2011 08.56 EDT


Kung fu nuns
Nuns practising kung fu at the Druk Gawa Khilwa Buddhist nunnery in Ramkot, Nepal. Photograph: Simon De Trey-White/Eyevine

A Buddhist monastery near Kathmandu is enjoying a surge in popularity after its spiritual leader directed its 300 nuns to use martial arts techniques.

Enrolment is rising and Buddhist nuns as far afield as the Himachal Pradesh in India want to become kung fu instructors.

The Druk Gawa Khilwa (DGK) nunnery near the Nepalese capital teaches its nuns a mixture of martial arts and meditation as a means of empowering the young women. In Buddhism, like many religions, the voices of women have traditionally been muted. But the leader of the 800-year-old Drukpa – or Dragon – order, to which DGK belongs, is determined to change all that.

"As a young boy growing up in India and Tibet I observed the pitiful condition in which nuns lived," says His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa, the spiritual head of the Drukpas.

"They were considered second-class while all the privileges went to monks. I wanted to change this."

Although nuns have usually carried out only household chores in Buddhist monasteries, the nuns of DGK, who come from places as far apart as Assam, Tibet and Kashmir, are taught to lead prayers and given basic business skills. Nuns run the guest house and coffee shop at the abbey and drive DGK's 4X4s to Kathmandu to get supplies.

But for many, the breakthrough was the introduction of kung fu three years ago, shortly after the Gyalwang Drukpa visited Vietnam and observed female martial arts practitioners there.

"Spiritual and physical wellbeing are equally important for our nuns," says the leader.

Sister Karuna, a soft-spoken young nun from Ladakh in the north of India, says kung fu has given the nuns self confidence and also helps in meditation. "We love kung fu," said Karuna, as she prepared to swap her maroon prayer robe for a martial arts suit with a bright yellow sash. "Now we know we can defend ourselves. We also have the fitness for long spells of meditation."

Jigme Thubtem Palmo, 32, who left her family and a career as a police officer in Kashmir six years ago to join the monastery, says young women in the region are now more interested in becoming nuns than before. "We will soon build facilities for 500 nuns," she said.

The shaven-headed DGK nuns recently stunned an audience with a colourful martial arts display at the third annual Drukpa council summit held in Ladakh.

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, a former librarian at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, says she will introduce kung fu at the nunnery she has set up in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.

"It's excellent exercise, good for discipline, concentration and self-confidence," says Palmo. "Also, when any young men in the area know nuns are kung fu experts, they stay away."

There's an amazing documentary or at least a decent kung fu film in this story....

[GeneChing]

Interesting how this story gains traction every once in a while.

The Kung Fu nuns of Ladakh
Published: Sunday, Oct 2, 2011, 8:45 IST
By Apoorva Dutt | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA


The Drukpa nunnery in Ladakh is home to a self-empowered branch of feminist Buddhism

The early-morning peace of Ladakh, says Tenzin, a local shopkeeper, is broken every morning by them. I follow the wave of his arm. You would expect perhaps a noisy neighbourhood, a boisterous bunch of hoodlums, or a gaggle of over-enthusiastic tourists. Tenzin is, in fact, waving towards the Buddhist nunnery of His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa, a majestic array of buildings with thousands of prayer flags fluttering around it. The culprit?

“The nuns,” he says vehemently.

Every day at 4am in the Drukpa nunnery, the thin, tinny silence of Ladakh is shattered by the shrill haee-yas and huuus of the nuns practicing their kung fu. Over a hundred under-25 Buddhist nuns, far from the fabled birthplaces of kung fu, spring kick and punch into the thin mountain air. They are taught by Jigmet Gendum, a surly Vietnamese monk who barks orders and walks amongst the ranks, straightening legs and correcting postures along the way.

The fact that they are Buddhist nuns — a religion known less for its acceptance of violence and physical combat, and rather more for its relentless misogyny in limiting women to only a certain level of enlightenment, makes these nuns an unusual sight: like something Hollywood might dream up. But the kung fu nuns — as they are known throughout the world — are only the most public manifestation of the Drukpa leader’s attempts at female emancipation.

‘I wanted to be like Jackie Chan’
Migyur Palmo, 20, has been at the Drukpa nunnery for four years. She loves kung fu, Jackie Chan movies, has her own email id, but doesn’t understand the appeal of Facebook. “It’s a waste of time,” she says, crinkling her forehead disapprovingly.

It has taken me an hour to get her to open up: for the first forty minutes, she answered questions with the rehearsed ease of a beauty contestant. Migyur is attractive, well-spoken, and unfailingly devoted to the life she has chosen. No, she never wanted to be anything other than a nun. No, she was never persuaded to become a nun. No, she doesn’t miss her old life. All she wants is enlightenment. So does she want to become a Buddhist guru herself one day? No, no, she corrects me quickly. She means in the next life. In this life, serving the Drukpa and helping people are her goals.

It is when I ask her about kung fu that she opens up. “I saw Jackie Chan movies when I was younger,” she giggles. “I wanted to fight like him, and do all the fancy moves. I love that the most. Of course,” she adds quickly, “Kung fu for us is just exercise, not for fighting. It makes us healthy and we even meditate better.”

She occasionally misses her family, Migyur finally admits. “I can’t leave the nunnery for longer than a week per year. But they had also felt that it was important for every family to have a nun, as a sort of representative.”

Ayee Wangmo, a good friend of Migyur’s, is an 18-year-old nun who ran away from home to the nunnery after the Drukpa gave a speech at her Ladakhi village. “I had never heard anyone talk about such things,” she says wonderingly. “It changed me, from the inside, you know?” Ayee says that in her first year, she was desperately homesick. “I missed my sisters. I would get distracted and my mind would wander. I was too talkative. But the other nuns mentored me.” Ayee concludes, “Coming here was the best decision I ever made.”

‘My father didn’t understand’
Carrie Lee, the president of Live to Love NGO, which works with the Drukpa in the Ladakh region, believes that the Drukpa is not exactly progressive, but in fact, returning Buddhist women to the stature that was given to them many centuries ago. “I call the Drukpa lineage the ‘get-off-your-ass-and-do-something lineage,’” she laughs. “Most Buddhist nuns are treated as servants. At the Drukpa’s nunnery, they consider themselves to be mentally and physically stronger than the men. I remember one occasion when the nuns and monks were on a trek together, and the nuns complained the monks would slow them down as they don’t work as much as the nuns do!”

The Drukpa nunnery might be the only instance in the world where there is a waiting list to get in. Kanchok Wangmo, 19, had to fight her family to come to the nunnery. “I wanted to help people. They told me to stay at home and become a teacher. But anyone can become a teacher, only a few can study under guruji’s tutelage,” she explains. Kanchok, who is from a small Himachal village, is more forthcoming about her transition from layperson to nun. “I was a little disappointed when I came here, because I expected there to be a college,” she says sadly. “But it’s basic education, which I’ve already had.” She talks freely about how her father, a rice farmer, was unable to accept her as a nun and cut off ties with her for two years. “Oh, he just missed me,” she says affectionately. “He didn’t understand.”

Despite the time I had spent with these nuns, I too, didn’t understand. From a city-bred atheist’s point of view, I questioned them persistently: but why? Why, when you could help people as a doctor, a teacher, or as a good mother does? Kanchok answered patiently. “I wanted to be a doctor once, like my elder sister is now. But why fix the body, which only manifests symptoms of the sickness, when you can fix the source of the problem — a fault with the soul?” But you must miss something? Kanchok hesitates, and it is clear she has thought of something, or someone, before she answers: “In this life, we have no money or power. By becoming a nun, I hope to achieve a better spiritual status in my next life [that is, be reborn as a man] and help more people.”

Feminist Buddhism
“Seeing nuns doing kung fu is a beautiful thing,” says His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa. “I want to help women, and my own nunnery is the best place to start. I also make sure that I teach texts to the nuns directly. Then, if the monks want to know these teachings, they have to learn from the nuns.” The Drukpa explains that these women have faced a lot of oppression. “They suffered with their families and a backward lifestyle. Now, after centuries, they are being trusted with ancient secrets and texts.”

Many of the nuns who come to the nunnery are orphaned or homeless. But many others have chosen this life, despite having all the opportunities the ‘other’ world had to offer. “One nun used to be a J&K counter-terrorism agent. Another one was a week from leaving for Canada for a marketing job when she joined the Drukpa nunnery,” points out Mary Dorea, a volunteer with Live to Love. “An increasingly self-empowered branch of feminist Buddhism is emerging.”

Chandramouli Basu is the director of the BBC documentary Kung Fu Nuns, and he was in Ladakh to show the film to the Drukpa nunnery on the occasion of the Annual Drukpa Council 2011, a meeting of religious leaders and followers from across the globe. The movie tells the story of Kunzang, a 29-year-old nun, as she and her fellow nuns prepare to perform the ritual of the Dragon Dance, which was previously only meant for monks to perform.

Anxious to prove themselves, the nuns sweat it out in preparation.

“The rapid transformation at the nunnery is inspiring,” says Basu. “Especially seeing it happen against the setting of religion, which is perceived as being the last pillar of conservatism,is a source of hope.”

The film was screened in the same courtyard at the nunnery where the nuns practice their kung fu every morning. Thousands of nuns sat on the stone floor, cross-legged, cheering wildly under the clear, starlit Ladakhi sky, whooping when they recognised a nun on the screen, oohing sympathetically as one broke her ankle during rehearsals. Kanchok, sitting next to me, squeezed my hand happily as the movie ended with the successful performance of the Dragon Dance. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

[GeneChing]

Luv the berets...

Everybody likes Kung Fu Fighting, including nuns

The 12th Gyalwang Drukpa, Jigme Pema Wangchen, (L) poses with Kung-Fu trained nuns accompanying him at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva.
Reuters
Tuesday, Nov 20, 2012

SWITZERLAND - A dozen kung fu nuns from an Asian Buddhist order displayed their martial arts prowess to bemused scientists at The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) this week as their spiritual leader explained how their energy was like that of the cosmos.

The nuns, all from the Himalayan region, struck poses of hand-chops, high-kicks and punches on Thursday while touring the research centre where physicists at the frontiers of science are probing the origins of the universe.

"Men and women carry different energy," said His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, a monk who ranks only slightly below the Dalai Lama in the global Buddhist hierarchy. "Both male and female energies are needed to better the world."

This, he said, was a scientific principle "as fundamental as the relationship between the sun and the moon" and its importance was similar to that of the particle collisions in Cern's vast "Big Bang" machine, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The nuns, mostly slim and fit-looking teenagers with shaven heads and clad in flowing burgundy robes, nodded sagely.

But the 49-year-old Gyalwang Drukpa, head since the age of four of one of the new independent schools of Tibetan Buddhism centred in India and Nepal, stressed that their visit to Cern was not just scientific in purpose.

By taking the nuns around the world and letting people of other countries enjoy their martial displays, he told physicists and reporters: "I hope to raise awareness about gender equality and the need for the empowerment of women."

The nuns themselves, who star on Youtube videos, have benefited from this outlook, he said.

For centuries in Tibet , incorporated into communist China since 1951, and its surrounds, women were strictly barred from practicing any form of martial art.

In his homeland Himalayan region of Ladakh, the Gyalwang Drukpa said, women were mainly servants, cooks and cleaners to monks.

About three years ago he decided to break out of this pattern and improve the health and spiritual well-being of women by training them in kung fu and even allowing them to perform sacred rites once also restricted to men.

"And a very good thing too," declared Cern physicist Pauline Gagnon, who recently wrote a blog study pointing to the low, although growing, proportion of women in scientific research around the world.

The visit to Cern, whose director general Rolf Heuer recently sponsored a conference of scientists, theologians and philosophers to discuss the tense relationship between science and religion, was not the first by a top religious leader.

In 1983 the sprawling campus on the border of France and Switzerland hosted the Dalai Lama, Buddhism's most revered figure, who argues that most scientific discoveries prove the truth of the view of the cosmos expounded by his faith.

Pope John-Paul II preceded him in 1982 and the present Pope Benedict has a standing invitation from Heuer.

[GeneChing]

What I love about this article? In the end, the The Bachelor: Shaolin link comes right back here. Thanks for that, Mr. Campbell!

Physicists And Kung Fu Nuns
By Hank Campbell | November 22nd 2012 10:35 AM

What can Kung Fu Nuns teach CERN scientists about cosmic energy?

To start with, they would have to convince CERN scientists that 'cosmic energy' actually exists, and they recently got a chance to do that when the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) hosted Drukpa Buddhist's Spiritual Head, His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa.

In western academic culture, we always see people call Buddhist leaders 'His Holiness' because that is the title but referring to a Catholic Pope as Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church and Primate of Italy is frowned upon - instead we just see griping about Galileo and gay pederasts whenever a Roman Catholic is mentioned. Contrast that to the Being Human conference I went to earlier this year, which had zero western religious speakers though you could have created a drinking game built around how many times the psychologists and sociologists there mentioned meeting His Holiness The Dalai Lama - and they even had some Buddhist speakers. It sucks being a Buddhist in actual Tibet but since these guys are instead all over the West meeting and greeting the social sciences, it seems to be a pretty sweet life.

Anyway, CERN, WHO, WWF, the Green Cross and others invited His Holiness The Gyalwang Drukpa to talk about how scientists and spiritual leaders can play together nicely in promoting global well-being. That means encouraging eastern religion to accept some science so invoking cosmic energy was odd.

Global well being is nice and all but what is really cool is that His Holiness The Gyalwang Drukpa brought along a group called The Kung Fu Nuns. Sort of cool, anyway. They sound like they should be starring in a Quentin Tarantino movie but it seems they mostly work in hospital clinics and hold the world record for tree planting rather than ass-kicking, which seems rather tame for a sect whose name means 'Dragon'.

His Holiness The Gyalwang Drukpa said,"The spiritual community should be working with the scientific community to tackle today's global problems instead of resisting science. While we may use a different language, we are talking about the same thing and heading in the same direction."

That seems obvious and he is doing his part for gender equality, since the Kung Fu Nuns are women and Asian culture is generally still in the 19th century regarding treatment of women. In an American society that worries if math classes are only 48% women and calls an invitation for coffee in an elevator a rape threat, it's difficult to see why so many in academia embrace Eastern religious leaders, but His Holiness The Gyalwang Drukpa has bucked tradition and is a proponent of gender equality and that is to be applauded. Four years ago he brought Kung Fu to their nunnery and doesn't make them just wash the dishes and stuff any more.


Expecting a hot Nunja? You will be disappointed. But unlike the Western military, Kung Fu nuns don't get their own special self-esteem-based scoring system for physical tests. They still have to shave their heads just like the men too. Credit: Drukpa sect

We're a science site and we want to learn new things, so if you are a Kung Fu Nun in training and have learned to do that Chöd-Dance, please send a video.

If they really want to be embraced by the West, they should create a television show called The Bachelor: Shaolin:

[GeneChing]

Look Who is Kung Fu Fighting
Geeta Gupta : New Delhi, Sun Sep 15 2013, 05:48 hrs


Under an elemental blue sky, with rugged mountains framing them, a group of 20-odd Buddhist nuns, clad in maroon robes and with their heads shaven, punched the air with clenched fists. They were practising kung fu. Even three years ago, that would have been a sight unseen at Naro Photang nunnery in Shey, near the Ladakh capital Leh. It was a privilege reserved for men, for the monks.

Among the women was Jigme Wangchuk, a 15-year-old Buddhist nun from a monastery in Kathmandu, who was in India to attend the annual Drukpa Council that concluded last week at the Hemis monastery in Ladakh. Before she stepped out for kung fu practice, Wangchuk spoke about how she was barely six, a Class II student in Bhutan, when she realised she wanted to be a nun and practise "dharma". Her mind, she said, was firmly made up to give up the "material" life — even against the wishes of her parents. While it is common for some Buddhist families to "give away" children born after their second child to "dharma", Wangchuk insisted her parents loved her too much to agree. "They were sad and told me I was too young to lead the tough life of a nun. But I was sure," said the young girl, who is fluent in English, Hindi, Nepali and the Bhutanese Drukpa language, and showed a remarkable confidence for her age. "It is very difficult to be a nun. We have to prove ourselves. For me, it was difficult to concentrate while meditating; but then it got better, and I found meaning," she said.

The perfection of a nun would be attained if she achieved the highest levels of "concentration" and when she knew "everything about dharma", she said. She was equally kicked about mastering the ancient martial art. "I love kung fu. It makes me feel healthier and it helps in improving my concentration," Wangchuk said. The morning after the kung fu session, she led the dragon dance at the Hemis monastery — which too, till 2009, was a male preserve.

Like her, other nuns have benefited from a new line of thinking in the Drukpa sect. Consigned so far to the domestic chores of washing and cleaning, and told to live with the belief that they were meant to serve the men so that they could be reborn as monks and gain "enlightenment", women had little avenue for growth in the spiritual hierarchy. "Women, even nuns, have always been considered secondary and it needs to change now. There is an improvement in the nuns' life with promoting gender equality, and that gives me great encouragement," said the 12th Gyalwang Drukpa, spiritual head of the nearly 1000-year-old Drukpa lineage, which follows the Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. The sect was established in 1206 and has followers across Tibet, Bhutan, China, Nepal and India.

The Gyalwang Drukpa visited Vietnam in 2008, and was inspired by Vietnamese nuns engaged in combat training. He decided to introduce the martial art and invited a Vietnamese master to the Druk Gawa Khilwa monastery in Kathmandu. At the nunnery in Leh, the martial art was introduced in 2010, and about 400 nuns learn kung fu at the two monasteries now. While training and practice will soon turn them into instructors, for now the nuns are trained by Dang Dinh Hai, a third generation Vietnamese kung fu master.

Over the last five years, in Ladakh and Kathmandu, nuns have been encouraged to step out of the nunnery and the confines of a wholly domestic life. They were a part of the massive tree plantation drive initiated after the flash floods of 2010 washed away several villages in Ladakh. They also work as volunteers at the SNM district hospital in Leh.

Jigme Rigme Lhamo, 36, who came to the order in 1999, said kung fu training has made the nuns more confident, though the many moves to ensure gender equity in the order faced staunch resistance. "A lot of people complained before they reached an understanding and got helpful. When we first performed the dragon dance, the keepers of dharma did say the world was coming to an end," she said.

Lahmo studied till Class IX "in one of the best schools in Ladakh". She lived with her family in Nubra Valley before becoming a nun. While her parents wanted her to become an engineer, Lahmo was inspired by Mother Teresa and wanted to "help people". "My parents didn't want me to become a nun; they were very unhappy with my decision. But I am happy being a nun. If I had stayed back with my parents, I would have been able to only help them. Now I can help more people," she said. The nuns, who start their day at 3 am with a dose of kung fu and two hours of meditation, said that the tough physical exercise sustained them through the day's routine, which, besides cleaning and cooking, includes meditation, prayers, learning Tibetan grammar, Buddhist philosophy, English and computer classes.

While it was discomfiting to see a 15-year-old lead the life of an ascetic when girls her age are occupied with ambitions, games, and toys of a different order, Wangchuk was dismissive of such concerns. She chuckled and said she loved her "dharma friends". "There is nothing lacking in this life. I get to learn the scriptures and I will only get better. I play cricket and football too. I watch a lot of movies. I have seen all the kung fu movies," she said.

This thread is like the Shaolin Soccer for real thread - it keeps coming back. And given the last quote, maybe they will combine someday.

[Cheng oi]

http://shaolinchancity.blogspot.com/...n-nunnery.html