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I grew up in an isolated village in the northern Indian Himalayas. My village is called Kiamo Spiti. Spiti is covered by snow almost eight to nine months of the year. Most of Spiti is farmers. In summer when the snow melts the farmers plant barley, wheat, beans, and potatoes and during winter they stay at home and recite mantras, and most men read religious text and women weave wool and make cloth. I was the fourth of five sisters.
When I was fourteen, there was no high school in my village. I thought about what to do next. If I stayed in the village, I would get married, have many children and work hard all day in the field. Perhaps there was a better chance for me.
Every summer a senior nun from Gaden Choling Nunnery in Dharamshala came to my village to visit her family. I thought she had a good life. She got to study and pray all day. She looked very clean and happy compared to the girls who worked in the fields. I asked my parents if I can become a nun. They said it was good because being a nun is considered a better opportunity to engage in the spiritual pathways practice than being a lay woman.
In August 1989 I said goodbye to my family. My mother and I cried. Then the senior nun brought me to Dharamsala. We came by bus. It took two days. I had never been so far. The town looked so big. The senior nun found me a place in Jamyang Choling Institute, a new nunnery.
I was in the first batch of twelve nuns. The senior nun gave me nun’s robes. When it was time to cut my hair I braided it first. I took the braid and my old dress and put them in a package and sent them to my mother. She said she was so surprised when she saw what was inside. May be she felt a bit sad but I wanted her to have it.
Some things were exciting. I had never seen fruit before, except apples. One day my friend and I saw a man buy a banana. We watched carefully how he peeled it. We did not know what it was but we pointed at it to the shopkeeper and ate it right there in front of him.
Some things were difficult. I could only read Tibetan, not speak it, because my language is a little different. I missed my family very much and wrote them many letters, sometimes four in one week.
When I was fifteen I had ordination from His Holiness. He gave me a new name. A nun’s first name is always from the person who does the ordination, so my first name is Tenzin .
In 2012, I completed a study programme of more than seventeen years of Buddhist philosophies in the five major texts (Perfection of wisdom, Madhymika/ middle way, Parmana/ logic, Abhidharama/ Dharmakirtis Pramanavartiks and Vinaya).
Since June 2012 I am acting as secretary here at Jamyang Choling Insitute. This is almost my fourth year of service and from next year the task will rotate. I do this job, but I haven’t had formal administration training, so sometimes it is quite difficult but I am trying my best.
Here in the Institute there is an executive board of six nuns and the Director. We discuss matters and sometimes we collect ideas from all the nuns. Then we gather everyone in the temple and discuss. Major decisions are always made by a democratic process.
My sisters have married. I have seventeen nieces and nephews. Four of my nephews are monks. None of my nieces are nuns yet. Today girls have many more choices than when I was young. Maybe one niece will become a nun.
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