Nepal’s gongfu nuns kick off reopening of nunnery to public after five years
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Follow topic:
KATHMANDU – About a dozen nuns performed hand chops and high kicks, some of them wielding swords, as they showed off their martial art skills to hundreds of cheering well-wishers at the long-awaited reopening of their nunnery in Nepal.
The nuns of the hill-top Druk Amitabha Monastery put on the show of strength to mark the institution’s reopening, five years after the Covid-19 pandemic forced it to close its doors to the public.
The group of gongfu nuns, aged 17 to 30, are members of the 1,000-year-old Drukpa lineage, which gives nuns equal status as monks and is the only female order in the patriarchal Buddhist monastic system.
Usually, nuns are expected to cook and clean and are not allowed to practise any form of martial art. But Gyalwang Drukpa, among the most senior figures in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, decided to train women in gongfu to improve their health and spiritual well-being.
He opened the nunnery in 2009, and it now has 300 members aged between six and 54.
“We do gongfu to keep ourselves mentally and physically fit, and our aim is to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality,” said 23-year-old Jigme Jangchub Chosdon, a nun who was originally from Ladakh, India.
The nuns come from Bhutan, India and Nepal and are all trained in gongfu, the Chinese martial art for self-defence and strength.
“With the confidence from gongfu, I really want to help the community, young girls to build their own strength,” said 24-year-old Jigme Yangchen Gamo, a nun from Ramechhap in Nepal.
The nunnery’s website says the combination of gender equality, physical strength and respect for all living things represents the order’s return to its “true spiritual roots”.
In the past, the nuns have completed lengthy expeditions on foot and by bike in the Himalayas to raise money for disaster relief, as well as to promote environmentally friendly living.
A gongfu nun practising before her performance at the reopening of the Druk Amitabha Monastery in Kathmandu on Dec 30.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Jigme Konchok Lhamo, 30, from India, said her main goal was to achieve enlightenment like Lord Buddha, who founded Buddhism 2,600 years ago.
“But for now, as I am a normal person... I think I will be focusing more on helping others,” she said. “Helping others is our religion.” REUTERS
