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Getting to the Cushion:
Temporary Ordination at Gampo Abbey
 Jampa Rabyang: In the ultimate groundless state. When I reached the red and gold sign for Gampo Abbey, my 23-year-old daughter was waiting for me at the top of the driveway. She looked poised and relaxed in her robes of maroon and saffron. She is a temporarily ordained nun, a Gomi Genyen, in the Kagyü lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. In 1984, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche established Gampo Abbey in the original farmhouse and barn on the site. Thrangu Rinpoche became the abbot and the principal teacher is Ani Pema Chödrön, well-known American Buddhist nun and author of many books about the Shambhala tradition... Jampa Rabyang (my daughter's Tibetan name) has been at the abbey since June 2003. After three months in residency, she shaved her head, donned the maroon shamtab and dzen and took temporary ordination. She made a two-year commitment to community life at the abbey, its daily rituals, four hours of daily meditation, and monastic training. Jampa pledged to abide by the five precepts: abstaining from destruction of life; abstaining from taking what is not given; abstaining from lying; abstaining from sexual activity (celibacy); and abstaining from alcohol or drugs. She has now extended her vows for a third year... As I planned a visit to her, I realized I wanted to ask her many questions about Buddhism, particularly about the inclination of a highly creative, intelligent Western woman to become a monastic. But she wasn't alone in this choice, and her story would not necessarily give me a broad understanding of the choice of monasticism in the twenty-first century. Gampo Abbey is unique among Tibetan Buddhist monasteries for giving temporary ordination... This article can be read in its entirety in Mandala
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