There are more than 40 nuns ordained within the FPMT. After the Enlightened Experience Celebration in India in 1982 there was renewed energy and enthusiasm to start their own community. Now, two years later, this is a reality.

Twelve Western women have made a home for themselves in the barn of Institut Vajra Yogini, near Toulouse in France, ten kilometers [6 miles] from Nalanda Monastery, the community of Western monks.

Five of the nuns talk about their life at Dorje Pamo Monastery.

The word “barn” is deceptive. These nuns’ home, just next to the chateau that houses Institut Vajra Yogini, is a large and imposing brick building with two floors of some 20 rooms that run either side of the vast enclosed garage-like barn that must have once housed farm animals. The women have slowly transformed it into home for a moving population of Western nuns. Twelve rooms are single bedrooms/studies. There is a comfortable kitchen, an office, a work room and a meditation hall.

The place feels solid. It feels like a monastery. It works well, and the nuns have worked hard to make it so. They have no real models, as theirs is probably the first community of Western Buddhist nuns, so it evolves slowly and will itself become the model for other nuns’ monasteries in the West.

As pioneers, their job is not easy, but they are enthusiastic. All of the nuns work to keep the place running smoothly, as well as keep up their daily meditational practices and, for some of them, an intensive round of classes in Buddhist philosophy with the monks of Nalanda Monastery, ten kilometers [6 miles] away. They have a close and warm relationship with the 20 people in the lay community of Institut Vajra Yogini, and with the local people. They teach classes, lead the pujas and counsel people individually. Only one or two of the nuns are French, but most now have a working knowledge of the language.

Sangye Khadro is 31 years old and has been ordained for nearly 10 years. She has been ordained the longest, so volunteered to be the director of the community for the first year. Asked about the purpose of the monastery she said:

“I see that the main purpose of establishing the monastery is to create a place where nuns can live together in such a way that they can develop spiritually. The more together we are ourselves, the more helpful we can be to others. This has already happened to some extent.

“I think our presence here at Institut Vajra Yogini has made the center stronger. We provide an example for the lay community and we have some commitment. You’ve given up things in order to practice. You take vows because you want to work on yourself, develop yourself spiritually, and that naturally means loving and helping others. So I think we have much strength and inspiration to give to the community at Institut Vajra Yogini. Since we’ve been here we have been able to help many people who come for courses by teaching, leading meditations and providing spiritual energy.”

Sangye Khadro completed her job as director last year and has now taken up a two-year post as spiritual director at Buddha House in Australia.

Gun Johansson, ordained for three years, is Swedish and was one of the first nuns at Dorje Pamo. During the summer months of each year she works at an old people’s home in Sweden to support herself.

“At first I didn’t want to come and live only with nuns. I thought it was a little funny. I also thought it would be very, very strict like in Tibetan nun communities and that we would have to be completely like Tibetans. But when I came here I noticed that people were very open, there is room for us to develop.

“Also, just being together as women is so good. As nuns we can develop more by keeping within our own community. There is the tendency not to say much when we are with other people in bigger groups or with monks. It is really nice that we can do things our own way. We are not monks, we don’t want to copy a monk monastery.”

New Zealand nun Celia is 27 years old and has been living in the community since it began. Guided initially by Eva März from Aryatara Munich in Germany, she has been helping to organize a profitable new business, “Brin d’Herbe,” marketing products from herbs grown and prepared by the nuns in their own garden.

“This is a great place to find out how many expectations you have and how much suffering comes from those expectations, over and over again. Instead of creating causes every day and waiting patiently, we expect results straight away, like magic mushrooms. Most things here are ongoing; you can’t achieve anything in one week. You can’t even fix the building in one week. It is just little by little over a year that you improve the building. This is quite difficult for me. I tend to want to get it all done in six days – and on the seventh day I rest! It is a good place for bringing up these problems. If you don’t let go of some of your expectations you will be incredibly disappointed because spiritual development doesn’t happen like that.”

Cherry Greene [Ven. Thubten Chodron] is from America and is 33 years old. She was ordained in 1977, and took responsibility for the spiritual program during the community’s first year in France; she has now been elected director. She told us why she joined the community.

“I was motivated to come here because of a personal interest, my Dharma practice. Most of us who were ordained years ago have gone from one place to another – Kopan til our visas expired, India til our visas expired there, back to Kopan. Then we went to the West to help in the centers. We never had a stable situation in which to study and practice. I wanted to penetrate the teachings, I needed more time to study and to try and integrate some experience inside. When I was always working I couldn’t do that. That was what I saw being offered by living in the monastery.

“When Lama first visited Dorje Pamo Monastery he said, ‘Don’t think what you are doing is for yourself, it is for all the future nuns.’ That really shook something in me. It jolted me like an electric shock. I see that in this whole process of starting Dorje Pamo Monastery, I, as an individual, am quite insignificant in one way. Now I’m here, then I’ll go there, then I’ll die, then that is finished. But Dorje Pamo is an entity that will survive longer than that. There will be a lot of women who will benefit from coming here and a lot of people outside who will benefit from the nuns going out to teach and so on. I started to have a longer vision of our work. My own Dharma practice is nice but really the important thing is that we get Dorje Pamo on its feet and that we set up a tradition for future ordained Western women to practice.

“It has been difficult for us because we have no existing systems to follow. We have not so much direction because we are not Tibetans. That gives us a big responsibility because how Dharma grows in the West, what happens to future nuns long after we are dead, depends on what we do here now.”

Q: Are you studying the Geshe Program because it qualifies you as a teacher?

“I’m taking the geshe studies because I enjoy them but also because we really need Westerners who know the Dharma well. We need Westerners who earnestly engage in study and that happens to be my individual disposition. I think when you really do the Geshe Program properly it enriches your practice incredibly. We will be successful if we can get the teachings that we hear, the words, concepts and understanding, to grow inside us because then we can convey the essence of Dharma in a Western way without all the cultural trappings.”

German nun Jindati is 28 years old. “I had been ordained only 10 months when I went to visit Dorje Pamo Monastery. I planned to stay there for just a few weeks before going to Nepal, but soon I decided not to leave the monastery. One reason was that I discovered that the nuns here were the most beautiful women I had met in my life, and another reason was what Lama Yeshe had said about creating a place for future nuns.

“Already, for the nuns who started this community I am one of the future nuns and I can see how beneficial their work has been for me.

“If I try to explain their kindness I would never get finished. It is unbelievable what they did over the past 10 years. They went through many experiences trying to find their way as Western nuns. They tried so many ways to practice Dharma. Some pushed themselves, some were incredibly strict, some tried to practice like Tibetan nuns. Some lived alone, some worked in centers, and many, many other things.

“As a new nun I can now look at all their experiences and make a choice. I can relax because they went through all these experiences. Without their kindness there would be no choice for me to relax. How could I relax if there wasn’t a base created already? It is as though they created out of a wild, unknown jungle the most beautiful, warm and cozy home. As a new ordained nun I didn’t do anything. I could just come here, sit down and relax. Not only that, but they were incredibly happy that I came and did that. They serve me with all that they have and with whatever they can think of to make me happy. Unbelievable, isn’t it?

“I’m not joking when I say they are the most beautiful women I have ever met in my life. I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to live in such a conducive place. Naturally you can keep the vows; just naturally we can listen to teachings, study and meditate. Like eating, drinking and sleeping, the Dharma is integrated in our lives, naturally. Until I came here I felt so isolated sometimes and I found it difficult to be a nun. But here everyone takes care with loving kindness. It is like coming home somehow.”

Tags: dorje pamo monastery, fpmt history, ven. sangye khadro, ven. thubten chodron