By Karen Gudmundsson

Recently I attended a Dharma women’s potluck dinner held to welcome a very amazing American nun, Karma Lekshe Tsomo, also known as Patricia. Lekshe is the founder of Jamyang Choling Buddhist Institute for Women, a nunnery in Dharamsala, but has been in North America for a year now recovering from a serious snake bite.

After studying the Buddhadharma in India for over twenty years, being one of the few women to study at the Institute of Dialectics, Lekshe became acutely aware of the lack of facilities for Tibetan women to receive a religious education, even to learn to read and write. Although there are thousands of Tibetan monks within the exiled communities in India, there has been no support for Tibetan nuns.

So in 1988, Lekshe set up a community of nuns housed in the old Inji Gompa in Dharamsala. She gave a slide presentation showing the nuns engaged in their daily activities: meditation, chores, memorizing texts, learning how to read and write both English and Tibetan, typing, receiving instruction from visit­ing teachers from the Dialectic School, and carrying on lively debates. They seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves, very enthusiastic in spite of their subsistence lifestyle, and what was most encouraging was the older nuns helping the newer ones learn such basics as the alphabet.

There are currently 20 nuns – the maximum capacity of the facility – who come from Tibet, Nepal, and Himalayan border areas such as Kinnaur and Zanskar. There are others who live in town joining in on the studies, and even more waiting to be admitted, many who are female relatives of the monks at the Dialectic School.

In August of 1989, while looking for a larger property for the nunnery, Leskhe was bitten by a snake. Narrowly escaping death, she was transported to a hospital in Delhi and then to Tiajuana (Mexico) to undergo months of skin grafts. Through a physical therapy program in San Diego (California), Lekshe is now gradually regaining movement in her right arm and hand, which were completely paralyzed.

Lekshe’s absence from Jamyang Choling has meant that the other nuns have had to learn quickly how to manage on their own. The nunnery has survived, but as soon as she has recovered, Lekshe plans to return to Dharamsala to carry on her life’s work there. More information about this project can be obtain by writing to Lekshe at: 5404 Taft Avenue, La Jolla, California 92037, USA.