A Face of an Angel

Kinley Wangmo is a Buddhist nun with a face of an angel.  Her glowing shaved head sets off her adorning white skin and round brown eyes.  With a gentle smile, she moves with elegance and speaks with grace.  She is beautiful!

In the last four months, she was my closest friend and often she felt like my only friend while I was tucked away from the outside world.  Sometimes I sat next to her during the nuns’ evening prayers and she would offer me an orange.  At other times, we shared meals together or sat quietly side-by-side soaking in the sun.  But almost everyday she would come to my room for a visit and I would make her tea.  While sipping tea, she practiced her English by answering my endless questions about nunnery life.

She told me how she came to be a nun at the age of eleven.  She dropped out of school in the sixth grade leaving behind her small village and the difficulties of farm life in hopes of making a difference in the world by learning meditation and Buddhism.  She was one of several nuns who built the Pema Choling Nunnery with her own hands and now twelve years later she was the head nun.  

And although she was very busy running the nunnery, sometimes she would accompany me on my daily walks.  At the end of November, knowing that our time together was coming to an end, we took our last walk together.  We strolled down a winding jagged narrow dirt road cut out of the side of a mountain.  The rains had long ended and November’s clear blue skies permitted the sun to transform everything into a soft amber hue.  We were surround by the forest dropping golden pine needles, which twisted and turned all the way to the ground adding to the blanket of their brothers smothering the forest floor.

As we slowly walked down the quiet mountain, I shared with her my dreams of one day having a family and writing a book about Bhutan.  And she told me about her plans to teach at the nunnery for two more years before she would enter meditation in the forest for the rest of her life.  I thought about how our lives were heading in opposite paths.  I was going to be adding more things to my life, more attachments, more sufferings while she was simplifying her life, trying to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.  I admired her and a part of me wished we could switch lives; that I could inherit her vast knowledge on Buddhism and aspire to enlightenment.

We continued walking down the hillside with the sun warming our backs and watching our shadows moving along in front of us; mine of a tracksuit with a pointy beanie and hers of a robe fluttering in the wind.  The shadows looked so different.  Our lives were so different.  But somehow the world had brought us together, arm in arm, under descending pine needles on a remote, peaceful mountain.  She was my dearest friend and I was sad knowing that this was our last walk together.

Then as if she was reading my thoughts, she sighed and softly said, “Time is passing so fast, our lives are going.  Soon we will no longer have a shadow.  This is impermanence.” 

For the rest of the walk, we remained quiet reflecting on the nature of impermanence that could easily be seen all over the forest floor.  Thinking about how fast life passes, my heart filled with gratitude to have met a friend in this short life who was purely selfless, giving up a materialistic life with the intention to get out of samsara and seek enlightenment for all.  She was my real life hero and several weeks later when the time came for us to say goodbye, I tried hard not to weep, as all my lessons about impermanence couldn’t help my sappy heart.  To my surprise, she also wiped away her tears and squeezed me farewell.  As the car drove me away down the road we walked together so many times, I prayed that one day I would see my friend with her face and heart of an angel once more.    

Thank you Anim, Kinley Wangmo, for being such a great friend to me.  I hope that you’ll reach enlightenment soon!  You inspire me to be a better person.  xoxo

Pema Choling Nunnery

Pema Choling Nunnery

A great view

Last year, I went to tour Pema Choling Nunnery in order to make a decision on whether or not I would teach there the following year.  As I traveled through the busy town of Chamkar to get to the nunnery, I felt eager to head towards a more remote, quiet place.  Leaving behind the noise, the car turned off the main paved road that led across the country, onto a narrow dirt road obscured with jagged rocks, which made a terribly slow bumpy descend.  However, every nauseous jerk was worth it when I finally reached the beautiful two-story white nunnery with its traditional motif framework.  The nunnery sat on a flat mountaintop with panoramic views of hillsides covered in Bumthang’s famous blue pine trees that opened up to scattered villages and not to mention a view on the west of a modern palace dedicated to the fifth King as well as a gorgeous view on the east of a perched ancient temple built by angels.   

Walking through the entrance of the nunnery, I became breathless at the sight of a slab-stoned courtyard that led my eyes across its way to an astonishing focal point: a glorious temple on the second floor, which sparkled with butter lamps through panel windows.  I walked in the middle of the courtyard doing a slow 360-degree turn taking in the neighboring mountaintops peeking into the courtyard.  I tried to count the surrounding 25 plus doors on each level that housed over a hundred Buddhist nuns.  However, all the nuns were away doing a puja, so it was a quiet day and the only thing that I could hear was a little voice within saying YES to the idea of teaching in the nunnery.  I didn’t have to sleep on the decision or even meet the nuns; I instantly knew that this would be a place that I had to come back to.

Nearly a year later, I returned to the nunnery and discovered that it’s more beautiful than I had remembered.  The summer rains continued into fall keeping the wild grasses green, roses budding and two lush vegetable gardens filled with carrots, spinach, pumpkin, green beans, etc.  This time when I entered the nunnery, two large hibiscus plants were in full bloom with exotic white flowers, one on each side of the entrance welcoming all into the courtyard.  The enclosed stoned courtyard with its open sky was edged with potted plants displaying in array of colors and there was a new wooden display in front of the temple lit with hundreds and hundreds of burning lamps.  

From the second floor verandas, dozens of Buddhist nuns in their maroon robes and shaved heads leaned over to get a better look at their new English teacher.  Everyone smiled at me giving a pleasant feeling in the air and they wisped me off for a new chapter in my life. 

The nuns have turned out to be the kindest group of people that I have ever met.  There is over a hundred fifteen nuns and with that many women sharing rooms and gathering together everyday, it’s surprising that I have never seen any of them quarrel with each other or felt the slightest of negative energy from them.  They are incredibly helpful, honest and kind hearted to all; it’s a truly special congregation ranging from age six to seventy-seven.

In the short time that I have taught them, I have quickly fallen in love with them and I have already seen tremendous improvement.  The first few days of class, most of the nuns were painfully shy to speak to me in English, although those in my class have studied English before (the range of their previous study is up to fourth grade to twelfth grade).  When I would talk to them, instead of looking at me or talking with me,  most would bury their faces in their robes while turning away to blush and giggle.  In the beginning, my class looked more like a laughing mediation class than an English class.

It took a few weeks of providing many opportunities in class to practice speaking English with partners, for their shyness to subside and to feel more comfortable.  Some explained that they felt funny speaking English since they rarely used it with one another and they also felt a little self-conscious.  But day-by-day, I watched the nuns become more confident trying to speak English and after weeks of practicing, each nun in my class gave her first solo presentation about her life.  It was wonderful watching them stand tall and proud, speaking in loud clear voices.  It made me feel so happy and blessed to be teaching in Bhutan once more.