Tibetan Nunnery

Rainy August morning in Terdrum. The nunnery straddles the Kyi Chu river that winds through Drikung. Steam rises from two hot springs in the river as clouds creep down valley.

maroon blur

skirt of a nun

in the bleary morning

Padmasambava practiced in the ice caves of the surrounding mountains. The Drikung Khandro, the Abbess here, is the reincarnation of Padmasambava’s main student. I hope to find her today.

Hungry and cold, I eat instant soup for breakfast. For a few minutes I sit on the door sill of my room and drink green tea from a tin cup. Rain drips from the roof onto my boot. Someplace not far away I hear a bell.

female ghosts

shadows slipping

through the silent mist

In the hills above the river, three dogs bark at each other from different huts. Gray slab walls against grass slopes. The valley is a bowl that holds their voices, and that of the river. A nun shushes her dog from the doorway of her hut.

Even in August it is cold at these altitudes. It has been especially cold and damp for the last few days. The buildings are made of stone. There is no heat in the guest rooms. I am thankful I brought a good sleeping bag.

is this summer?

ice melt trickles down to the river

To warm up I walk down to the cylinders of stone in the flow of the river. I enter the bath house and slip into the hot water. Slow rain taps the corrugated tin roof that sits on short pylons above the wall. The water relaxes the muscles as I sit on the smooth moss covering the rocks on the river bottom and lean back against the wall.

looking up through wafts of bath steam                

nuns looking down

After an hour of soaking, I towel off and pull on rain pants over my kakis to stay dry in this weather. Then I walk around a bit with the wet towel draped over my coat. I ask a young woman about the Abbess, using the term Khandro. She speaks no English and my Tibetan is very poor, but she smiles and points down through town. I head off in search alone.

she scrubs the Abby repeating a mantra

high cheek bones

Three men from the Chinese military arrive and take a room above the baths. They are discreet because tourists come and they want their cut. Yet I can feel the energy shift. A heaviness.

morning rain,

green jacket covers cold steel

I wander the nunnery for hours even going up into the hills. I can not seem to find the Khandro. Finding anybody that I can communicate with is hard. Even then I get vague answers and gestures. Is she hiding because of the military?

There is a little basement store that carries a few simple things that tourists want: beer, coke, bottled water, instant soup. There is no door, only a ground level window with wooden shutters and no glass. I have been searching for hours and am quite thirsty. As I lean down to buy a drink I am surprised to find the Khandro.

one hundred dollars in an old nun’s hand

dusty bottle of beer