At the Tibetan Lunar New Year – Losar – the Gebchak nuns send greetings and prayers from the Nangchen highlands! As usual at the end of the year the nuns just completed a week-long Mahakala prayer ceremony to clear away negativity. With their winter cycle of drubchens (extensive prayer ceremonies) now over, the nuns are busy with celebrations and prayers to welcome an auspicious lunar new year and spring season ahead.
As a New Year offering we’d like to share two video interviews with Gebchak nuns. Gebchak’s unique yogic tradition continues today due to the courage and kindness of the elderly Gebchak nuns who survived the Cultural Revolution and returned to re-establish the Nunnery in the 1980s. The story of these elderly nuns is the shared theme of these two interviews. We hope you will find treasured inspiration in watching them.
(click on these links) Jogema Dondrub Chomtso – on seeing it all and dying Konchok Yangchen – on remarkable old nuns, preserving a female lineage… and practiceConstruction of Gebchak’s new temple is now completed and finishing the temple’s interior will begin in May. Painting, furnishing and installing statues could take years as funds are still lacking. But the nuns are expecting to begin using the temple for prayer ceremonies by September 2015. The two Jogema, or elderly nuns, still living at Gebchak have high hopes to pray in the new temple before they pass away.
The Yushu orphans are also excited to be celebrating Losar with extended family and friends. During the current long winter break from public school, the children are learning Tibetan language in seminars taught by monk relatives. They are healthy and very grateful for the care of financial supporters around the world.
On behalf of the Gebchak nuns and lamas, we wish you a blessed and meaningful New Year of the Wood Sheep!
To make a donation from anywhere in the world for the Gebchak nuns or Yushu orphans, please visit our donation page.
