༄༅། །ཁམས་ནང་ཆེན་གད་ཆགས་དགོན།།

Tashi Delek greetings to all!

nuns dancing for new year

It’s been a challenging year for the Gebchak nuns with Covid arriving late to the nunnery. Prolonged restrictions across China since 2020 had little effect on them, since they already live mostly in retreat. But when lockdowns were abruptly lifted last December, Covid spread rapidly through the Nangchen population and many fell sick for the first time. The nuns are all recovering but like much of the world already knows, recovery can be slow and complicated. They generally prefer to rely on Tibetan medicine but some nuns are seeking modern healthcare at this stage for persistent ailments. Your donations over the last year have greatly supported the nuns’ health and nutritional needs.

a new nun is welcomed to Gebchak

The nuns’ intensive annual schedule of practices has gone uninterrupted, however! Their deep dedication to their practice lineage is especially apparent at times like these. In January, they performed their annual Chu-rey (‘Wet sheet’) ceremony, demonstrating their accomplishment in tummo yoga (though few participated due to sickness). Next week they begin their Hayagriva drubchen, marking the spring season of their Tantric Buddhist group ritual ceremonies.

As always, you are in the Gebchak nuns’ prayers. And we all participate in their tradition through sponsorship, our own practice and/or the inspiration and faith we feel for the nuns. Thank you, and may your year be peaceful and expansive as the rabbit and its ears!

To make a donation towards the nuns’ food & sustenance or to sponsor prayers, please click here. All donations are welcome and greatly supportive.

For an update on the Yushu children, see this photo album. 

Year of the Water Rabbit, year 2150 *painting by Karma Yeshe*

Gebchak’s annual ‘monlam’ prayer ceremony

It has been another year of ‘practice as usual’ at Gebchak Gonpa. Nineteen drubchens, dark retreats, Nyungneys, and Dzogchen meditation gazing out from hillsides to the clear winter sky. All practised by the nuns with compassion and prayers for all their relations, and for all who suffer in this world.

The nuns are preparing for an important transmission ceremony of the Nyingthik Yabzhi (a collection of Dzogchen instructions from Longchenpa) to be held at the nunnery next summer. Transmissions like this are key to the vitality of practice lineages, and many people from beyond Gebchak will join the ceremony. Gebchak’s lamas have worked hard to build a new kitchen and accommodation at Gebchak for this event and for the nuns’ ongoing needs.

nuns and horses returning from a hilltop ritual practice in summer

Sadly, a younger nun and an elderly male yogin both passed away at Gebchak this year. (There has always been significant, harmonious male participation in Ge bcags’ tradition). Such is the nature of life, and it is enshrined in Gebchak’s contemplative outlook and in their sky burial tradition. Gebchak has its own charnel ground on a hilltop south of the nunnery, where the nuns ritually offer the bodies of the deceased to the vultures. It is a dying wish of most Gebchak nuns to have their bodies offered in this way as their final act of generosity.

Gebchak nun performing a sky burial

Lower land, at Dongtsang Ritro hermitage, dozens of nuns and monks have just completed 100-day winter retreats, breaking now for Losar’s festive and prayer ceremonies.

Thus the Gebchak community in Nangchen is thriving, despite considerable challenges from their changing environment. All of us reading this are participants in this thriving in various ways, through sponsorship, our own practice and/or the inspiration and faith we feel for the Gebchak nuns.

Thank you for your faith and support of their livelihoods and practice. The Gebchak nuns and lamas are beaming their tashi delek and prayers that this year of the Water Tiger uplifts you and all your aspirations to fulfilment!

To make a donation towards the nuns’ food & sustenance or to sponsor prayers, please click here. All donations are welcome and greatly supportive. 

painting by Karma Yeshe

Happy new year from the Yushu children & family!

Our two youngest children have now reached middle school (grade 7) while our three oldest are in vocational colleges. The rest of our 21 Yushu children are between in grades 8 to 12, except our very oldest, Choyki Jurmey, who has graduated from college and is now getting licensed as a teacher!

Our first graduate, Chokyi Jurmey, 2011 & 2019

Transitioning from education to employment in the market is highly competitive in China, and success markers are largely materialistic (grades, diplomas, physical attributes). Yet our children are on track to becoming teachers, civil servants and possibly healthcare workers. We are also looking at opportunities outside the mainstream to train them in trades like glazing and mechanics.

lunch time

Most of the children walk to and from school, and eat their main meals at the Yushu home. Next September, nine of our children will move to dormitories in upper middle school or colleges. Their pathways require a careful balance of Tibetan traditions (many of them were nomads as toddlers) and the modern market where their livelihoods will emerge.

boys walk home from school

Their success now and in the future depends on their ongoing network of caregivers: foster parents Awang & Choden, house mothers, manager-uncle Dawa, their lama Wangdrak Rinpoche and many kind souls around the world like you who have supported their education.

There are sure to be challenges, but with your continued care and support we feel confident these children will each find their successful way forward. May the year ahead be bright!

To donate any amount towards these children’s scholarships, please see: https://gebchakgonpa.org/donate/yushu-earthquake-orphans/

with house mother Dolma

Dispelling rituals before Losar

As they do every year, the Gebchak nuns spent ten days before Losar performing intensive dispelling rituals, based on yidam (tantric deity) practices from the nunnery’s sixteen retreat divisions. These annual end-of-the-year rituals function to clear negative energy and habitual patterns through prayer, deity visualization, ceremony and profound meditation. With the threshold to the lunar new year cleared and charged with blessings, the nuns then celebrated Losar by cooking a feast in their new central kitchen, which was recently built beside the main temple.

Gebchak Nunnery has survived a turbulent passage into modernity in Nangchen – one shared by everyone in the region. Rapid economic development, the internet and modern education has brought with it a ‘new intellect’ among Tibetans that is slightly skeptical of ritual and faith-based practices.

First day of the new year

The nuns are aware of this and of some recent local criticisms of their full-time practice program which lacks a strong philosophical component. Nevertheless, they have observed modernization of Tibetan Buddhist practices over the last few years and concluded for themselves that nothing can replace the transformative power of their drubchens (extended group sadhana ceremonies) and the other Vajrayana rituals that comprise their Dzogchen practice system. The nuns are consciously maintaining the same practice system that Gebchak nuns practised at the turn of the 19th century.

Meanwhile, down the mountain at Dongtsang Ritro hermitage, about 40 nuns and monks are engaged in winter retreats, with 8 young nuns training to start a 3-year retreat in the next year or so. These girls are from Gebchak’s branch nunnery regions, and they will practice the Gebchak tradition in this 3-year retreat center, and then stay permanently on this ancient hermitage land or return to their branch nunneries. Dongtsang Ritro hermitage has been built on the oldest uncovered cultural site in Qinghai Province and is intended to serve as a training hub for the wider Gebchak lineage in the long-term future.

Nuns moving into retreat huts for the winter at Dongtsang Ritro

Thus the Gebchak community in Nangchen is thriving, despite a sea change in cultural values taking place in modern China. All of us reading this are participants in this thriving in various ways, through sponsorship, our own practice and/or the inspiration and faith we feel for the Gebchak nuns.

The Gebchak nuns and lamas pray sincerely, and with gratitude, for your health, success and for all of your spiritual aspirations to be easily fulfilled! They are beaming many tashi delek for the new lunar year of the Metal Ox!

The Gebchak nuns are sustained by the generosity of global supporters like you. Donations for their food, healthcare and other basic needs can be made online (or by bank transfer) from this link: https://gebchakgonpa.org/donate/food-health-care-fund/