Tilokpur
Many new young nuns have caused accommodation and overcrowding problems for the oldest Kagyu nunnery in the exile community.
To meet this need, the nuns of Tilokpur purchased a 4-acre plot of land to build a "shedra" or institute of Buddhist learning, to make education available to the 65 nuns. In the fall of 1999, Tai-Situ Rinpoche and Gyal-tsap Rinpoche visited the site and approved its location. In the spring of 2000, Tilokpur was very fortunate to receive a visit from His Holiness the Karmapa and he performed the consecration of their new land.
Construction was immediately begun and is now in the final stages, but more funding is required before the project can be completed. The shedra is comprised of a prayer hall, classrooms and housing for the younger nuns. Older nuns will remain in the original housing. A nine-year course of study is planned. Having used all of their savings in buying the land and bring the construction this far, the nuns of Tilokpur need help with the funding to complete the project.
Cost: $75,000 US
On a hilltop overlooking a small town 40 km from Dharamsala is Tilokpur Nunnery, at the site of Tilopa's cave (a Tibetan saint). It was founded in 1966 by Mrs. Freda Bedi, a British nun who was ordained by the previous Karmapa Rinpoche. It is the oldest Kagyu nunnery outside of Tibet. Sixty-five nuns from Tibet, the Himalayan border regions of India, and Mustang (Nepal) live here.
The nuns are under the spiritual guidance of His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa. The nuns regularly participate in 3-year retreats at Tai Situ Rinpoche's facility, Sherap Ling, in Bir, Himachal Pradesh.
His Holiness the Karmapa visited Tilokpur nunnery for a week in February 2007. During his stay he gave teachings to the nuns, which also attracted a lot of foreign dharma students, helping the nunnery to raise needed funding
Tilokpur is a small nunnery that is supported primarily by doing prayers for the exile community. However, the nuns have been hampered in their abilities to develop and sustain themselves by the general lack of education. The Nuns Project has helped them to start basic classes in Tibetan and English. The biggest problem is in finding and keeping teachers. Now that basic literacy has been accomplished, if a teacher can be found, they will also add instruction in key texts of their Kagyu tradition.
The Tilokpur nuns have almost finished the construction of a shedra or institute of Buddhist learning on the 4-acre plot of land they had bought. However, they are still in need of funds for its completion.
The Story of a Nun from Tilokpur
Tenzin
My name is Tenzin Palmo and I was born in 1969 outside of Wangdu, Bhutan. I lived on a farm three hours by foot from the village. There were no buses near my home; we had to walk everywhere. The area was flat with few trees, cold in the winter and grassy in the summer. We grew rice, barley, and wheat and we raised cattle.
I was never able to attend school in Bhutan. I worked on our farm with my brothers and sisters. My parents, my three sisters, and two brothers still live in Bhutan. Both of my brothers are monks.
Ever since I was a small child, I wanted to be a nun. I used to wear nuns' clothes even before I was ordained. In my village, fifteen and sixteen year old girls were already being married off by their parents. I didn't want my parents to do that to me, so at fifteen, I told them I was going to a teaching in Darjeeling. When I arrived at the teaching, I asked to be ordained, and received my first and second ordinations from Jamgon Rinpoche. Then I returned to Bhutan and lived with my parents for some time. Later, I went to live with a nun who was a hermit. I lived in a cave with her and she taught me to read and write Tibetan prayer books.
I came to Tilokpur Nunnery in March of 1994. I like it here and I want to practice Buddhism all my life.
