Virtuous Life

“I don’t have hatred toward anyone, even to those who might be my enemies.” –Jamyang Lhamo, 78, Tibetan nun who fled her homeland and now lives at the Karma Drubdey Gompa Nunnery and Retreat Center, Trongsa“

Jamyang Lhamo fled Tibet in 1959 with 15 other nuns, one monk, and her teacher, Khenpo Rinpoche. At the time, the royal family of Bhutan supported the Rinpoche and his disciples, offering them sanctuary inside their palace until they could build their own center, the Karma Drubdey Gompa Nunnery and Retreat Center. The center was completed in 1969.

“I had to flee Tibet,” she recalled. “I thought I might loose the opportunity to practice the dharma if I stayed, and by then I had no attachment to wordly things.” Determined to keep her spiritual practice, she knew the best thing to do was to leave her country.

Jamyang Lhamo says she prays all the time for enlightenment. Though she has nothing substantial to show that she is any closer to nirvana, she claims to have never committed any sins, and says she has not harmed even the smallest of insects. This, she says, is her confidence that perhaps her wish to achieve enlightenment one day may be fulfilled.