About a dozen nuns cut off their hands and kicked them, some of them carrying swords, to show off their martial arts to the hundreds of benefactors in the refreshments of the nuns. Nepal.
The nuns of the Druk Amitabha hill monastery put on a show of strength as they were forced to close their doors to the public to renovate five years after Covid-19.
The group of kung fu nuns, aged 17 to 30, are members of the thousand-year-old Drukpa lineage, which gives nuns equal status to monks and is the only female order in the patriarchal Buddhist monastic system.
Generally, nuns are expected to cook and clean and are not allowed to practice any martial arts. His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, a monk who ranks just below the Dalai Lama in the Tibetan Buddhist Hierarchy, decided to train women in kung fu to improve their health and spiritual well-being.
The nunnery opened in 2009 and now has 300 members aged between six and 54. “We do kung fu to keep ourselves mentally and physically fit, and the goal is to promote women’s power and gender equality,” said Jigme Jangchub Chosdon, a 23-year-old nun from Ladakh in India.
The nuns come from Bhutan, India and Nepal and are all trained in kung fu, a Chinese martial art related to self-defense and strength.
“Believing in kung fu, I really want to help the community, to build the girls’ strength,” said Jigme Yangchen Gamo, 24, a nun in Ramechhap, Nepal.
A group of nuns says the combination of gender equality, physical fitness and respect for all living things represents the order’s return to its “true spiritual roots.”