Remembering Sherab Zangmo, Great Yogini of Tibet by James Gritz

We crowded into the small dark room and sat shoulder to shoulder. The ceiling was covered with years of soot so thick that black stalactites had formed. My eyes teared from the fumes of incense and the yak dung smoke leaking from a crude wood stove. In the dark corner, light spilled from the doorway illuminating an ancient face, deeply etched from the harsh Tibetan life at 14,000 feet. There, leaning back in her meditation box was Sherab Zangmo spinning her prayer wheel.

When Sherab Zangmo was a young nun, during a dark retreat (a Dzogchen practice of staying in total darkness for 49 days and nights), she had a vision of Yeshe Sogyal, Padmasambhava’s principle consort.

“Three times she offered me mudras (hand gestures) and then she became Tsang Yang Gyamtso (the student of the first Tsoknyi Rinpoche who started Getchak Nunnery). He came to rest on top of my head and then he dissolved into my body, speech and mind. We became one. I cried and cried. That moment I had a direct experience of the nature of my mind. I have had many experiences, good and bad, but my mind has remained stable, neither good nor bad.”

Enthralled with the concept of seeing the world through enlightened eyes I asked Sherab Zangmo, “Can you describe your perception of the world?”

She replied, “What arises in my mind now is the thought to benefit others. On the other hand, I don’t cling to appearances as real, in the way that others do.”  ( emptiness??)

Wangdrag Rinpoche, the head of Getchak nunnery, asked her, “Do they appear like a dream?”

“Yes, they appear illusory, like a dream,” she said.)))

The nuns’ daily routine captures a timeless scene from the past. A typical day starts around 3:30 a.m., as the nuns wake and immediately start their first three-hour practice session. After a short break for breakfast, they resume their second session, ending at lunch. The third session occupies the afternoon, and after a light evening meal, they complete their fourth practice session. They then continue sitting throughout the night, practicing dream yoga.

Alternating periods of maintaining daily upkeep with retreat, the Nangchen nuns remain in practice for the rest of their lives.

In retreat, the nuns’ daily routine is one that has been followed by yogis and yoginis for hundreds of years, including four three-hour meditation sessions per day.  At night, most remain sitting in a meditation box, mingling meditation and sleep.

Many of the nuns are accomplished masters of difficult yogic practices such as tummo ( the yoga of inner heat). At Gebchak Gompa, they perform a yearly ritual to demonstrate their mastery of tummo, the yoga of inner fire.  In mid-winter in temperatures far below freezing, approximately 100 nuns sit all night, wrapping wet sheets around their bare torsos, drying the sheets with the heat of the practice.  Just before dawn, the nearly-naked practitioners perform a long procession around the nunnery, pausing to wet their sheets in barrels of icy water at the four corners and drying them as they walk.  This very rare and awe-inspiring event, as well as the realization attained by these nuns, have gained them respect and renown throughout Tibet.  In a culture where female practitioners have struggled to gain respect, the Tsoknyi Nangchen nuns have risen to a high level of status, with many monks and lamas seeking their teachings and instruction.