About a dozen nuns performed hand chops and high kicks, some of them wielding swords, as they showed off their martial art skills to hundreds of cheering well-wishers at the long-awaited reopening of their nunnery in Nepal. The nuns of the hill-top Druk Amitabha Monastery, put on the show of strength to mark the institution’s reopening five years after the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close its doors to the public.

The group of kung fu nuns, aged from 17 to 30, are members of the 1,000-year-old Drukpa lineage, which gives nuns equal status as monks and is the only female order in the patriarchal Buddhist monastic system. Usually, nuns are expected to cook and clean and are not allowed to practice any form of martial art. But Gyalwang Drukpa, a monk who ranks only slightly below the Dalai Lama in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, decided to train women in kung fu to improve their health and spiritual well-being.

He opened the nunnery in 2009 and it now has 300 members aged between six and 54. “We do kung fu to keep ourselves mentally and physically fit, and our aim is to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality,” said Jigme Jangchub Chosdon, 23, a nun who is originally from Ladakh in India. The nuns come from Bhutan, India and Nepal and are all trained in kung fu, the Chinese martial art for self-defense and strength.

“With the confidence from kung fu, I really want to help the community, young girls to build their own strength,” said 24-year-old Jigme Yangchen Gamo, a nun from Ramechhap in Nepal. The nunnery’s website says that the combination of gender equality, physical strength and respect for all living things represents the order’s return to its “true spiritual roots”.

In the past, the nuns have completed lengthy expeditions on foot and by bike in the Himalayas to raise money for disaster relief, as well as to promote environmentally-friendly living. Jigme Konchok Lhamo, 30, from India, said her main goal was to achieve enlightenment like Buddha, who founded Buddhism 2,600 years ago. “But for now as I am a normal person... I think I will be focusing more on helping others,” she said. “Helping others is our religion.” — Reuters