Voices of Tibet: TASHI TSO

TASHI TSO was born in 1932 and makes her home at the Tsogye Shedupling Nunnery in Bylakuppe. She is distinguished from the other elders we’ve interviewed for staying in Tibet long after the Chinese invaded her country--until roughly ten years ago. It was only after witnessing the arrests of a group of nuns and monks in Lhasa that she slowly made the decision to flee Tibet around 1996.

“Before I escaped, I saw terrible things,” she says. “I saw monks in Ghanden Monastery being arrested by the Chinese police—who tied their robes to their mouths and knotted them in the back.”

“In Norbulinka, a part of Lhasa, nuns and schoolchildren were demonstrating with their fists in the air, shouting ‘Free Tibet!’ The school children managed to escape, but the nuns were grabbed on each side by two members of the Chinese police and taken away.”

With guidance from her root teacher, Tulko Paelo, Tashi Tso has been a nun since the age of 56. For many years before, she made her home with her brother and his wife.

Three years after witnessing the above described events, Tashi Tso and a small group of fellow nuns made their escape into Nepal, a trecherous journey that took over a month. They were forced to use hidden roads and paths to avoid detection; each footstep in the snow took considerable effort. “Many of those like us arrived in Nepal without toes or fingers due to frostbite,” she recalls.

About six years ago, Tashi Tso settled at the nunnery in Bylakuppe. “I am very happy and content with the blessings of His Holiness Pema Renpoche,” she says. “Even though I neither read nor write, my teacher has told me it’s permissible not be able to read the scriptures."

"Generating compassion is good enough.”