Karma Drubgyu Thargay Ling is a Mahayana Buddhist nunnery at Tilokpur in Himchal Pradesh India. Tilokpur is in the mountains not very far from Dharamsala where His Holiness the Dalai Lama has his home.

After the inception of the Tibetan Friendship Group, this nunnery was our first settlement selected to receive help. The first nun was sponsored by Mrs Joan Wilson [Scharkie]. She calls Joan Mummy and they still keep in touch, forty years later. It has been a wonderful trip of learning for both of them.

I have been involved with the nuns since the late 70s and have sponsored two wonderful people during that time. I still sponsor the original nun.

At the nunnery they have women and girls from all parts of Tibet, India, Ladakh, all wanting a spiritual and general education. I am always hearing of their studying for exams in not only Buddhism but in language, Tibetan, Hindi and English. It is most important for them to keep up their Tibetan language skills so that they can keep all things Tibetan alive.

There are about seventy nuns at Tilokpur of which we have sponsors for 9. We are always receiving mail saying how grateful they are for our help and they remember everyone in their prayers all the time, but we still need more sponsors as there are still 50 or more nuns who need our help.

From my knowledge of all things Tibetan, we at TFG are the only group in this country who help Tibetans in India and they so need our help, especially in this troubled world we need all the prayers we can get.

One other story, when my daughter and I visited Tilokpur in the 80s, we attended a prayer evening, with a gathering of all the nuns. Seated in front of us was a little nun, about 5 years old. This little nun, who my family later sponsored, kept dozing off and the little head would fall and the much older nun sitting next to her would , oh so gently, wake her up. It was beautiful to see the caring manner that they all treated each other. It was also quite surprising to realise that some families sent their daughters at such an early age to participate in a religious life. Some of course were there through necessity after leaving their homeland with only the clothes that they wore.