Janice Creenaune meets Ani Dorje Lhamo (Dorlha) whose life has taken an unusual path. From a varied career background, most recently as a psychologist in cancer care, Dorlha is now an ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun and a volunteer helper.
Most people have an image of Buddhist nuns and monks living within religious communities. Since she was ordained three years ago, however, Dorlha has chosen to continue to live in Austinmer and to serve her community.
Dorlha was born in the UK and in 1985 immigrated to Australia, believing that Australia would offer greater opportunities for her two children. Dorlha’s varied career began in the UK where her occupational pathway took her from professional dance to being a stall-holder in Portobello Road and Camden Lock markets, after which she trained then worked as a schoolteacher in London. Once in Australia, Dorlha continued for a time as a teacher before retraining again, as a homeopath, as well as undertaking a Psychology major at Charles Sturt University and finally moving from Sydney to Wollongong to complete her studies in psychology at the University of Wollongong. She completed a PhD in 2002. Dorlha’s PhD research explored people’s experiences of life-threatening illness, how they might make meaning of their experience and how they might best be supported. She subsequently worked as a psycho-oncologist in Liverpool and Westmead Hospitals before joining the oncology team at Wollongong Hospital where she worked until retiring.
Over time Dorlha has found herself increasingly drawn to Buddhism, identifying in particular with the humanity and joy she saw in Tibetan Buddhism as epitomised by the Dalai Lama, and in time to a particular lama/teacher and community of nuns in the high mountains of Tibet, the Gebchak nuns.
After visiting Tibet and spending time with her principal teacher, Wangdrak Rinpoche, and the community of Gebchak nuns, Dorlha set herself her greatest physical and psychological challenge yet. “I was going to return to Tibet and trek Mount Kailash in Western Tibet. Mount Kailash is a very important place of pilgrimage for Buddhists and Hindus. I spent months prior to the trip preparing myself for the physical challenge with Diamonds In The Rough, a fabulous women’s trek training group in the Illawarra. I embarked on the trek in 2019 and though it was extremely challenging, being a test of resilience of mind and commitment, I achieved it. Over the following months after this experience, I wondered: What next? Why did I do the trek? I came to the realisation that for me the trek was a pilgrimage and the logical next step seemed to be to commit to a Buddhist path, to become a nun. I was ordained by Wangdrak Rinpoche in Singapore in early 2020.”
Perhaps contrary to her expectations, Dorlha has felt enormous freedom in wearing the robes of a Buddhist nun. Prior to ordination she loved bargain shopping for unusual clothing and jewellery. Wearing robes helps take away attachment to material objects. Similarly, the shaved head. “I get up in the morning and put on my robes. There is no wondering what to wear.”
She also believes that wearing the robes helps to keep her mindful of her own actions. “If I was living in the nunnery in Tibet, I would be living in a community of nuns away, to a large extent, from the attractions and distractions of everyday life in Australia. Living in community, the robes remind me that I took vows. I have made a commitment to live my life according to Buddhist principles. To engage in the world with compassion and kindness for the benefit of sentient beings. To live each day as mindfully as possible taking responsibility for my own actions.”
Dorlha is kept busy sharing Buddhist teachings and practices with people from a range of cultural and spiritual backgrounds, across the age spectrum and, with the aid of technology, across the globe.
While she has retired from her professional work in cancer care, she continues on a voluntary basis to be a non-judgemental presence for people whose circumstances bring them to confront their mortality, whether through illness, accident or ageing, and to assist them to make sense of their experience.
