Gallery Talk: Abbess of Vajra Dakini Nunnery, Khenmo Konchog Nyima Drolma

Please join us in the Danforth Gallery at noon on Monday October 19 to hear from the Abbess of Vajra Dakini Nunnery in Falmouth Maine, Khenmo Konchog Nyima Drolma.

Abbess of Vajra Dakini Nunnery, Khenmo Konchog Nyima Drolma has studied with the foremost spiritual teachers of our time including H.H. Dalai Lama, H.H. Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche (the head of the Drikung Kagyu Lineage), and Ani Pema Chödrön. In 2002, she took full ordination as a Buddhist nun in Taiwan. In 2004, she was installed as a Khenmo (Abbot) in the Drikung lineage, becoming the first woman and first westerner in her lineage to officially hold this responsibility. She teaches the Dharma internationally. In addition to being Abbess of Vajra Dakini Nunnery, her current responsibilities include facilitating the Tibetan/Himalayan Nuns Leadership Program. Khenmo Drolma was an esteemed Professor of Sculpture at the University of Maine and at the Maine College of Art in Portland, ME before becoming a Buddhist nun.

In Michel Droge’s exhibition currently on view in the Danforth Gallery: Michel Droge: Dreams from the Bardo, the artist’s imagery centers on brooding mother octopuses, during whose four-year-long gestation they don’t move or take nourishment. As the octopus mothers nurture their young, they slowly die, making life and death coincident in the continuation of this ancient species. Droge views this transition that the octopus mothers experience in creating life and leaving it within the framework of one of the four bardos described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, an in-between interval between death and rebirth.

The Danforth Gallery is thrilled and honored to welcome Khenmo Drolma to speak in the midst of Droge’s exhibition.

This event is sponsored by UMA’s Cultural Events Council.