Secretary

“Often I think I did not lead a very pure life in my last incarnation, and maybe because of this I have been affected by this handicap.”
–Sonam Choden, 30 years-old, secretary of the Animdratshang nunnery, Paro.

Sonam Choden lost all her fingers on her left hand in an accident when she was ten years old. Had she stayed in her village, she thought, she would have idled and lived a useless life, devoid of physical or spiritual meaning. Two years later, she decided join the nunnery and devote herself to the Buddha.

As the secretary of her nunnery, she often travels to Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan, to collect stipends for the nuns and give reports to the Central Monastic Secretariat. These trips expose her to a life beyond the nunnery, which she believes educates her, and broadens her understanding of the world.

Now that she has been committed to a spiritual path, she hopes that she can be reborn at a higher realm of being, perhaps even as a Buddha.