Policemen Bang! Bang! Banged! on the door – then barged into Tenzin
Palmo’s cave-home – demanding why she had an illegal visa. It was the first
human voice she had heard in three years! They had ignored all accepted
etiquette NOT to disturb solitary practitioners (spiritual cave dwellers), which
she had been for twelve years, alone,13.500 feet high in the Himalayas.
A British citizen, Dianne Perry (1943-) was the daughter of a fish monger
father who died when she was two, and a feisty, free spirit spiritual seeker
turned businesswoman mother. As a girl, Dianne felt “displaced” in London
and was beset with various illness, from a congenital twisted spine to
meningitis to a mystery illness which left her hospitalized for months. During
these times, she had high fevers and headaches, which she attributes to her
frequent OBE’s (out of body experiences), when she floated around the
neighborhood. As she got older, these disappeared, and she was never
seriously ill during her years in the cave.
REFLECT:
Have you ever felt “displaced”?
What was the outcome?
Steeped in philosophical questions as a youth, she found Christianity an
enigma. She explored the Koran and existentialism. And at 18, when she read
The Mind Unshaken, she pronounced, “I’m a “Buddhist”. She became
involved with the Buddhist Society, ultimately settling on the Kargyupa path
of Tibetan Buddhism. At the same time, she was a pretty teenager with a
hectic social life and lots of boyfriends. “On the one side, I was this frivolous
fun-loving young woman, and on the other, I was serious and “spiritual”.
(Giving up Elvis Presley was her big renunciation when she formally became a
Buddhist.)
Diane heard of an Englishwoman, Freda Bedi, who married an Indian,
became a Buddhist and started a small nunnery for Kargyupa nuns and
reincarnated lamas in Northern India. She wrote offering her services, and
Freda invited her to come. The next few years, Diane worked to earn the
money to make the trip, while meeting and learning from Buddhist teachers,
including Choygam Trungpa.
Arriving at Freda Bedi’s sanctuary, Diane was given two jobs: secretary to
Bedi and English teacher to the tulkas, the recognized reincarnations of high
spiritual masters who would determine the future of Buddhism. While she
loved her work, the conditions were primitive at best, freezing cold with rats
and spiders. Three months later, she met the Dalai Lama who greeted her as
Ani-La, confusing the interpreter, as Ani-La is only used as a greeting
between two hermits. (He had foreseen her future).
A week later, Diane met her guru, Khamtrul Rinpoche, who agreed to take
her as a student and to ordain her as a nun. During her studies, she was
subjected to overt sexism and the belief woman could only reach Buddha-
hood in the male body. In monastic settings, women were denied the same
spiritual education, often relegated to domestic chores. She pledged to
continue to take female form until Enlightenment. Years later, she would
confront the Dalai Lama about the discrimination. And later, he would
announce the next Dalai Lama might be female.
When she was 27, her guru found a monastic community to accommodate
her in a remote Himalayan valley. Lahoul was cut off from the rest of the
world eight months of the year by a barrier of snow and ice.
It was like arriving in Shangri-la. I had gone from an Indian culture to a
Tibetan one. The houses all had flat roofs, there were Buddhist
monasteries dotted over the mountainside, it was full of prayer wheels
and stupas, and the people had high cheekbones and almond eyes and
spoke Tibetan.
She was given her small mud and stone home on the hill behind the temple,
and she spent most of her time alone, practicing the necessary prerequisites
for spiritual advancement. Her Preliminary Practices were a series of ritual
acts to be done hundreds of thousands of times – prostrations, making
mandalas… It was preparation for her next life as a cave-dwelling hermit.
When she was ready to retreat completely, a nun tole her about a cave up
the mountain. Knowing it was her place, Tenzin Palmo set off in search of it.
After two hours of treacherous climbing, she found it. But it wasn’t a cave: it
was an overhang on a ledge with three sides open, creating a space about
ten feet by six feet. The silence was profound: the light was crystalline. To the
left was a spring (1/4 mile away), and to the right was a Jumpier forest (for
fuel). It was perfect.
So despite widespread objections, she hired laborers to brick up the front
and sides and build a storage area. Her living space was six feet by six feet,
and was filled with a few necessities and all her spiritual articles – ritual
elements, images of Buddhist deities, dharma texts, seven offering bowls…
She arranged for food supplies to be brought up from the village in the
summer (when the trek was possible) – kerosene, tsampa, rice, lentils, dried
vegetables, ghee, cookie oil, soap, milk powder, tea, and apples. For her
rituals, she added incense and sweets. She stayed 12 years, until the Bang
Bang Bang on her door. And she was deported from India because her visa
had expired.
When asked about her enlightenment experiences, she replied, “One thing I
can tell you, I was never bored”.
Word spread of her experience and spirituality, and she became a sought
after speaker all over the world, transforming from a cave dweller to a jet
setter. She turned her energies to changing the system for nuns to support
female spiritual excellence, and raised money for a nunnery where women
actualized the truth within – becoming yoginis. However, she was firm that
she would never become the head: she would get it up and running and
return to a life of contemplation.
Tenzin Palmo has been recognized equally in the spiritual and secular worlds,
from being the first fully ordained female Tibetan Buddhist nun to being
honored in 2023 on BBC’s 100 Women list, which features 100 inspiring and
influential women from around the world.
APPLY:
Plan a regular contemplation time as a number one priority.
Cave in the Snow, Vicki Mackenzie, Bloomsbury, 1998.
