Cave in the snow. A western woman’s quest for enlightenment

by Vicki Mackenzie

  Back home in England, however, Lee was apprehensive. ‘Take a little longer to think about it,’ she wrote to her daughter. But by the time Tenzin Palmo received her letter it was too late. She had already put on the maroon and gold robes and shaved off her long curly hair. She sent a photograph to her mother of her new look, inscribed with these words on the back: ‘You see? I look very healthy. I should have been laughing so then you would know that I am also happy.’ Lee replied, ‘My poor little shorn lamb!’

  Her mother was not the only one who was distressed about Tenzin Palmo’s bald pate. On the eve of her ordination, when the hair-cutting ceremony took place, some of the lamas who had grown to appreciate the attractive young woman begged her not to do it. ‘Ask Khamtrul Rinpoche if you don’t need to shave your head,’ one of them implored. ‘I’m not becoming a nun to please men,’ she retorted. ‘When I came out they gawped – they were horrified. But I felt wonderful. I loved it! I felt lighter, unburdened. From that day on I haven’t had to think about my hair at all. I still get it shaved once a month,’ she said.

  The day of her ordination is etched indelibly on her mind: ‘I was happy, extraordinarily happy,’ she recalls. All did not go smoothly, however. Following the custom, she had bought some items in Dalhousie to give to Khamtrul Rinpoche as an offering but mysteriously when she went to get them she couldn’t find them. They were completely lost and in fact she never found them again. Going empty-handed to your ordination was, she knew, an awful breach of spiritual etiquette. ‘I felt terrible. When the time came to present my gifts I said to Khamtrul Rinpoche, “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything to give you, but I offer my body, speech and mind.” He laughed. “That’s what I want,” he said.’

  Khamtrul Rinpoche then bestowed on her the name Drubgyu Tenzin Palmo, ‘Glorious Lady who Upholds the Doctrine of the Practice Succession’, and in doing so established her as only the second Western woman to become a Tibetan Buddhist nun Freda Bedi being the first. She was to spearhead a movement, for shortly afterwards many women from all over Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand followed in her footsteps, also shaving their heads and donning the robes, helping to formulate the newly emerging Western Buddhism.

  Now established as part of Khamtrul Rinpoche’s community, the true meaning of what lay behind their extraordinary first meeting began to be revealed. If Tenzin Palmo had somehow intuitively ‘known’ Khamtrul Rinpoche, he had certainly recognized her. And so had the monks of his monastery. Tenzin Palmo bore a remarkable resemblance to a figure depicted in a cloth painting that hung in the Khampagar monastery in Tibet, which had been in their possession for years. The figure had piercing blue eyes and a distinctive long nose. Furthermore, the figure was obviously someone of spiritual importance because, as others later testified, the monks immediately began to treat Tenzin Palmo with the deference afforded to a tulku, a recognized reincarnation. Khamtrul Rinpoche himself kept her closely by his side, unusual behaviour since he sent most Westerners away, not wanting to attract a following of foreign disciples, unlike other lamas of his time. This special closeness between Khamtrul Rinpoche and Tenzin Palmo was maintained all his life.

  What exactly was going on in those unspoken exchanges about previous identities no one with ordinary perception could possibly tell, especially the average Westerner, to whom reincarnation remains largely an enigma. To the Tibetans, however, rebirth was a certainty. We are all born over and over again, they said, in many different forms and situations and to families with whom we have strong karmic connections. In the eyes of the Buddhist, therefore, your mother and father may well have been your parents in a previous life, or maybe even your son, daughter, uncle, cousin, close friend or enemy. The bond had been laid down some time back in ‘beginningless time’and had been cemented in place through countless subsequent relationships. And so it went on, round and round on the wheel of life and death, the mind or consciousness being irrevocably drawn to its next existence by the propensities it had developed within itself.

  If rebirth was a given, and quite ordinary, reincarnation was not. Only those who reached the highest level of spiritual development, it was said, could train their mind at the time of death to reincarnate consciously in the precise place and circumstances they wanted. And only reincarnations were sought for and recognized, under the elaborate Tibetan system developed over centuries. These were the tulkus, the rinpoches or Precious Ones, who had forsaken their place in the pure lands in order to fulfil their vow of returning to earth over and over again to release all sentient beings from their suffering.

  Who Tenzin Palmo was, or had been, exactly, was difficult to establish, she being particularly vague on the subject. ‘I think I had been a monk for many lifetimes and that my relationship with Khamtrul Rinpoche started a long time ago. That’s why when we met again it was just a matter of taking up where we left off. I think I was his attendant monk, or something like that. Once a lama said to me in some amazement, “Don’t you know who you were in your last lifetime?” and when I said “No” and would he mind telling me he replied, “If Khamtrul Rinpoche hasn’t told you he must have his reasons.” But I never asked,’she said.

  ’The thing is we met and we recognized each other, and that was enough,’ she added. ‘Khamtrul Rinpoche did say that we had been very close for many lifetimes. He also commented that because this time I had taken female form far away from him in the West it had been difficult for us to be together but that in spite of this he’d always held me in his heart.’

  Later, more specific information of her past lives was revealed. Tenzin Palmo suspected that in one lifetime she had been a yogi, very close to the sixth Khamtrul Rinpoche, who lived earlier this century. The sixth Khamtrul Rinpoche had left the Khampagar monastery, got married and gone to live in a cave on the opposite side of the mountain to the monastery. He was a great yogi who boasted among his disciples the famous Shakya Shri, regarded as one of the greatest meditators of the century. It was said that Shakya Shri received teachings from Milarepa himself while in the clear light. Presumably Tenzin Palmo, in her past life, knew them both.

  Here finally was the answer perhaps to many of the enigmas of Tenzin Palmo’s life: why she had felt perpetually ‘wrong’ in London; her strange unfamiliarity with a female body as a child; her natural affinity with Tibetan Buddhism, especially the Kargyu sect; her spontaneous wish to become ordained; her announcement to the Dalai Lama that she was from Kham. If she had been a man, a monk and a meditator in eastern Tibet for many lifetimes it would all make sense.

  Why she had been born a Westerner and a woman this time round was, however, a matter of speculation.

  As she had said, she was now poised to take up the relationship with Khamtrul where she had left off, this time not as a monk or a lama but as a novice nun. She left Mrs Bedi’s school and began work as Khamtrul Rinpoche’s secretary, a position which meant she came into close contact with him on a regular basis. Again it was only the strangeness of the times which made such a thing possible. Had she been born back in Kham, as a woman he might have well recognized her but protocol and centuries of traditions would have demanded he send her off to one of his nunneries. In close proximity she got to know him again.

  ‘He was a tall man, heavily built, but like many big people he was surprisingly light on his feet. He was an excellent “lama dancer" and a very accomplished painter as well. Quite famous among his own people. He was also a poet and a grammarian,’ she began. ‘His presence was also very big but he was extremely sweet and gentle, with a very soft little voice.’ Her voice became soft itself in the memory. ‘I was terrified of him. It’s interesting that one felt this kind of awe. He was considered to be one of the fierce forms of Guru Rinpoche (also known as Padmasambhava, the man credited with bringing Buddhism to Tibet from India in the eighth century), and sometimes people would see him in that form. So I guess that’s what it was. On the outside he was very sweet but you sensed this great force that was inside him.

&n
bsp; ‘One evening I was typing when Khamtrul Rinpoche came in looking very tired. He glanced over at me, I looked at him and for a moment it was as if the mask had dropped and I was hit by a thunderbolt. I jumped and then I started shaking. It was as though an electric current had gone all the way through me. He immediately got up and came over. “I’m so sorry I would never have done that for the world. I’m so sorry,” he said. He got one of the monks to take me home and I spent the whole night just shaking. It was like that. He had this enormous power which all the time he was trying to keep in. But really he was extremely kind, funny and very loving. Some people found him remote and detached, but to me he was affectionate. He would hold my hand, stroke my face and was very nurturing – like a father and a mother combined.

  ‘It was a beautiful relationship,’ she continued. ‘It was very simple, very uncomplicated. I never ever doubted who my lama was. He never doubted that I belonged to him. He always said, “You are my nun.” Even when I became very connected to other lamas, the interrelationship was not there. I would sit with people like Sakya Trizin (head of the Sakya School) who became my second lama and suddenly get this great feeling of homesickness for Khamtrul Rinpoche. It’s like with your mother – there may be other people who you admire and like but that special feeling you have with your mother you can’thave with anyone else,’ she said.

  ‘You see, the relationship with your lama is so intimate, and on such a deep level, it’s not like any other. How can it be? It’s a relationship that has been going on for lifetime after lifetime. Your real lama is committed to you until Enlightenment is reached. What could be more intimate than that?’

  Another person who knew Khamtrul Rinpoche intimately was Choegyal Rinpoche, one of his chief disciples, who had been with him in Kham. He threw more light on just who the guru was.

  ‘He was amazing. His mind stayed the same whatever happened. I noticed that he was exactly the same here in India, as a refugee, as he was in Tibet when he had so much power and status. He’d didn’t mind that he had to go and buy the cement and build the monastery himself. He’d throw his arm around the Indian shopkeepers, joke with all the locals, people really loved him. He was also very ecumenical, very broad. He would meet with Moslems and Hindus alike and discuss their religions with them,’ he said.

  Tenzin Palmo, aged twenty-one, had renounced a lot – her family, her country, her background, her hair and all aspirations of worldly accumulations, but there was one area of her being that had yet to be resolved. Shortly after her ordination she received a letter from John Blofeld, inviting her to his home in Thailand, to spend some time with his wife and himself.enzin Palmo thought it an excellent idea. Thailand was a Buddhist country, John was sympathetic, and the conditions in his house were bound to be more conducive to do a meditational retreat than those in Dalhousie. She asked Khamtrul Rinpoche’s permission and he said, ‘Yes, but come back quickly.’

  When she arrived at John Blofeld’s house she found her Japanese boyfriend there as well. She had written to him telling him she had become a nun and that therefore the engagement was off, but he had heard from a mutual friend that she was going to Thailand, and decided to try his chances yet again. Undeterred by her bald head and shapeless robes, he pressed her once again to marry him. Tenzin Palmo hesitated. She was only a novice nun and Khamtrul Rinpoche in his wisdom had only given her the one vow ‘not to kill’. The Japanese boy was as attractive as ever.

  ‘We got on just great. We felt completely at ease with each other, as though we’d known each other for always. It was a very mellow relationship. He was a lovely, lovely person,’ she said. ‘One time he swatted a mosquito. I said, “What are you doing?" I went on through this whole thing, how mosquitoes have feelings and that just as our life is precious to us, for a mosquito the most precious thing it has is its own life, and as we don’t want anyone to squish us, so we shouldn’t take the life of another being because while we could take it we could never give it back. By the end of it he was in tears. “Why has nobody ever said this to me before?” he said. He had such a kind heart. He never said a mean thing about anyone, ever. He was just so sweet and intelligent. He was exceptional, very very exceptional. I thought it unlikely I’d ever meet anyone like that again. And so the idea of giving him up was a renunciation,’she recalled.

  He suggested that Tenzin Palmo go to Hong Kong for a couple of months, grow her hair and then proceed on to Japan. She was sorely tempted. ‘I thought, I’m twenty-one and I’ll never, ever be kissed again. I’m too young! I wanted the chance to take care of him, to please him, to be with him. To do that side of things. To have that sort of relationship, to be with someone, taking care – to express myself in that way.I wanted the opportunity to do that, not for ever, but for a time. Being a nun I felt thwarted,’ she said frankly. ‘I was very young. And again I had the thought that maybe we could live together for a while until the relationship went sour and then I could take up my role as a nun once more.’

  There were other enticements. Back in Dalhousie conditions were dreadful. Khamtrul Rinpoche’s monastery was not yet rebuilt and everybody was living in tents. It was frequently knee-deep in mud, there were no toilets and no drinking water on tap either. The Japanese boyfriend’s parents, on the other hand, had just moved into a new traditional house and had extended an invitation for Tenzin Palmo to stay. She knew she would love it. The inner struggle intensified. Slowly, however, the decision was being made.

  ‘I thought, in ten years’ time which would I regret the most, the chance of being with the guru and practising dharma or the chance of a little samsaric happiness? And it was so obvious! One has gone through worldly pleasures over and over again and where has it got one? How could that compare to the chance of being with the lama?’ she said.

  What finally decided her was the I Ching, the ancient Chinese book of divination. John Blofeld had just finished translating it and Tenzin Palmo was helping him proofread. During the process he had taught her how to set up an I Ching shrine and throw the yarrow sticks, seeing which way they fell to make the hexagrams ready for the reading. She decided to ask the first and only question she would ever ask of the I Ching: should she go on to Japan or back to India? The answer was: ‘Further journey East not advisable. Return to the Sage.’

  It could not have been clearer. Tenzin Palmo now knew what course she was going to take. Still, forsaking earthly love was not to be done without sorrow. That night as she was lying in bed in tears thinking of what she had just given up, she prayed to her guru to help her. He heard her call.

  ‘As I was praying I felt my whole body fill with this golden light coming from my head down to my feet and Khamtrul Rinpoche’s voice said, “Come back to India immediately!” After that I was perfectly happy. I was filled with bliss,’ she explained.

  The next day she went out and bought her ticket back to India. She never saw the Japanese boy again.

  Chapter Six

  Fear of the Feminine

  Her decision made, her split resolved, Tenzin Palmo returned to Dalhousie ready to throw herself wholeheartedly into life as a nun and to follow the path to perfection. It was the only thing that she had really wanted all her life. She was dedicated, extraordinarily single-minded and spurred on by the highest of ideals. By rights it should have been the beginning of a glorious vocation, but as it turned out she now entered what was to prove the most miserable phase of her life. It lasted six years.

  By some dint of fate (or force of karma) Tenzin Palmo, as Khamtrul Rinpoche’s ‘only nun’, managed to find herself in the bizarre situation of being a lone woman among 100 monks. By absolute accident she had entered the mighty portals of Tibetan monasticism, barred to the opposite sex for centuries.

  As the pyramids were to Egypt, so the monasteries were to Tibet. At their grandest they were vast institutions, stretching like towns over the mountain slopes and buzzing with the massed vitality of thousands of monks engaged in the pursuit of spiritual excellence. They had been in s
itu since the early part of the millennium, gaining steadily in stature and producing some of the finest mystics and scholar-saints the world has ever known. Here, in these academies of Enlightenment, the discipline was rigid, the curriculum impressive. Entering at boyhood, for some twenty-five years (the time necessary to get their Geshe degree) the monks studied such profound subjects as logic and reasoning, the identification of the different types of consciousness, methods for generating single-pointed concentration and ‘formless absorption’. They examined the varying views of Emptiness, the perennial philosophy of the ‘void’ and, when they were developed enough, they were initiated into the esoteric realm of tantra, the secret way, deemed the fastest and therefore most dangerous path of all. And through it all they learnt about Bodhicitta, the altruistic heart without which none of the rest was truly viable. In short the monasteries of Tibet were magnificent, the pride of the nation, and exclusively male.

  Into this unadulterated patriarchy marched Tenzin Palmo. Had she not been a Westerner, had she not been recognized as part of Khamtrul Rinpoche’s entourage and had the Tibetans not been in disarray, it would never have happened. It was not, however, a comfortable position to be in. Whether it was simply because they didn’t know what to do with her, or whether it was because since childhood they had been trained to view women with a wary eye (especially young, attractive women), the monks, usually so warm and affectionate, kept Tenzin Palmo at a distance. The effect on the young woman yearning for physical affection, who had just renounced her boyfriend, was devastating.

  ‘It was terrible. There was this inner pain of loving people so much but not being able to reach out and touch them,’ she explained. ‘It was like having this glass partition down – you could see but you couldn’t get near. It was very painful to be so alienated, especially at that age. It went on for ages and ages. The only person who ever came near me was Khamtrul Rinpoche, who would sometimes give me a big bear hug. I would cry every night, I was so unhappy,’ she recalled.