In her day Machig Lapdron’s exceptional talents inevitably caught the attention of the patriarchs who, roused by jealousy and fear, thought to discredit her once and for all by challenging her in the very public arena of spiritual debate. This was a speciality of Tibetan Buddhism, the platform on which all the scholar-saints had to prove themselves. Their plan dramatically backfired. The story tells how Machig Lapdron made intellectual and spiritual mincemeat of her male opponents, thereby establishing her permanently as one of Tibet’s most important spiritual figures.
To the modern woman, however, Machig Lapdron is particularly interesting for the fact that she combined her spiritual career with marriage and children. Unlike most women with these appendages, however, she was not attached to them, nor did she demonstrate any particular sense of responsibility towards their upbringing. She happily wandered off to meditate in caves whenever the will for spiritual advancement took her, leaving them with their father for months on end. Among her many claims to fame is that she started her own lineage, using her children as her lineage holders. She died aged ninety-nine, passing on, as legend has it, to the land of the Dakinis.
More typical of the fate of women mystics was what befell Jomo Menmo, a simple young girl of the thirteenth century. Legend has it that she suddenly acquired profound wisdom from Yeshe Tsogyel, the Sky Dancer, in a dream, which she then imparted to all who asked her. As usual this raised the ire of the lamas, who branded her insane. Devastated, Jomo wandered the country refusing to speak but benefiting countless people in ’the secret way’ i.e. by the sheer force of her physical presence. It was success by stealth, a ploy much used by women of all cultures.
Weighty though such characters as Machig Lapdron and Jomo Menmo were, they were too distant to have any real impact on Tenzin Palmo’s life, or to help her in her own mission for female Enlightenment. There was, however, one woman who did offer some inspiration. A-Yu Khadro was a woman of her own time. The major details of her extraordinary life were taken down from the woman herself by a very living lama, Namkhai Norbu, now based in Italy. He in turn related them to Tsultrim Allione, who included A-Yu Khadro’s story in her ground-breaking book Women of Wisdom. A-Yu Khadro was a youthful-looking 113 when Namkhai Norbu met her, with long hair still black at the tips. She was also still giving teachings and conferring secret initiations.
Aside from her unusual dedication to the life of the spirit (and the fact that marriage literally made her sick), A-Yu Khadro’s story is noteworthy because of her ‘egg-shaped rock’. Apparently this object was first revealed to her in a dream, but when, after months of searching for it, she finally saw it, access was barred by a raging river in full flood. Camping on the bank, looking at the rock on the opposite side, A-Yu Khadro determined to wait until the river subsided. On the third night she dreamt that a bridge had materialized over the turbulent waters, allowing her to cross over. When she awoke she inexplicably found herself on the other side.
This most mysterious occurrence was overshadowed, however, by what happened next. Having reached her ‘egg-shaped rock’, A-Yu Khadro proceeded to enter it via a cave and there, in total darkness, lived and meditated for seven years. Paradoxically the complete black-out was necessary to practise attaining the famous ‘body of light’.
Her efforts must have paid off because when she died in 1954 aged 115 (without any signs of illness), she reportedly stayed in the meditation posture for two weeks after her external breath had stopped. Her body had not decayed – it had just become very tiny. Like Tenzin Palmo’s guru, Khamtrul Rinpoche, she had demonstrated in death that she had reached an exceptionally high level of spiritual development.
But these few women, inspirational though they may have been, were of little help to Tenzin Palmo. They lived far away and long ago. When it came to finding out what female spiritual qualities looked like she was having to make her own journey of discovery. Over the years in her cave she came to a few conclusions about women’s strengths and weaknesses:
’To me the special female quality (which of course many men have as well) is first of all a sharpness, a clarity. It cuts through – especially intellectual ossification. It’s very sharp and gets to the point. To me the Dakini principle stands for the intuitive force. Women get it in a flash – they’re not interested in intellectual discussion which they normally find dry and cold with minimum appeal. To women that’s the long way of going about it. They go through the back door! This reveals itself as women being more practical in their approach, less abstract and idealistic than men. They want to know, “What can we do?” They’re not entranced by theories and ideas – they want to be able to crunch it between their teeth,’ she said. ‘Of course, Prajnaparamita is female,’ she added, referring to the Mother of All Buddhas. ’She’s the Perfection of Wisdom which cuts away all our concepts and desires to make something very stable and settled. We build up our ideas. We try to make them concrete. She cuts away, cutting, cutting, cutting. She cuts things back to the bare essentials.
‘At the same time women have a nurturing, a softness, a gentleness. Women tend to be more into feeling than men, which makes it easier to develop Bodhicitta. Loving kindness is innate in women, because of the mothering factor. A mother is prepared to die for her child. That impulse can be developed towards all beings. Again it’s a matter of feeling, not intellect. These are not just useful qualities – they’re essential.’
‘Female spiritual energy is also very quick. Like Tara. You don’t have to be a great yogi to communicate with Tara. She’sthere! Like a mother she has to be very quick because she can’twait until her child has reached a certain level before she gives it her attention and compassion. She has to be right there with it – from the moment it’s born – a little wriggling worm. Whether it’s a good child or a bad child she’s there to help.
‘And then women can often attain the experience of tumo often more swiftly than men,’ she said, talking about the famous inner ’mystic heat’ that can be raised through meditation. ‘It’s something to do with our physiology. Milarepa had a lot of trouble getting heat and bliss whereas his woman disciple Rechungma got all the experience in three days. So many lamas have said that women are especially good at tumo. Not only can they generate the bliss, they’re able to handle it better as well. For myself, however, I cannot claim to be a tumo yogini. It wasn’t my main practice.’
If women had their strong points it followed that they should also have their failings. The biggest and most insidious stigma attributed to women on the spiritual path was their menstrual cycle. The Curse! This, in the eyes of the male priests in most religions throughout the world, was what rendered women unclean and therefore unsuitable canditates for higher spiritual office. Consequently, at the time when her period was upon her it was decreed in many parts of the world that a woman may not enter the sanctity of the temple. Nor may any priest touch her! This reproachment was certainly an obstacle to be overcome if her body was to incarnate the Divine. On a more profound and serious level, to the serious female practitioner her period was said to create havoc with her meditations bringing with it ‘irritability’, ‘irrationality’, ‘pain’ and PMT – all of which supposedly disturbed her concentration and peace of mind. Her period thus became one of her greatest hinderances to full spiritual development.
Tenzin Palmo, having trod the path, was having none of it. ‘Hormones were no obstacle to me! Personally I’ve never been affected by my periods and I think that all this talk about menopause and PMT is just making an issue of it. Besides, I’ve noticed that men are often more moody than women. All humans fluctuate in their moods, that doesn’t mean you have to cling to it,’ she said in her usual pragmatic way.
‘One lama did tell me, however, that women’s main problem is that they have a volatile mind. It swings up and down, which makes it more difficult to attain steadiness in meditation. But he also added that when a woman learns to check that energy she can go very fast in her practice – much quicker than men beca
use there’s this fund of energy which has not been dissipated. In fact many, many lamas have said that once women get going on meditation their experiences are much more rapid and higher than most men’s. But again, because women weren’t into writing books or publicizing it you don’t hear about them.’
That additional major drawback, women’s craving for physical comfort, didn’t apply to Tenzin Palmo either. But she was unusual. The grim living conditions which seem an inescapable part of all advanced spiritual trainings had blighted many women seekers. Irina Tweedie, the great Sufi teacher and author of Chasm of Fire (the diary of her own spiritual path), admits to being constantly crushed by the searing heat, the noise, and the dust of the Indian village where her guru lived. He had made her give up everything she owned, including her money, which only exacerbated her misery and the discomfort-factor further.
‘We women need comfort, we need security, we need love, we need this and that. We women need, need, need. In Western society for a man to give up everything is much easier than for a woman. I know it because I did it myself, so I can speak,’ she said from her home in north London just before she died. ‘You see, the training for a woman is different. The man has to learn to control his sexuality. The woman has to overcome attachment to worldly objects. Ours is the way of detachment. A woman’s awakening will lead her to complete detachment. One of the reasons why we are so attached, of course, is because our bodies are made to have children and for that you need comfort, security and love. It is a great thing to have children but if you reach the stage where you love the whole world exactly like your children, that’s something. You don’t love your children less, oh no. But you love the whole world more.’
But Tenzin Palmo had never wanted children and was able to withstand the cold, the absence of a bed, the lack of hot water and every other creature comfort with disarming ease. She had also conquered the most insuperable difficulty of all – living in an isolated place in absolute solitude. What then were her chances, or any woman’s, of becoming another Yeshe Tsogyel? What were the odds of her ever attaining her goal?What, for that matter, were the chances of anyone, male or female, reaching the stage of omniscience, given the limitations that a human body automatically imposes?
Tenzin Palmo had no doubt on either score. ‘The Buddha proved that Enlightenment was possible,’ she said. ‘When he finally broke through all the veils of delusion his mind became vast – he remembered all of his past lives stretching back eons and eons, which he dictated to his disciples. At one point he picked up some leaves from the forest floor and asked his followers: "Which is greater – the leaves in my hand or those on the trees of the forest?” When his disciples replied: “The leaves on the trees,” the Buddha said: “The leaves in my hand represent the amount of knowledge that I can give to you.” But that didn’t mean that he didn’t get toothache. He had his personal physician for the times when he did get sick,’ she said.
‘As to the continuing controversy about whether women can get Enlightened, most of that is only due to cultural discrimination and on-going male chauvinism. Personally I have no doubts. And the benefits of having women up there among the men are obvious. For one thing women are half of the human race. So women who have got a lot of genuine practice and understanding are necessarily going to raise the level of humanity because there are so many of them,’ Tenzin Palmo stated.
Irina Tweedie agreed: ‘I personally feel that we women can reach exactly the same heights as men – providing we keep our femininity. We are all created in the image of God – God is masculine and feminine both, so we have all capacities, all abilities in us. It is in the female nature to be powerful. The problem is that men are afraid of powerful women, it’s the competition! But I don’t think women are! Thousands of years ago there was a matriarchal society then the pendulum swung back (too much in my opinion) – now women are ascending once more. The result will be a world which is more balanced, more full of love. There will not be so much hardness in it.’
Contemporary male Buddhists in high places were beginning to change their minds as well. ‘Of course a woman can become a Buddha,’ announced the Dalai Lama recently, before substantiating his statement with references to the scriptures. ‘In the texts of the Vehicles of Perfection, and those of the first three classes of the tantras, it has been said that Buddhahood is generally attained in the masculine form. But according to the fourth class of tantras there is no distinction between masculine and feminine; Enlightenment may come about just as easily in a woman’s body as in a man’s.’
Another eminent and much-loved lama, the late Kalu Rinpoche, who established a centre in France after the Tibetan diaspora, echoed the Dalai Lama’s words: ’Regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, if you have faith, confidence and diligence, if you have compassion and wisdom, you can become Enlightened. The reason for this total equality of opportunity is the nature of mind itself, which is neither male nor female. There is no such thing as the intrinsic nature of one person’s mind being better than someone else’s, on the ultimate level the empty clear and unimpeded nature of mind exhibits no limiting qualities such as maleness or femaleness, superiority or inferiority.
‘On a relative level, however, there are differences, including the way in which the physical embodiment is formed at the subtle level of the energy channels and energy centres. According to the teachings of tantra the way in which a mind incarnates in a male body is subtly different from the way in which it incarnates in a female body. In the psycho-physical make-up of a male, there is more force, more concentrated and direct energy, whereas in that of a female, there is more spaciousness, signifying Wisdom. These relative differences should always be understood in the context of the ultimate nature of the mind. ‘His words illustrated the complex and highly scientific nature of Enlightenment, Tibetan style.
Perhaps the most encouraging and most simple confirmation came from an old lama called Kangyur, who lived not far from Tenzin Palmo’s cave in Lahoul and who knew the English nun well. Kangyur, a robust figure with a white wispy beard and jolly manner, was known throughout the region for his holiness and for his lifelong habit of sleeping outside on his roof in -35 degree temperatures without any socks. When asked if a woman could achieve Enlightenment he was adamant: ‘On the outside there is difference but the heart is the same,’ he said, patting the point mid-way between his breasts. ‘What is Enlightenment but the heart knowing itself? This is very hard. Just as the eye can see the whole world but cannot see itself, so the heart can know everything but has great difficulty in understanding itself. But Tenzin Palmo was a great practitioner. Everyone here was very surprised how well she did.’
To Tenzin Palmo herself, however, her efforts were nothing special. ‘I like to sit and meditate. There is nothing else I like to do,’ she said.
Chapter Twelve
Coming Out
Tenzin Palmo may have been content to sit there in her cave meditating indefinitely, but the world literally came knocking. One day in the summer of 1988 she was startled out of her solitude by the appearance of the police. Paying no heed to the boundary fence, erected specifically to keep all visitors out, nor to the accepted etiquette never to disturb solitary practitioners, the policeman barged right into her compound, knocked loudly on the door and demanded to know why she had an illegal visa. He went on to state in no uncertain terms that if she did not appear at the local police station the next day she would be arrested. It was the first voice Tenzin Palmo had heard in three years, the first figure she had seen. By any one’s accounts it was a rude awakening. Complying with this onslaught of officialdom, she obediently descended from her mountain to confront the new Superintendent of Police, who told her he was very sorry about the situation but he had no choice but to give her a Quit India notice. She would have to leave the country in ten days.
Patiently Tenzin Palmo explained to the Superintendent that she had been in India for twenty-four years and was not prepared to leave in ten days. Furthermor
e, she went on, it wasn’t her fault that her visa was not in order, as she’d left the matter with the previous incumbent who had been renewing it on her behalf. Faced with her utter reasonableness and obvious sincerity, the Superintendent softened and said that as he was going on holiday for a month he did not have to give her notice immediately, as he had thought, but that eventually she would have to leave. Until the matter was sorted out he graciously gave her permission to return to her cave and resume what she was doing.
Tenzin Palmo climbed her mountain once more but it was no use. She had been seen, she had been forced to speak, and by the spiritual laws laid down, her retreat was thereby irrevocably broken. She could not continue. By rights she should have been furious or at least bitterly disappointed. She had done three years in the last serious bout of retreat but the fruits could not be fully realized, it was said, until the final three months, three weeks and three days had been done. After such sustained dedication and diligence she could well have ranted at the Superintendent or wept silently back in her cave. It would have been reasonable. Instead she laughed and said: ‘Certainly, it was not the way you are meant to finish a retreat. You are meant to stay there for a few days and slowly get used to seeing people again.’
Cave in the snow. A western woman’s quest for enlightenment Page 16
