Although she never fell off her roof while shovelling snow (as many imagined she would) there were near accidents whose consequences could have been fatal. ‘I was outside my cave stacking the wood when I heard this voice inside me saying “Get up and move away",’ she recounted. ‘I took no notice. I thought “I’m busy doing my wood and I’m not interested in what you are saying," and I carried on. Then the voice said in a really imperious tone, “Move Immediately!”. So I did. About two minutes later there was a huge thud and this big boulder landed just where I had been sitting. If I’d been caught under it or if a limb had been crushed I’d have been in a lot of trouble,’ she conceded.
Danger came even closer during the period when Tenzin Palmo almost starved. One year when she was in total seclusion Tshering Dorje did not make the arranged delivery of food to the cave. She waited and waited, the supplies in her store-room getting smaller and smaller. When it was apparent he was not coming she had no alternative but to eke out what she had left. It was a pitiful amount of food, which became increasingly reduced as the months went by. Somehow, it kept her alive, but only just.
‘I did get extremely thin,’ was all she would say of the experience. She never asked Tshering Dorje why had not come, nor berated him. ‘He must have had his reasons,’ she said with equanimity.
These incidents were eclipsed, however, by a far greater drama. It was March 1979 and Tenzin Palmo was sitting as usual in her meditation box in her cave. Outside a blizzard was raging, as it had been for seven days and seven nights. Tenzin Palmo was well used to storms but this one was particularly strong. The snow piled higher and higher, gradually rising above her window, above her door. On it went without abating, getting thicker and thicker, heavier and heavier. Suddenly the awful truth dawned on her. She was buried alive.
The memory is indelibly etched on her mind:
‘I was plunged into total blackness and cold. I couldn’t light my fire because the snow had broken the pipe of my wood stove, which jutted out of the cave, so there was no way of keeping warm or cooking. I didn’t dare light candles either because I thought they would use up oxygen. When I looked out of the window it was nothing but a sheet of ice. When I opened the door it was just blackness. It was completely dark,’ she recalled
As the days wore on with no rescue in sight and no relief in the weather, Tenzin Palmo, entombed in her cold, dark cave, faced the very real possibility that she was going to die. With her stove pipe broken, her window and door completely sealed with snow, she was convinced she was going to be asphyxiated.
From the very beginning she had been taught like every good Buddhist to look death squarely in the face. ‘Death is definite’but ’the time of death is indefinite,’ the Buddha had said. With this fundamental but often much ignored truth placed firmly in mind she had meditated over and over again on the inescapable fact of her own demise – bringing the reality home by visualizing in graphic detail her body decomposing in the earth or melting in the heat of the funeral pyre, her possessions being dispersed and her friends and loved-ones left behind. The results were said to be twofold: to lessen the shock when Death was upon you and to sort out your priorities for whatever time you may have left.
As a tantric practitoner, however, Tenzin Palmo knew she could go even further using the moment of death as her final and greatest meditation. Steering her mind through the various stages of death she could, if she were skilful enough, arrive fully aware at the Blissful Clear Light, the most subtle mind of all, and in that sublime state transform her consciousness into a Buddha. As such, for the yogi death was never to be feared but grabbed as the golden opportunity of a lifetime of endeavour.
That, at least was the theory. Tenzin Palmo was now faced with the reality.
‘I really thought I was going to die. I had a lot of time to think about it,’ she said. ‘It was interesting. I wasn’t worried.I figured “OK, if I’m going to die, I’m going to die.” I was not afraid. I thought it would be fascinating to see what would happen. Since a small child I felt the body was really temporary – that we’d all had so many roles in many different lifetimes. So on some deep level I’d never really identified with it,’ she said. ‘I got all my little Blessed Pills[*] ready for if and when it happened. I reviewed my life to try to think of anything wrong that I’d done and what I’d done right. I felt I had been so lucky.I’d met so many great lamas and received so many wonderful teachings. There were few regrets. One thing became crystal clear at that point – I was very happy that I was still a nun,’she declared. Her difficult decisions to renounce the comfort and passion of an intimate relationship that had been made more than once in her life were finally validated. The ’other side’ of Tenzin Palmo, the one drawn to the fun and frivolity of mainstream life, had, it seemed, finally disappeared.
Tenzin Palmo now found herself spontaneously turning to the one man who had remained constant in her life.
‘I felt such devotion to Khamtrul Rinpoche, the real tear-gushing kind. I really knew at that point what was essential and what was irrelevant. I understood first hand that when you are going to die, the only thing that matters is the Lama. From my heart I prayed to Rinpoche to take care of me in the Bardo and in my future life. I could see that ultimately he was the only refuge.’
Thoughts of what might happen to her once she’d crossed the great divide flashed across her mind. They were reassuringly positive, upholding the general Buddhist view that one dies as one has lived. ‘Personally, I think anybody who is making efforts in this life will continue to make efforts in the next life. I don’t see why we should change. I believe you find yourself among like-minded people – that consciousness just goes on’, she said. ‘I was certainly hoping that my personal meditation deity would come and greet me,’ she added, referring to the particular form of the Enlightened Mind that had been selected as best suiting her own inclinations and dispositions. For many a Westerner being greeted by most of the Tibetan deities, with their fangs and multitude of arms and heads, could be a terrifying prospect. Tenzin Palmo had no such qualms. ‘Of course whichever deity it is would appear in a form which was reassuring and appropriate,’ she said.
She pondered on the possibility of going to a Pure Land, the Buddhist Heaven, although with her belief in rebirth and the Bodhisattva ideal it had radically different connotations from the Christian abode: ’There are many advantages to going to a Pure Land. For one thing it is very enjoyable. It’s the highest joy apart from Nirvana,’ she said.
‘But one doesn’t cling even to that. High lamas stay there a while and then return here. You see, a Pure Land is not like a holiday camp, it’s like a pressure-cooker which brings on rapid advancement. You evolve very quickly there because there are no obstacles. There one’s realization of Emptiness (the ultimate wisdom that nothing is inherently existing) gets developed and refined. And that is essential if you are to come back and live among all the suffering, because it is only when you understand non-duality that you are not overwhelmed by it all and have the genuine ability to help. The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas go everywhere to help, even to the hell realms. You can’t do that if you are paranoid like all the beings in the hell realm. That is the vow of the Bodhisattva, which in Tibetan means spiritual hero,’ she explained.
Tenzin Palmo did not get the chance to see what death would be like. As she sat there meditating, preparing to make the transition, she heard her voice once more. It said one word: ’Dig!’ She opened the door to her cave, which with Tsering Dorje’s foresight opened inwards, and using one of the lids from her saucepans tins began to dig her way out. She dug up and up, piling the snow back into her cave which made the place even colder and wetter. She dug for an hour or more, not knowing which way she was going, for she was in total darkness and was disorientated, crawling along on her stomach, tunnelling her way through the cold blackness to where she hoped the outside and oxygen lay. Suddenly she came out into the open air and was free. The relief was enormous.
*
Blessed Pills are specialities of Tibetan medicine. Made from various relics, special ingredients, herbs and ground jewels, they are potentized by months of prayers and mantras being said over them. At death specific Blessed Pills are believed to facilitate the transference of consciousness to a higher realm.