‘I think it’s very important for Westerners who come from such a totally different background to really study the foundations of Buddhism – what the Buddha taught. If you read the very early sutras, the early Theravadin tradition is the foundation for everything which came after it. Without having really understood what the foundation was you cannot really appreciate what comes after. As Western Buddhists I think we have a responsibility to the Buddhist dharma,’ she reasoned.
Curiously in amongst this plethora of Buddhism there was one token of Christianity – the autobiography of St Teresa of Lisieux. In spite of Tenzin Palmo’s antipathy to the Christian religion in general, she was drawn to the French saint who had entered a Carmelite nunnery when she was just fifteen and who had died at the age of twenty-four. She read her story several times and could quote from it at will.
’The ironic thing is that the “little way” that she wrote about had nothing to do with the Way that I practised. What I liked about her, however, was that she was very sensible. She sometimes slept through the church services and it did not worry her that she slept. God would have to accept her as she was! She never worried about her faults so long as her aspiration was right! She had this thing that she was like a small bird scratching around looking for seeds, glancing at the sun but not flying near it. She reasoned that she didn’t have to because the sun was shining even on a small being like a bird. Her whole attitude was very nice. She described herself as “a little flower” by the wayside which nobody sees but in its own self is very perfect as it is. And to me that is her primary message – that even in small, little ways we can be fulfilling our purpose and that in little things we can accomplish much.’
She went on: ’St Teresa was interesting because from the outside she didn’t do anything. She performed no miracles, saw no visions, yet she was extremely devout. However, she must have been special because her Mother Superior made her write her story, which was completely unusual. A photograph taken of her at her death shows how beatific she looked. She had said that she wanted to spend her heaven doing good on earth. That’s a Bodhisattva aspiration – you don’t loll around in heaven singing praises, you get on and do something good,’she said.
Tenzin Palmo may have removed herself from the world but others were certainly not forgotten. Over the years she had developed a lengthy correspondence with a wide variety of people, some of whom she had not seen for years. When she was not in strict retreat she would faithfully answer all of their letters, which were delivered by Tshering Dorje along with her supplies. Sometimes there were as many as sixty. She looked upon these friendships as ’treasures’ in her life. ‘I have met some truly wonderful people – and I am always grateful for that,’ she said.
Her friends, family and the multitude of sentient beings she did not know were also included in her prayers and meditations. ‘You automatically visualize all beings around you. In that way they partake of whatever benefits may occur,’ she said. It was part of her Bodhisattva vow, for true Enlightenment could not be reached without bringing all living beings to that state. How could one be sincerely happy anyway, knowing countless others were enduring untold miseries throughout every realm of existence?
Albert Einstein, arguably the West’s greatest guru, knew this too: ‘A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty,’ he had said, using the same metaphor of a prison that had occured in Tenzin Palmo’s dream.
Tenzin Palmo was a firm believer in the efficacy of prayer. ‘Actually one doesn’t have to be a great yogi to help others - the practices in themselves have great power and blessing,’ she commented. ‘I believe there are infinite beings embodying intelligence and love, always beaming in, always trying to help. We just have to open up. So you can definitely pray to theBuddhas and Bodhisattvas, but it’s better not to pray for a bicycle at Christmas. Rather pray for spiritual growth that can flower in the mind. Pray to lesser beings for a bicycle. Just as if you wanted to get a tax return you wouldn’t write to the Prime Minister but to some semi-minor official. If you wanted to stop war you’d write to the Prime Minister,’ she said.
After all those hours of meditating, those twelve years of sitting in her box looking inwards in her cave, did she improve?
‘Like anything else, if you practise long enough it gets easier. For example, if you are learning to play the piano, in the beginning your fingers are very stiff and you hit many wrong notes, and it is very awkward. But if you continually practise it gets easier and easier. But even so, although a concert pianist is very skilled at playing, still his difficulties are there. They may be at a higher level and not apparent to other people but he sees his own problems,’ she said, modest as always.
In the end had it all been worth it? After that protracted extraordinary effort, the hardships, the self-discipline, the renunciation, what had she gained? The answer came back quick as a flash.
‘It’s not what you gain but what you lose. It’s like unpeeling the layers of an onion, that’s what you have to do. My quest was to understand what perfection meant. Now, I realize that on one level we have never moved away from it. It is only our deluded perception which prevents our seeing what we already have. The more you realize, the more you realize there is nothing to realize. The idea that there’s somewhere we have got to get to, and something we have to attain, is our basic delusion. Who is there to attain it anyway?’
Chapter Eleven
Woman’s Way
Tenzin Palmo was proving them wrong. Against all odds the frail, blue-eyed woman from Bethnal Green was surviving in a cave in the most extreme conditions, heroically meditating her way to Enlightenment in the body of a woman. Her heart may have been strong, her will iron-clad, but in actuality there was woefully little to encourage her in her quest. The problem was that she was on her own, treading uncharted territory. There were no living examples of female spiritual excellence for her to emulate, no woman guru who had trodden the path before her whom she could turn to for advice and support. There was no map plotting the way specifically to female Enlightenment with all the pitfalls and joys it may contain. There was no glowing female Dalai Lama to give her an idea even of what supreme feminine spirituality looked like.
What did she have to go on? Certainly there were a multitude of images of female Buddhas, all paying homage to the notion of women’s Enlightenment. Beloved Tara, serenely smiling, with one leg outstretched ever-ready to race to those in need. Tenzin Palmo had sung her praises many times to the villagers in Lahoul on her alms rounds in return for barley flour. How the people loved her! It was Tara they turned to in their moments of greatest distress because Tara, as a woman, heard and acted quickly. She was compassion in action, said to have been born out of the tears of the male Buddha Chenrezig, who saw the suffering of all sentient beings but was unable to do anything about it. Tara, it was said, had the distinction of being the first woman to attain Enlightenment. Like Tenzin Palmo, she had been spurred on by the total dearth of females in the vast pantheon of male Buddhas. ‘As there are many who have reached Buddhahood in a masculine form but very few who have done so in a woman’s body, and as I have embodied Bodhicitta, may I continue along the Way to Enlightenment with a woman’s body and become Buddha in a feminine form!’ she had reputedly proclaimed somewhat defiantly.