Seizing her chance, she went on to fire her biggest salvo. An expose on the situation of the Western Sangha, particularly the nuns whom she had befriended in Italy. ‘The lamas ordain people and then they are thrown out into the world with no training, preparation, encouragement, support or guidance – and they’re expected to keep their vows, do their practice and run dharma centres. This is very hard and I’m surprised that so many of the Western monastics stay as long as they do. I’m not surprised when they disrobe. They start with so much enthusiasm, with so much pure faith and devotion and gradually their inspiration decreases. They get discouraged and disillusioned and there is no one who helps them. This is true, Your Holiness. It’s a very hard situation and it has never happened in the history of Buddhism before.
‘In the past the sangha was firmly established, nurtured and cared for. In the West this is not happening. I truly don’t know why. There are a few monasteries, mostly in the Therevada tradition, which are doing well, but for the nuns what is there? There is hardly anything, quite frankly. But to end on a higher note, I pray that this life of purity and renunciation which is so rare and precious in the world, that this jewel of the sangha may not be thrown down into the mud of our indifference and contempt.’
It was an impassioned, formidable cry from the heart. When she had finished a great hush fell over the gathering. No one was laughing now. As for the Tenzin Gyatso, the Great Ocean of Wisdom, regarded by his people as an emanation of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion, he was sitting there, head in his hands, silently weeping. After several minutes he looked up, wiped his eyes and said softly, ‘You are quite brave.’ Later the senior lamas commented that such directness was indeed rare and that in this respect the conference had been like a family gathering where everyone spoke their mind frankly.
That speech marked yet another radical turning point in Tenzin Palmo’s already remarkable life. She had stood up and spoken out (to the top man, no less), but it was as if she knew words were not enough. Complaining about the system was one thing, doing something about it was another. And if the women who felt wronged couldn’t act, who would? Now the backlog of her own personal unhappiness as a nun in Dalhousie came to the fore and began to be used for positive ends. She had waited almost thirty years but it was not a moment too late. The time for women’s spiritual liberation had come. And Tenzin Palmo was to take a leading active role. It was as far away from her cherished life as a recluse as she could get, but still it seemed peculiarly apt. She knew at first hand the difficulties that women on the spiritual path faced. She had suffered, had known spiritual rejection and the heavy weight of discouragement, but now it seemed it had all been for a purpose.
‘I think that is why I was born as a woman this time,’ she said.
She began by helping to arrange a conference for Western nuns in Bodhgaya, where they could air their problems, exchange views and establish a much-needed feeling of community and support. After this she joined forces with a small but committed group of women agitating to bring full ordination to the nuns. She knew more than most how essential this was for elevating their status in the eyes of society and boosting their self-esteem. It was a delicate, complex issue, however, bound up with centuries of ecclesiastical red tape, circuitous theological argument and layers of entrenched male prejudice. It would take years of persistence and gentle persuasion to overturn the existing order and to persuade the lamas to move over on their high thrones. But at least the movement had started.
And when these projects were under way and Tenzin Palmo started to think yet again of returning to a life of serious retreat, she was presented with another scheme – one much closer to her own heart. One infinitely more difficult to achieve. The building of a nunnery for the women of her own order, the Drukpa Kargyu School. The idea had been put into her head back in the seventies by her lama, Khamtrul Rinpoche. He had pointed in the general direction of the lush Kangra valley, where his own monastery of Tashi Jong had been rebuilt, and said, ‘You can build a nunnery here.’ At the time she had dismissed it as a brilliant but impossible ideal. Now she was older, had done her twelve years of meditation in a cave, and was back out in the world. The time might be right.
Her plans to help the Western Buddhist nuns build a nunnery had fallen through, and Tenzin Palmo knew how urgently the Tibetan nuns needed help. Like the Western nuns they had nowhere to go, for they had been forgotten in the haste to rebuild the monasteries for the refugee monks. Consequently they were reduced to cooking in monastery kitchens for the monks or returning home to take up a life of domesticity in order to earn their keep. It was a pitiful situation which made Tenzin Palmo very sad.
’The nuns are so young and fresh, with so much devotion and enthusiasm, and yet they’re given so little encouragement. They’re open and incredibly diligent. We’re talking about girls who prostrate all the way from Kham to Kailash, hundreds of miles, and then do prostrations around Mount Kailash itself. They don’t even think about it! It’s that kind of total dedication to the path,’ she said. ‘Even the rare nun who does manage to get some philosophical training is handicapped on account of the fact that she is a woman. I know of one case where a nun managed to win a place at a prestigious university in Sarnath, in India, and although she came top she was pulled out after two years on the grounds that she had had enough learning for a woman and any further study would be a waste of time and money.’
Still, she shuddered. Starting a nunnery was a huge undertaking. It would take years of planning, organizing, worldly endeavour, and more to the point, personal investment. Retreat was what she was good at. Retreat, to her, was easy. As she was hesitating she met a Christian monk, a wise man, who pointed out that the difficult choice was always the one that offered the more growth.
She returned to Assisi and over the coming months formulated her plans for the kind of nunnery she wanted to create. First and foremost it was to be a place where women could go to develop their spiritual potential to the full. Female Enlightenment was still the goal. It would be a place of female spiritual excellence. A place which would not just educate women in religious dogma but turn them into yoginis, women who had actualized the truth within. Only women of wisdom, as opposed to women of knowledge, would hold true spiritual power and thus be able to touch and transform the lives of others.
And the only women she knew of who had such attainments were the Togdenmas, the female counterparts of those great yogis of Tashi Jong, the Togdens. The Togdenmas had been following spiritual techniques specially devised for female practitioners by one of Milarepa’s leading disciples, Rechungpa in the twelfth century. Methods which were reputed to turn women into Buddhas, quickly! Even in Tibet, where systems for attaining Enlightenment abounded, Rechungpa’s method had been regarded as unique. But the Togdenmas had not been seen or heard of since the Chinese occupation. All was not completely lost, however. Tenzin Palmo knew that the old Togdens, living in the present Tashi Jong in India, had the key to this ancient treasure chest of instructions. If she could find the right nuns to train, the precious Togdenma lineage might be resurrected.
’These teachings are incredibly precious. They are a living flame which must be passed on by living transmission. If it is not done before the Togdens die then they are in danger of dying out for ever. Once this lineage is no longer practised it is finished – it cannot be revived. If I could bring the practice and the nuns together it could be of enormous benefit to many, many sentient beings in the future,’ she reasoned.
She started to streamline her plans. The nunnery, which would be called Dongyu Gatsal Ling (Delightful Grove of the True Lineage), would take women aged between seventeen and thirty who had already finished their general education. She did not intend running an orphanage, nor a basic school. The initial intake would be restricted to ten to fifteen to ensure that there was a core of well-trained nuns who in turn would be able to teach others. After that was accomplished the numbers could be increased to maybe 100 or 200 nuns. It was absolutely vital, therefore, that at the outset two or three mature nuns were found to act as role models and teachers for the younger women.