The initial five-year training programme would consist in studying classic texts and logic as well as becoming familiar with specific ritual practices and religious services. The nuns would also learn English as part of their foundation course. When this was completed those nuns with the required aptitude, and who wanted to continue, would be chosen to undergo the Togdenma training – the raison d’etre of the nunnery.
Westerners would not be forgotten. Beside the nunnery she would build an international retreat centre, where women from all over the world could go to practise in a conducive atmosphere alongside other like-minded women. They would receive general Buddhist and meditation instruction from the Dongyu Gatsal Ling nuns. If they wanted to train as Togdenmas, however, they would have to undergo all the prerequisite schooling, be psychologically suitable, and be able to speak Tibetan, the lingua franca of the nunnery. At this stage, while the profound realizations still rested in the traditional practices of old Tibet, there was no other way.
Apart from the monastic college and the international centre there would also be a temple, individual retreat huts and a guesthouse for short-stay female and male visitors.
As the blueprint for Tenzin Palmo’s nunnery grew in mind’s eye, certain revolutionary ideas began to be introduced – onesshe’d gleaned from the Christian communities she’d taught in Europe. She would do away with the traditional system of individual sponsorship, which had been in place for centuries in Tibet, whereby monks and nuns got the money needed for their keep from family members or wealthy patrons. This, she pointed out, was an invidious practice as it not only created competition and cunning (as the monastics vied to see who got more), but produced a mundane, worldly mind-frame which took the focus away from the spiritual life. Instead she proposed that the nuns of Dongyu Gatsal Ling would strive for economic independence. There would be work periods where they would learn to earn their living through businesses such as craft. (Their brother monastery Tashi Jong could provide ample tuition.) This would give them economic stability, financial independence and relieve them of the anxiety of continually having to find funds. Working together co-operatively would also create harmony. All the money that came in would go into a pool and each nun would be given her robes, her food and a small weekly stipend for personal items. This would do away with the rivalry.
There was more to come: ‘Although there will be a certain hierarchy it will not be obvious. The senior nuns will be the teachers but all the jobs will be rotated. Everyone has to be a scullery maid with the appreciation that it is just as important as being the teacher. I am going to instruct them that sweeping the courtyard with awareness is a spiritual practice. And the cook is probably more indispensable than the teacher! This way everyone understands each other’s problems. I want to make this nunnery a harmonious place, an environment in which everyone can flower,’ she said.
One of the many criticisms directed at women seeking Enlightenment down the ages was that they were handicapped by not being able to get on well together. It was said, by the men, that they squabbled, were bitchy, were not able to live cohesively together and thus their spiritual focus was seriously undermined. This, they cited, was one of the reasons why nunneries hadn’t flourished in Tibet, unlike the great monasteries.
‘It’s absolute nonsense. Women have been cohering for millenia,’ was Tenzin Palmo’s attitude. ‘I have noticed that when women are working together on a project there is a tremendous energy, a very special energy. Women like the idea of all-women retreats. When we are feeling fulfilled, doing some inner work, we get along just fine. And women like each other’s company. My aunt goes off to Paris with her women friends, leaving her husband behind, and they all have a great time. In my view bitchiness is not an intrinsic part of female nature. Sometimes men don’t pull together either.’
She continued with her radical plans. She would introduce Hatha yoga (which had helped her so much on her long retreat) to counteract the long periods of sitting and help align the body for meditation. Physical exercise of any sort was a novel idea for Tibetan nuns. ‘Yoga is very suitable. You don’t need equipment or much space, and it’s quite dignified,’ she said. ‘There might be a little resistance but if it is introduced right from the beginning it should be all right. I think it is really important.’
The more she thought about it the more the nunnery took shape. When she had decided precisely what she wanted to do she took her scheme to the collective spiritual heads of Tashi Jong monastery, including the young Khamtrul Rinpoche, and put before them precisely what she had in mind. When she had finished she said: ’To date monks have received so much help but there is a great need for women to be assisted too. It’s important that women help themselves. Women need confidence to become teachers so that they can become self-sufficient and don’t have to rely on men. And women need women teachers, other women they can talk to, who can understand their problems from a female perspective. I truly believe that women can become Enlightened - it’s just the opportunity that has been lacking. So this is what I want to do. By creating this nunnery I serve not only my lama, who suggested the idea to me in the first place, but the lineage and women also. These are the three most important things I can do in this life.’
There was one important proviso. She had no intention whatsoever of being the abbess. She would get the nunnery up and running, she stated, and then she would return to what was her chosen path in this life – the way of the contemplative. The assembled panel from Tashi Jong heard her through and much to her amazement agreed to all she had proposed. They gave her their full blessing to proceed. The only problem was, they said, that being refugees and trying to build up their own community they had little funds to spare and consequently she would have to take charge of the project herself. It was a tall order but, they said, she should not despair. They had done their observations and predicted that Dongyu Gatsal Ling nunnery would come into being and be a great success.
Nevertheless, it was an ambitious plan to say the least. To get such a scheme up and running needed a multitude of factors which seemed completely impossible: land, building permission, architectural plans, bricks, mortar, expertise in a range of areas and money. A lot of money. Only finding inmates of the nunnery would be easy. Tenzin Palmo was homeless, penniless and had been out of the workplace and the ways of the world for thirty years. But that was no reason not to try. With her customary boldness and faith in the Buddha, dharma and sangha to whom she had given her life, she now launched herself on a most unexpected career path, the role of international fundraiser. Her plan was to give dharma talks wherever she was invited and hope that someone would be out there to listen, and drop a few pennies in her begging bowl.
Chapter Fourteen
The Teacher
By the most unlikely turn of events Tenzin Palmo found herself thrust into the role of teacher. She had neither planned this strange development, nor particularly enjoyed it, solitude and introspection being her calling, but the financial demands for building a special nunnery where women could go to achieve spiritual excellence necessitated it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were needed to buy the land near Tashi Jong, purchase the bricks and mortar, and there was nothing for it but to travel the world, going from one Buddhist centre to the next, from one interested group to the next, dispensing wisdom that had been garnered and crystallized over thirty years of intense inner journeying in order to raise funds. It was a painfully slow process, the charge at each event being by donation only. In spite of the weeks, the months, the years of talking, Tenzin Palmo remained peculiarly unruffled and unhurried, treating each offering, be it 5 dollars or 5,000 dollars, with the same genuine gratitude. Neither the slowness nor the enormity of the task seemed to faze her.