Cave in the snow. A western woman’s quest for enlightenment

by Vicki Mackenzie

  In actuality this meant that for as long as Tenzin Palmo was in the cave she never fully lay down. Instead she spent the night, every night, sitting upright in her meditation box. ‘The idea is that you’re meant to stay sitting up in order to meditate. It’s good for the awareness,’ was all she would say on the matter. ‘If I really felt I had to I would curl up inside my meditation box, or flop my legs over the side.’

  And at such moments you wondered how much of Tenzin Palmo’s capacity to endure these prolonged physical hardships was due to her unadorned childhood in the East End of London, her mother’s stoical genes, or some innate predisposition for high-altitude cave dwelling – as the Tashi Jong lamas had recognized.

  Not least of all her austerities was the isolation. As she had anticipated, even longed for, she was quite alone. Occasionally during the summer she would see a shepherd or yak-herder. Sometimes the nuns from Tayul Gompa or a friend would visit for a day or two. Following the pattern she had established she would ensure that every year she saw Khamtrul Rinpoche for further guidance on her retreat. Very rarely she would leave for a few weeks to attend some teachings. But mostly she was completely by herself for months every year, cut off by the snows and for the last three years she saw and spoke to literally no one.

  Tenzin Palmo more than coped: ‘I was never lonely, not for a minute. It was nice if someone visited, but I was perfectly happy not seeing anybody. In that cave I felt completely safe.

  And that’s a wonderful feeling for a woman to have. I never used to lock my door or window. There was no need. The cave was on the road to nowhere,’ she said. Interestingly, however, a male friend she lent the cave to once while she away on a summer errand did not find the cave experience so easy. He left after two days, spooked by the solitude. ‘Me, I found it the easiest thing in the world,’ she said.

  If human company was rare, animals were everywhere.

  Any woman of fainter heart or flabbier backbone might well have been unnerved at the array of beasts which prowled around and even entered her cave. But Tenzin Palmo was never frightened of any animal and they, in turn, were never afraid of her. It was yet another unusual facet of an already unusual woman. ‘Animals are drawn to Tenzin Palmo – but what is interesting is that whereas usually, when there is that kind of attraction, the feeling is reciprocal, with Tenzin Palmo she is completely detached,’ commented Didi Contractor, the friend who had visited her cave when Tenzin Palmo first moved in.

  ‘I like animals and I respect them but I am not St Francis,’Tenzin Palmo said crisply. Nevertheless, her encounters with the animals around her cave bore a strong resemblance to the tales told of the brown-robed friar in his cave in Assisi.

  Like St Francis, she too had her ‘brother wolves’.

  At night she could hear them on the roof above her head making their long, mournful sounds. They roamed around the mountains, looking for food, seeking their mate, baying at the moon. Tenzin Palmo, sitting in her cave, knew they were very close and did not stir an inch.

  ‘I love wolves,’ she said simply. ‘For a long time I listened to them howling, which was wonderful. In the mornings after it had snowed I used to see their paw marks around the cave, but I never saw them. Then one day I was sitting outside on the patio, soaking up the sun, and five of them came by. They stood very close, just a few yards away. They were beautiful, not mangy or bedraggled as I had imagined. I thought they would look rather like jackals, but they were extremely handsome with those strange yellow eyes and sleek brown coats. They seemed very well fed, though heaven knows what they found up there to live on. They just stayed there and gazed at me very peacefully. I was so happy to see them. I smiled back and sent them lots of love. They stood there for a few minutes more and then left,’ she reported.

  She also came close to encountering the rarest and most beautiful of the wild cats, the snow leopard. When Peter Mathiessen wrote his haunting book The Snow Leopard about this near mythic beast only two Westerners were ever thought to have seen one.

  ‘I once saw its prints outside the cave and on the window- sill,’Tenzin Palmo said, her voice rising with excitement at the memory. ‘There were these big pug marks, very strange with a kind of hole in the middle. I drew it and later showed it to two zoologists and they both immediately said it was snow leopard, which apparently has a distinctive paw.’ While the elusive snow leopard might well have seen Tenzin Palmo, much to her sorrow she did not ever see it.

  More exotic and enticing still were the completely bizarre set of footprints that she found one morning in the snow running along the boundary wall. She looked at them in puzzlement:

  ‘Everyone says there are no bears in Lahoul but the first year that I was there I discovered these huge footprints outside the fence. They were much bigger than a man’s but looked similar to a human’s with an instep. You could see all the toes but they also had claws. It looked like a human print with claws. And these footprints came all the way down from the mountain and had got to where the boundary was and the creature was obviously very confused. I think this must have been its cave. You could see from the tracks the prints made, it was wandering around and then it went up again.’

  Could it possibly have been the mythical Yeti? Had Tenzin Palmo inadvertently moved into a Yeti’s den?

  ‘I don’t know – I never saw the footprints again. But the Tibetans are familiar enough with the creature, whatever it is, to have a name for it, and tell stories about it. Lamas also talk about it so I don’t see why it should not exist,’she said. Further support for the actual existence of the Yeti came in 1997 when Agence France Press reported that ‘bigfoot’ tracks had been found in Shennonija National Nature Reserve, in Hubei province, by China’s Researchers for Strange and Rare Creatures: ’The head of the committee said a research team found hundreds of footprints 2600 metres above sea level. The biggest footprint is thirty-seven centimetres long, very similar to that of a man but larger than that of a man’s, and is different from the footprint of a bear or any other identified animals,’ the story read.

  Much more familiar were the rodents – the same rodents that ate the cabbages and peas Tenzin Palmo attempted to grow in her garden. They came into her store-room trying to get at her grains and dried vegetables and again Tenzin Palmo adopted a curiously friendly attitude towards these intruders.

  ’They were mostly mice and hamsters and in the autumn there were an awful lot of them. They were terribly sweet. Sometimes I used to trap them in a cage and then take them outside and let them go. It was very interesting watching them because each one you trapped had a different response,’ she said, hinting at the Buddhist belief that animals, since they possess minds, are subject to reincarnation like the rest of us. In this respect it was perfectly logical that animals could well be former or future human beings in the endless stream of becoming and unbecoming.

  ’Some of them were frightened and would cower in the corner of the cage. Others would be very angry and roar and try and rip the cage trying to get out. Others would put their little paws on the bars and push their noses through and look at you and allow you to pet them. They’d be so friendly. Each one had completely different reaction,’ she went on.

  ’Then there were the martens, which look a bit like weasels only prettier. They were grey with a white front, huge eyes and a big bushy tail. There was one that used to slide open the window get inside my store-room and head for the saucepan which had my bread inside wrapped in a cloth. This marten would take off the saucepan lid, unwrap the cloth and then eat the bread. It wasn’t like a rat, which would just gnaw through the cloth. Then it would proceed to unscrew the plastic lids of the containers holding the fat, pull off the zinc covering then eat it. It was amazing. Everything I had it would undo. I tried putting food outside for it but this would often get frozen and the marten would look so let down. I read somewhere that if you can catch one when they’re young they make excellent pets because they’re so intelligent.’

  Another visitor
was the little stoat which she caught sight of in her garden. It was about to run away when it obviously thought better of it and bravely decided to approach Tenzin Palmo instead.

  ‘It came trotting all the way up to me, stood there and looked up. It was so small and I must have been enormous to it. It just stood there looking at me. Then it suddenly became excited.

  It ran back to the fence and began swinging on it, hanging upside down and looking at me all the time to see if I was still watching – like a child.’

  If the animals never frightened her, there was an occasion, just one, when man did. Then it seemed that her breezy optimism that no male would bother to climb that high to harm her was sadly misplaced.

  ‘It was during a summer when a young boy about fifteen or sixteen years old came by with his flock of sheep. He was extremely strange. He would sit on this big boulder near the cave and look down on me. If I smiled at him he would just glare back. One morning I discovered the pole with my prayer flag on it had been thrown down. Another time the stones in my spring had been moved so the water no longer flowed. Then the window to my store-room was smashed, although nothing had been taken. I was certain it was this boy and worried because he had an infinite amount of time to sit there thinking up mischief. He could do anything he wanted! I felt very vulnerable,’ she recalled.

  She was so worried, in fact, that she called on her old friends the Dakinis, praying to them in her familiar way:

  ‘Look here,’ she said, ‘this boy has obviously got a lot of psychological problems, so please do something to change his mind and help him,’ she prayed.

  As usual the Dakinis took up Tenzin Palmo’s challenge.

  ‘A couple of days later I found on my gate a bunch of wild flowers. Then, when I went to my spring not only had it been repaired but it had been put back together so much nicer. After that, when I saw the boy he gave me a nice smile. He was completely transformed. Dakinis are very powerful,’ she added. And so Tenzin Palmo, the girl from Bethnal Green, learnt to live in her cave watching the seasons come and go. As the years went by life took on its own rhythms.

  ‘In winter, which lasted from November to May, the blizzards made it particularly difficult. There would be these great big snow drifts which I had to clear from above the cave with a shovel. That meant I had to walk through it. It was very physical work and not very good for the back. I had to throw the snow over the top of the cave. It took days sometimes. I would just finish and then it would snow again. I would do it over and over again. It had to be done for me to be able to get to my wood pile. The first snow was nice but after months and months of it I’d be saying “Oh no, not again.”

  ’The first signs that spring was on its way were these little rockflowers, very delicate, which would appear usually while it was still snowing. I could spend hours looking at them. Actually, spring was for me the most difficult time. The snow would thaw and come seeping through the cracks of the cave, flooding it. I could actually watch streams of water running down the walls soaking everything. I had sacks to mop it all up, which I would then have to dry and use again. I used to have to lay everything out in the sun to dry out. Even my meditation box, which was above the ground and lined with layers of cloth, would get damp. It was a real nuisance. You’d dry everything out, put it back and then it would flood again. Outside, everything got really muddy. One of the questions which Khamtrul Rinpoche had asked me when he was vetting the cave was whether it was wet. I said “no” because I honestly thought it wasn’t. If he had known how damp and musty it got he might never have agreed to let me live there,’ she conceded.

  By the end of May Tenzin Palmo could begin to garden, planting her vegetables and flowers – cornflowers, marigolds, calendulas. She enjoyed gardening even though it demanded much fetching and carrying of water. For the last three years of her solitary retreat someone sent her a packet of flower seeds from England and her much to her amazement they flourished in that foreign soil, transforming her Lahouli Cave into a cottage garden.

  ’There were dahlias and night-scented stock. So beautiful! But I was the only one to see them,’ she said. By full summer the entire landscape had turned green – the fields, the valleys, and the willow trees planted by the Moravian missionaries to halt the erosion of the landslides. ‘Now, you could burn sitting in the sun while the part of you in the shade would still feel chilly,’ she said.

  In summer the birds started coming back: the choughs, a red-legged crow, were regular visitors. She would watch them perform the beautiful aerial dances for which they are famous, and would sometimes cut pieces off a mat to provide nest furnishings for them. Once, one evening when she was coming back from a rare visit to the village, she came across an extraordinary scene.

  ‘As I turned a corner I saw hundreds upon hundreds of vultures sitting in circles. They were grouped on the boulders, on the ground, all around. It was as though they had come together for a meeting. I had to walk through the middle of them! There was nowhere else for me to pass. Now these birds are big, about three feet high, with hooded eyes and strong, curved beaks. I took a deep breath, started saying the “Om Mani Padme Hung” mantra and walked right through them. They didn’t even move. They just watched me out of the corner of their eyes. Later I remembered that Milarepa had had a dream in which he was a vulture and that among Tibetans these birds are regarded as extremely auspicious,’ she recalled.

  With autumn the world around her was transformed into a blaze of brilliant colour. It was spectacular. ‘The mountains in front of me turned blood red crossed with lines of dazzling yellow – the willow trees whose leaves had turned. Above these were the snow mountains soaring into the bright blue sky. This was the time when the villagers would harvest their crops. I could hear them from my cave singing in the valleys below as they worked their yaks.’

  A letter home to her mother dated 8 May 1985 when she had just begun her long three year retreat revealed how easily she was managing with her difficult situation, and how, inspite of her extreme isolation and singular way of life, others were not forgotten:

  Dearest Amala [Tibetan for ‘mother’],

  How are you? I hope that you are very well. Did you have a nice stay in Saudi?

  No doubt you have written but Tshering Dorje hasn’t been up so there has been no mail. He is rather late and I hope that this is only because of being busy with ploughing and other field work. He did come up in early March as the SP [Superintendent of Police] had brought new forms to be filled out for the visa. Fortunately this year there was not too much snow and February was so mild that most of the snow at that time had melted (it snowed again later, of course). However, poor Tshering Dorje has now developed arthritis in both knees and can only hobble around painfully with a stick – so imagine having to come all the way up to the cave through the snow just so I could sign some papers! He should have forged my signature. Anyway I do hope that his bad knees are not the reason for his not coming now. Lahaul is all up and down and also TD earns his living by leading trekking parties in Ladakh and Zanskar so this is really a big problem for him.

  Here everything is well. This morning I planted out potatoes and more turnips. The weather is still rather cold and it snows from time to time but my cave is not as wet as usual because there was never a really heavy snowfall at one time. My water supply happily kept running all through the winter though it got covered in a canopy of ice every night. What a joy to have water so close by and not to have to bother with melting snow. This also saved on wood.

  So the winter was quiet and pleasant and February so mild and gorgeous that in Keylong they had rain! (The weather made up for it in March and April!)

  My hair is getting long and falling out all over the place. A great nuisance – no wonder the yogis just mat it.

  Because of being in retreat and Tshering Dorje only coming up twice a year you must not worry if there are long intervals between my letters. I can no longer go down to Keylong to post them. Tell May that I wore her sweater (and y
ours) all winter and indeed still have them on. They have been very useful so many thanks. Stay very well, All my love, Tenzin Palmo.

  For all the physical hardships she endured, the misgivings of others and the prejudice against her gender attempting such a feat the truth remained that Tenzin Palmo in her cave was sublimely happy.

  ’There was nowhere else I wanted to be, nothing else I wanted to be doing. Sometimes I would stand at the edge of my patio and look out across the mountains and think, “If you could be any place in the whole world, where would you want to be?” And there was nowhere else. Being in the cave was completely satisfying. I had all the conditions I needed to practise. It was a unique opportunity and I was very, very grateful.’

  Chapter Nine

  Facing Death

  For all her easy dismissal of her friends’ concerns and her own genuine disinterest in her own safety and physical well-being, the dangers that Tenzin Palmo faced in her cave were real. Calamity struck more than once and as had been feared there was no rescue service, no doctor, no telephone, no friend to come to her aid. Tenzin Palmo faced each crisis head-on and alone. It was what she had bargained for when she had decided to enter the cave.

  ‘When you go into retreat you make a vow for how long you are going to go in and you stick to it. It’s considered part of the practice. Even if you are sick you pledge that you will not come out. If necessary you have to be prepared to die in retreat. Actually, if you do die it’s considered auspicious,’ she explained.

  Extraordinarily, considering her medical history, in those extreme conditions she was never as ill as she had been as a child. She did not break a leg, get appendicitis nor contract any of the diseases Westerners often get in Asia like cholera and hepatitis. But she was often sick. In that damp cave she got frequent chills, which brought with them high fevers. She simply lived through them. ‘You cope because you have to. The Tibetans have a saying: “If you’re sick you’re sick. If you die, you die.” So that takes care of the problem,’ she said pragmatically. Once she discovered a lump under her arm, but carried on meditating regardless. ‘I forgot all about it and at the end of the retreat I suddenly remembered it but it had gone.’