If the results of meditation could be sensational, the path toEnlightenment was plodding and exceedingly hard work. There was a lot to do and an inconceivably long way to go. The lamas said if you reached there in three lifetimes you were moving incredibly quickly, for the task at hand was the transformation of the body, speech and mind into that of a Buddha. No less. Understanding this, the Tibetans had developed the Way into a science. Anyone could do it, given the texts which held the instructions, the initiations which conferred the empowerment and the right motivation which ensured the seeker did not fall into the abyss of self-interest. There were clear-cut paths to take, detailed directions to follow, delineated levels to reach each marked with their own characteristics so that you knew precisely where you were. There were specific landmarks to watch out for, special yogic exercises to do, and a myriad aids harnessing all the senses to propel the seeker forward. This was the mind working on the mind, consciousness working on consciousness, the task at hand unlocking the secrets of that three-pound universe contained within our own heads. In short, what Tenzin Palmo was engaging in was arguably the most important and significant adventure of all time – the exploration of inner space.
Dr Robert Thurman, Professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at Columbia University, New York, one of the world’s most lucid and entertaining exponents of Buddhism, put it this way: ‘What the meditator is doing in those long retreats is a very technical thing. He’s not just sitting there communing with the Great Oneness. He’s technically going down, pulling apart his own nervous system to become self-aware from out of his own cells. It’s like you are using Word Perfect and you are in the chip. And you are self-aware of being in the chip. The way you have done that is by stabilizing your mind where you can go down to the dots and dashes, and you’ve gone down and down even into that.
‘In other words the Mahayana Buddhist, filled with the technical understanding of tantra, has become a quantum physicist of inner reality,’ he continued. ‘What he has done is disidentified from the coarse conceptual and perceptual process. He’s gone down to the neuronal level, and from inside the neuronal level he’s gone down to the most subtle neuronal level, or supra-neuronal level and he’s become where it is like the computer is self-consciously aware of itself. The yogi goes right down to below machine language – below the sub atomic level.
‘When you have done this what you have achieved is not some kind of mystical thing but some very concrete, evolutionary thing. It’s the highest level of evolution. That’s what the Buddha is defined as. The highest level of evolution.’
Personally Tenzin Palmo had never doubted the efficacy of the methods she was following. ‘Tibet had been producing Enlightened beings like an assembly line for centuries. For such a small population it was extraordinary,’ she said.
Being a methodical and highly conscientious person, she had started at the beginning with the preliminary practices, which she had begun in Dalhousie and Lahoul long before she went into the cave. These consisted of certain rites such as mandala offerings, where the practitioner builds up a symbolic universe on small silver trays decorated with ‘precious’ items and offers it to all the Buddhas, or doing full-length prostrations, or mantra recitation. These are then performed literally hundreds of thousands of times in order to prepare and soften the mind for the esoteric tantric meditations that were to follow. In the cave Tenzin Palmo did them all again. At one point she fasted completely (although she would not reveal for how long). At another she conducted a partial fast while simultaneously doing prostrations and singing praises to Chenrezig, the thousand-armed Buddha of compassion. Always an extremely arduous exercise both physically and mentally, this time it was made even more difficult by the extreme conditions in which she was living.
‘It was winter and I didn’t have the right food. What I was eating was too heavy. When you fast it’s much better if you have light, nourishing food. So, physically it was quite tough. I got digestive problems and became very weak,’ she said, while refusing to amplify any further.
Mentally, however, it worked. ‘The mind does become purified. The prayers are very beautiful and the mind grows extremely clear and light, very devoted and open,’ she confirmed.
After she had done six months of purification practice, Tenzin Palmo had a dream. Arguably it revealed more than anything she said, the level of spiritual development she had reached.
‘I was in a prison, a vast prison composed of many different levels,’ she began. ‘On the top floor people were living in luxury, in penthouse type splendour, while in the basement others were undergoing terrible torture. In the intermediate floors the rest of the inhabitants were engaged in various activities in diverse conditions. Suddenly I realized that no matter what level people were on, we were all nevertheless trapped in a prison. With that I found a boat and decided to escape taking as many people as I could with me. I went all over the prison telling people of their predicament and urging them to break free. But no matter how hard I tried, they all seemed to be locked in an awful inertia and in the end only two people had the will and the courage to come with me.
‘We got into the boat, and even though there were prison guards around, nobody stopped us as we sailed out of the prison to the world outside. Once we were there we started to run alongside the prison. As I looked over at it I could still see all the people in the windows busily engaged in their different activities, not the least concerned about the truth of their situation. We ran for miles and miles on a path parallel to the prison which seemed never-ending. I became increasingly exhausted and dispirited. I felt I was never going to get beyond the prison and that we might as well return and go back in. I was about to give up when I realized that the two other people who had followed me out had their hopes pinned on me and that if I gave up they would be doomed as well. I couldn’t let them down, so I kept going.
‘Immediately we came to a T-junction beyond which was a completely different landscape. It was like suburbia. There were these neat houses with flowery borders and trees. We came to the first house and knocked at the door. A nice middle-aged woman opened it, looked at us and said, “Oh, you’ve come from that place. Not many people get out. You’ll be OK now, but you must change your clothes. To go back would be dangerous, but you must try to help others also to get out.” At that point I had a great surge of aspiration. “I have tried but no one wants to come,” I told the woman. She replied, “Those in power will be helping you.” At that I said, “I dedicate myself to working with them so that I can help free all beings.”
‘I woke up at that point – and giggled at the image of the middle-aged lady in suburbia,’ she said.
The dream was clear. In her subconscious Tenzin Palmo had pledged herself to lead the great escape out of the prison of Samsara, the realms of suffering existence we’re condemned to until we reach the eternal freedom of Enlightenment. She had also internalized, it seemed, the Bodhisattva ideal of unconditioned altruism.
When she was not doing her preliminary practices she worked on her Single Pointed Concentration – the meditative discipline which trains the mind to focus single-pointedly on one subject without interruption. Yogis were said to be able to stay in this state for days, weeks, months even, without moving, their mind totally absorbed on the wonders of their inner reality. Single Pointed Concentration, or Samadhi, was essential for penetrating the nature of reality and discovering absolute truth. It was also exceedingly difficult, the mind habitually wanting to dance all over the place flitting from one random thought to another, from fantasy to fantasy, perpetually chattering away to itself, expending vast quantities of energy in an endless stream of trivia. The mind was like a wild horse, they said, that needed to be reined in and trained. When the mind’s energy was harnessed and channelled like a laser beam on a single subject, its power was said to be tremendous. Ultimately this was the high-voltage power-tool needed to dig down into the farthest reaches of the mind, unlocking the greatest treasures buried there.
‘For any practice to work,’ said Tenzin Palmo, ‘the mind which is meditating and the object of meditation must merge. Often they are facing each other. One has to become completely absorbed, then the transformation will occur. The awareness naturally drops from the head to the heart – and when that happens the heart opens and there is no “I”. And that is the relief. When one can learn to live from that centre rather than up in the head, whatever one does is spontaneous and appropriate. It also immediately releases a great flow of energy because it is not at all obstructed as it usually is by our own intervention. One becomes more joyful and light, in both senses of the word.’
A young Tenzin Palmo (centre), then known as Diane Perry, in her home town, London. ‘Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride - I better do it and make sure,’ she had said.
Gerald York (editor of a Buddhist magazine), a youthful Chogyam Trungpa (Tenzin Palmo’s first meditation teacher), and author John Blofeld (Tenzin Palmo’s future sponsor), at the Buddhist Society Summer School, Hertfordshire, 1962.
Aged twenty-one in 1964, just after her novice ordination. Tenzin Palmo wrote to her mother on the back: ‘You see? I look healthy! I should have been laughing then you would know that I am also happy!’
‘Kailash’, the former British hill station house in Dalhousie which Freda Bedi turned into her Young Lama’s Home School. Tenzin Palmo’s first port of call in India, 1964.
A class of young Tulkus (reincarnated lamas) whom Tenzin Palmo taught at Kailash, Dalhousie, 1964.
Early days in Dalhousie, 1966. Choegyal Rinpoche (who taught Tenzin Palmo Buddhist stories), Khamtrul Rinpoche (Tenzin Palmo’s guru), Lee Perry (Tenzin Palmo’s mother) and Togden Anjam.
Tenzin Palmo, one of the first Western women to receive full Bhikshuni ordination, Hong Kong, 1973. Sakya Trizin, Tenzin Palmo’s ’second’ guru, remarked, ‘You look like a bald-headed Virgin Mary!’
Some of the monks whom Tenzin Palmo befriended during her six-year stay at Tayul monastery, Lahoul, between 1970 and 1976.
Houses of the monks and nuns of Tayul monastery. The flat roofs provided perfect venues for winter parties.
Still close: renowned artist Choegyal Rinpoche and Tenzin Palmo with the late 8th Khamtrul Rinpoche in the background. Tashi Jong monastery, Kangra Valley, 1997.
Tenzin Palmo with the ‘new’ 9th Khamtrul Rinpoche, Tashi Jong, 1997.
Togden Cholo, one of the elite meditators of Tashi Jong and a close friend of Tenzin Palmo.
The young 8th Khamtrul Rinpoche in Tibet, circa 1958, surrounded by the regalia of his unique status. Shortly afterwards he was a refugee.
The stupa (reliquary) Tenzin Palmo built on a ledge outside her cave as an act of religious devotion.
Inside Tenzin Palmo’s cave, showing the wood-burning stove, table, bookcase with cloth-wrapped texts, pictures of Buddhas, and the meditation box. ‘People were surprised how neat and tidy it was. It was a very pukka cave,’ she said.
Outside the cave, drying out her soaked possessions after the spring thaw – the cave leaked dreadfully. Note the size of her meditation box (upright to the left of the cave), her ‘bed’ for twelve years.
Tenzin Palmo’s garden in which she grew turnips and potatoes (her only source of fresh food) and flowers.
13,200 feet above sea level, a cave with a view! During the eight-month-long winter Tenzin Palmo was presented with a solid wall of white. because it’s going back to the source, the heart, rather than being in exile in the head. Our modern scientific approach has thrown such emphasis on the brain, we’re all so cut off. That is why so many people feel life is meaningless and sterile.’
When she had finished all her preparations she got down to the core of her practice, tantra – the alchemical process which promised the transformation to full awakening. If the end result was magical, the business of getting there was infinitely prosaic and, some would say, horribly tedious. Every day for the months and years she was in formal retreat inside her cave she got into her meditation box and followed the same gruelling, utterly repetitive routine: Up at 3 a.m. for the first three-hour meditation session; 6 a.m. breakfast (tea and tsampa); 8 a.m.back into the box for the second three-hour meditation session;11 a.m. lunch and a break; 3 p.m. return to the box for the third three-hour meditation session; 6 p.m. tea; 7 p.m. the fourth three-hour session; 10 p.m. ‘bed’ – in the meditation box! All in all that amounted to twelve hours of meditation a day - day in, day out, for weeks, months and years on end. Ironically for a woman who left the world, she had a clock to time all her sessions and was living a life as disciplined and structured as any worker on the factory floor.
For all the mind-numbing monotony she was never bored. ’Sometimes I would think that if I were having to watch the same TV programme four times a day I’d have gone up the wall,’ she said candidly. ‘But in retreat there’s a pattern that emerges. At first it is very interesting. Then you hit a period when it’s excruciatingly boring. And then you get a second wind after which it becomes more and more fascinating until at the end it’s much more fascinating and interesting than it was in the beginning. That’s how it is even if you’re doing the same thing four times a day for three years. It’s because the material begins to open up its real meaning and you discover level after level of inner significance. So, at the end you are much more involved in it and totally identified with it than you were at the beginning,’ she said.
She remained deliberately vague about the precise nature of the material she was working with. ‘I was doing very old traditional practices ascribed to the Buddha himself. He revealed them to various great masters who then wrote them down after having realized them themselves. They involve a lot of visualization and internal yogic practices,’ she hinted. ‘Basically, you use the creative imaginative faculty of the mind to transform everything, both internally and externally. The creative imagination in itself is an incredibly powerful force. If you channel it in the right way it can reach very deep levels of mind which can’t be accessed through verbal means or mere analysis. This is because on a very deep level we think in pictures. If you are using pictures which have arisen in an Enlightened mind, somehow that unlocks very deep levels in our own minds.
‘What you are dealing with are images which are a reflection of the deepest qualities within oneself,’ she continued. ‘They are reflections of one’s Buddha mind, therefore they are a skilful means for leading you back to who one really is. That’s why, when you practise, things occur and experiences happen.’
Maybe it was her Cockney upbringing which taught her to be cheerful in adversity and gave her resilience, maybe it was her psychological make-up, which was unusually well-balanced and unneurotic, or perhaps it was that for some reason she was predisposed to be up in the mountains meditating all alone, but Tenzin Palmo claims that for her there was no dark night of the soul. There was never a moment when those legendary demons confronted by other recluses rose up to torment and taunt. She suffered no moments of madness, no paranoia, no agonizing periods of doubt or depression. And not for a second was she prey to the barbs of lust that seemed to attack the most ‘holy’ of male hermits. ‘I found myself surrounded by bands of dancing girls. My face was pale with fasting but though my limbs were cold as ice my mind was burning with desire and the forces of lust kept bubbling up before me when my flesh was as good as dead,’ cried St Jerome before going off to flagellate himself in repentance.
None of this happened to Tenzin Palmo. ‘I didn’t encounter anything that was particularly awful – maybe because I didn’thave a traumatic childhood. I was very lucky in that respect,’she suggested.
While she may not have hit the spiritual wall in any dramatic fashion, she claims she did not get off scot-free. The pitfalls were there, lethal just the same. It was inevitable. With no social life to distract her, no roles to fulfil, no other person to deflect her feelings on to, the masks all fell away. Now the mirror was held up to herself. It was not always a comfortable sight. ‘In retreat you see
your nature in the raw, and you have to deal with it,’ she said.
‘I may not have heavy negative karma but that does not mean my problems don’t exist. They are just not so transparent and therefore more difficult to catch,’ she said. She elaborated:’When you get into the practice you begin to see how it should be done, and when it is not you begin to ask yourself “why?"In my case it came down to laziness, a fundamental inertia. That’s my main problem. It’s tricky. It’s not like facing the tigers and wolves of anger and desire. Those sort of problems you can grapple with. My failings are much more insidious they hide in the undergrowth so that they are more difficult to see,’ she confessed.
The laziness she was referring to was not the idleness of sitting around doing nothing, of being slothful, of engaging in frivolous tasks. Tenzin Palmo could never be accused of that. Instead it was laziness of a much more subtle kind. ‘One knows how to practise, and of that one is perfectly capable. But one settles for second or third best. It is like getting the progress prize at school – one is not really doing one’s best. It’s a very low grade of effort and it is much more serious than having a bad temper. The times when I have genuinely put my whole self into something, the results have surprised even me.’
Cave in the snow. A western woman’s quest for enlightenment Page 14