Inside her cave she was doing more than just sit in her meditation box. During her break she painted – beautiful pictures of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. She copied out texts for her monastery in the elegant calligraphy that she had taught herself. And as she had done all her life, she read prolifically and deeply all the works she could get her hands on about the Buddha and about teachings, including works belonging to other traditions. It was highly unusual – most Tibetan Buddhists never stepped outside their own literature. This learning was to hold in her good stead later on (in a way she could hardly imagine), when she would draw on it time and time again to back up a point she was making.
‘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 spu
rred 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.
There was powerful Vajrayogini, bright red and standing proudly naked in a circle of fire, firm breasts thrust out, legs apart in her mystic dance. Here was a feisty female to whom all modern women could relate. Vajrayogini was queen of her own realm and interceder for no one – an unusual accolade for a woman in her position. (The Christian Queen of Heaven, the Virgin Mary, being hailed as the arch interceder.) Alone of all the tantric deities, Vajrayogini was so independent that she was depicted without a consort. Instead she carried her mystic lover around with her as a ritual implement slung over her shoulder, like a handbag, transforming it into a living man whenever the divine occasion demanded.
There was the exquisite Kwan Yin, labelled Regarder of the Cries of the World for her all-embracing compassionate heart. There was the mighty Prajnaparamita, the Mother of All Buddhas, sitting strong and solid on her lotus throne, embodying absolute wisdom, out of which all things arose.
There were these and there were many, many more. Loved and worshipped though these female Buddhas were, however, there was no evidence that they ever existed in human form. As a result they stayed on the level of archetypes. Idealized figures, female icons, forever perfect and perpetually out of reach.
Then there were stories – fabulous tales of derring-do and remarkable spiritual achievements carried out by just a few women who had lived in the Land of Snows and who had risen to eminence in that overtly patriarchal culture. These were the heroines who had all the prerequisites necessary for their role. They were high-spirited, fiercely independent, outrageously brave in combating the social mores of their culture, and most especially relentlessly single-minded in their determination to reach Enlightenment. The accounts of their deeds had become woven into the national folklore, standing as beacons of inspiration, telling of what might be possible.
The most famous by far was Yeshe Tsogyel, also known as the Sky Dancer. Born in 757 AD to a noble family, Yeshe Tsogyel from an early age showed all the signs of spiritual precociousness. Her one avowed intent was, she declared, to become a Buddha in one lifetime. With this in mind, she refused her arranged marriage on the grounds that she had better things to do with her ‘precious human body’ than romp in the conjugal bed, thereby bringing the wrath of her outraged suitors and disgraced parents down on her head. After many vicissitudes she eventually met the man who saved her life, Padma Sambhava, the man credited with bringing Buddhism to Tibet from India and hailed as a Buddha in his own right by his many followers. Padma Sambhava became not only Yeshe Tsogyel’s mentor and guru, but her mystic lover as well. Yeshe Tsogyel loved Padma Sambhava passionately, reverently, and with an exquisite lack of inhibition. The details of their divine union are poetically explicit and shrouded in tantric metaphor:
Then without shame or in the manner of the world, gladly and with devotion, I, Tsogyel, prepared the mystic mandala and offered it to my Guru. The radiance of his smile of compassion shone in five-fold rays of light so that the microcosmic universes were pervaded by clear light, before again the beams of light concentrated in his face. Invoking the deity with the ejaculations DZA! and HUNG! the light descended through his body and his mystical vajra arose in wrath and as Vajra Krodha he united with the serene lotus in absolute harmony.
Even in the midst of her ecstasy, however, Yeshe Tsogyel, never having lost sight of her own purpose, implored her lover to teach her the ’sacred word which transcends cause and effect’. Padma Sambhava complied, but as the Sky Dancer was to discover, a woman harbouring the ultimate ambition was to be tested as severely as any man. Going to a series of caves in order to undergo her training, she suffered the most extreme asceticisms: she sat naked in blizzards until her skin blistered with the cold in her attempts to raise the mystic inner heat; she forsook all gross food until she learnt to ‘eat air’; she prostrated until the bones of her forehead stuck out through her skin. Often she came close to death but she persevered. In the end her tenacity was rewarded.
Her own words, written by her biographer Taksham Nuden Dorje, and translated by Keith Dowman in his evocative book Sky Dancer, reveal the sublime state her austerities brought her to: ‘I was transformed into the Pure Being that functions to imbue all creatures of the infinite universe with the value and meaning of existence, and I gained the innate ability to understand and employ any of the qualities of the Buddha at will.’
From then on the glory of Yeshe Tsogyel’s achievements were displayed to the full. Everywhere she went (and the records show she travelled extensively throughout Tibet and Nepal), people were dazzled by her wisdom, compassion, and supernatural powers. She could walk through solid objects, ride on sunbeams, levitate, and on one occasion she raised the son of a Nepalese merchant from the dead by pointing her index finger at his heart until it began to glow and the blood began coursing through his veins once more. But it was at the spiritual show-down with the followers of Tibet’s old religion, Bon, that Yeshe Tsogyel really showed what she was made of. Levitating in the full lotus position before the multitude, she spun wheels of fire from the tip of each finger, shattering a massive boulder nearby and then moulding it ‘like butter’ into various images. As a final flourish she then hurled thunderbolts at the black magicians, flattening their settlement once and for all. The disbelievers were converted, reasoning that if a woman could perform such supreme feats then the power of the Buddha must be mighty indeed.
More than a mistress of spiritual pyrotechnics, Yeshe Tsogyel was a woman of wisdom. She was accredited with organizing the writing of all of Padma Sambhava’s teachings, many of which were hidden for future generations to find and benefit from. It was a vast undertaking, consisting of thousands of tomes, and an extraordinary accomplishment for a woman of her time, when female illiteracy was the norm.
On a personal level her influence was equally enormous, the beauty and power of her words reaching not only kings, queens and ministers, the crowds who thronged to hear her, but also those who wished her harm. On one momentous occasion she turned and faced her seven rapists and sang them the following song:
My sons you have met a sublime consort, the Great Mother, And by virtue of your resources of accumulated merit, Fortuitously, you have received the four empowerments, Concentrate upon the evolution of the four levels of joy.
Needless to say her attackers were completely disarmed by her reaction to their violence and immediately became her disciples.
Yeshe Tsogyel gave food to the hungry, clothes to the poor, medicine to the sick and her body to whoever might need it. At one point she married a leper out of compassion for his lonely, hopeless state. But it is in the description of her attainment of Buddhahood that the real power and persuasiveness of the Yeshe Tsogyel story lies. For in this one instance all gender bias is suspended and woman is afforded equal supreme spiritual status to man. It is a glorious moment. Interestingly the tale contains remarkable parallels to the sequence of events related in Buddha Shakyamuni’s Enlightenment. Just as the Buddha sat under the bodhi tree in Bodhgaya while Mara, the great illusionist, threw all manner of obstructions at him in a last-ditch attempt to prevent his Awakening, so the Sky Dancer sat in a cave in Tibet rapt in meditative equipoise while demons posed an all-out attack on her. In Yeshe Tsogyel’s version, however, there is a distinctive feminist twist. While the Buddha was tempted by voluptuous maidens, Yeshe Tsogyel was lured by ‘charming youths, handsome, with fine complexions, glowing with desire, strong and capable, young men at whom a girl need only glance to feel excited’. She resolutely resisted them all - of course – as did the Buddha his female sirens. Finally she reached her goal.
At that moment Padma Sambhava heaped praises upon
her. His words not only reflected the glory of Yeshe Tsogyel’s accomplishment, but surprisingly revealed the superiority of female capacity to reach such an exalted state:
Oh yogini who has mastered the Tantra,
The gross bodies of men and women are equally suited,
But if a woman has strong aspiration, she has higher potential.
From beginningless time you have accrued merit from virtue and awareness,
And now, faultless, endowed with a Buddha’s Qualities,
Superior woman, you are a human Bodhisattva.
This is you I am speaking of, happy girl, is it not?
Now that you have achieved your own enlightenment,
Work for others, for the sake of other beings.
Such a marvellous woman as you
Never existed in the world before
Not in the past, not at present,
Not in the future – of this I am certain.
Yeshe Tsogyel left this earth at Zapu Peak in central Tibet on a palanquin of light shaped like an eight-petalled lotus.
As she dissolved into radiant light her disembodied voice could be heard pouring forth final words of wisdom and exaltations of joy.
For all its inspiration and soaring heights of poetry, the Yeshe Tsogyel story took place 1,300 years ago. How much of it was believable? Over the centuries it had inevitably been embossed with symbolism and exaggeration, so that to most Westerners the Sky Dancer represented more metaphor than real woman.
Certainly to Tenzin Palmo, Yeshe Tsogyel was no help at all.
’She never meant anything to me,’ she declared.
More plausible was the other great heroine of Tibetan Buddhism, Machig Lapdron. Although she also belonged to an entirely different age, having lived from 1055 to 1145 AD, she was responsible for founding one of the most important and widespread rituals still practised to this day. At a purely external level Chod is blood-curdling stuff. In essence it involves the practitioner taking him or herself off to a charnel ground or cemetery in the dead of night and there, surrounded by decomposing corpses and the stench of death, visualizing the systematic dismemberment of his or her own body right down to the eyes, brain and entrails. When it is done all the pieces are visualized being put into a pot, boiled up and offered to all beings to satisfy their every craving. While the Tibetans may have been a wild, unruly bunch with a love of swashbuckling stories, Chod contains meaning of profound significance. By these seemingly gruesome visualizations, what the meditator is doing is giving up the object of greatest attachment – the body. Chopping it up and putting it into a sacred cauldron to transform into nectar before offering it to all sentient beings thus becomes the ultimate exercise in relinquishing the ego the supreme act of selflessness.
Cave in the snow. A western woman’s quest for enlightenment Page 15