Tenzin Palmo - Modern Women on the Path to Enlightenment

Tenzin Palmo is a truly extraordinary person. One of the first Western women to be ordained as a Buddhist nun, she lived, studied, and practiced in monasteries for over twenty years—including twelve years of intensive retreat in a Himalayan cave. Today she is an articulate and inspiring example for spiritual aspirants around the world. In this exclusive interview, Tenzin Palmo speaks with EnlightenNext’s Jessica Roemischer specifically about the opportunities, advantages, and unique challenges for women today on the path to enlightenment.

Having had to break through and then transcend a traditionally male-dominated Tibetan Buddhist system in order to pursue her own spiritual aspirations, Tenzin Palmo has discovered and explored many unique aspects of a women's path to liberation. Acknowledging that for a fully realized person the distinctions of male and female ultimately fall away, she nonetheless applies her hard-won knowledge and understanding of the intricacies of her own gender's social conditioning in order to help a new generation of women excel in their pursuit of freedom. With so many women able to exercise an unprecedented degree of autonomy, Tenzin Palmo says, they must learn to use that freedom to break the limiting and divisive boundaries of their own culture and biology. “Not to become second class men,” she states, “but to become first-class women.”

BIO

Venerable Tenzin Palmo was raised in London and became a Buddhist while in her teens. In 1964, at the age of twenty, she decided to go to India to pursue her spiritual path.

There she met her Guru, His Eminence the 8th Khamtrul Rinpoche, a great Drukpa Kagyu lama, and became one of the first Westerners to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun. She remained with Khamtrul Rinpoche and his community in Himachal Pradesh, northern India, for six years and then he directed her to the Himalayan valley of Lahaul in order to undertake more intensive practice. Tenzin Palmo stayed in a small monastery there for several years, remaining in retreat during the long winter months. Then, seeking more seclusion and better conditions for practice, she found a nearby cave where she remained for another 12 years, the last 3 years in strict retreat. She left India in 1988 and went to stay in Italy where she taught at various Dharma centres.

Before H.E. Khamtrul Rinpoche passed away in 1980, he had on several occasions requested Tenzin Palmo to start a nunnery. She understood the importance of this and remembers:

'When I was staying at a small monastery in Lahaul I saw for myself that nuns, however intelligent and devoted, had no opportunity to study and no access to higher teachings. It made me so sad because the monks were given all the teachings and put into retreats while the nuns were overlooked and treated as servants.'

In 1993, the Lamas of the Khampagar monastery in Himachal Pradesh India again made this request. This time Tenzin Palmo was ready to take on the formidable task and she began slowly raising interest worldwide.