An English Woman Who Becomes a Buddhist Monk! | TRACKS

[Music] [Music] [Music] in the 1970s a strange visitor walked across a remote pass in the far north of India young English woman Diane Perry ventured into the snow Laden peaks of the Himalayan mountains what was it she was looking for I believed from a very early age that we were inherently perfect and that we had to come back again and again to realize and attain to our innate perfection so therefore my two big questions were what is perfection and how do we attain it and I asked many people teachers and priests and and everybody who I thought might know they all say you have to be good or you have to be good you have to be kind and I felt well yeah of course you have to be good and kind but that's not it because I mean many people I know are good and kind but they're not perfect perfection is beyond that that's just the foundation Diane Perry's search for perfection led her to Tibetan Buddhism taking on the name of Tenzin Parma she isolated herself in a cave 14,000 feet above sea level here with only the company of wolves and snow leopards she embarked on a 12-year period of intensive Buddhist meditation for eight months of the year during the harsh winters the cave was entirely cut off from the rest of the world [Music] the whole point of being in these long retreats is that it gives time to really merge with the practice and also it has to do with this whole idea of identity of the roles which we normally play I mean if one is relating with others than one is relating within a role even if it's male or female you know once profession mother daughter husband wife doctors lawyers laborers whatever we all have certain roles which were playing for others and interest and extent to ourselves and when one is in solitude especially when one is looking inside then it gives a chance for all these various identifications to be peeled away because why bother to play roles to oneself and if it gives a chance the space for more deep layers of the consciousness to start arising and be identified tenzin Parma is now one of the most learned and influential Tibetan Buddhist nuns in the world it has been a long and difficult journey for the girl from Bethnal Green I was born in 1943 during the Second World War in hartfordshire but brought up in Bethnal Green in East London then my father was a fishmonger and I have an older brother who was six years old and myself my father died when I was two years old and so then my mother took over the official and struggled to bring up my brother and myself I think I was really quite a typical English girl I always thought it was a pity I mean in a way being a kind of Church of England anglo-saxon in the middle of London in those days was the same as being sort of nothing and I ended my Jewish friends who had a strong sense of identity and cultural identity which I think you know the average person this board up in London didn't have I didn't feel a very deep connection with Jesus I didn't believe Jesus could save us save us more only we can save ourselves God is inside it's not something out sitting in the sky pulling the strings and you have to rediscover your own inner you know spark of the divine so during my adolescence I was looking into many religions trying to find a very clear definition and path for regaining our true nature when I was a team I read a book on on Buddhism and immediately recognized that this is what I had always believed although I hadn't realized that there actually was a religion which put it so nicely and so clearly I mean far better than I had ever for me they did it for myself and then gradually I became interested in Tibetan Buddhism and so when I was 20 I left for India in order to find a teacher [Music] when Tenzin Parma arrived in India she was one of many Westerners looking for enlightenment in the East she went to stay with another English woman Freda Bedi at a school for young lamas and Dalhousie northern India the school was awaiting the arrival of an important Lama viii Cantrell rinpoche who Tenzin palmo hoped would take her on as a student on the last day of June which was my 21st birthday the phone rang and free debate he answered it and then she said to me well your best birthday present has just arrived down at the bus station time to learn Portuguese here so that I would citta I asked completely in a panic thinking oh my mom has come I had never seen him I didn't know if he was old or young or fat or thin or anything and I had never seen a photo of him so then I went in and I prostrated and I offered the scarf and then I just sat there and I was so nervous that I couldn't even look at him and so I just sat and I stared down at the end of his rope and his brown shoes then I looked up and saw him for the first time and then it was it was first of all as if I was seeing somebody that I knew very well that I hadn't seen for a long time like oh how lovely to see new again and at the same time it was as if the very deepest part of my being had suddenly taken a material form and in front of me that like he had always been inside me but now he was manifested outside and three weeks later I received my first nuns ordination from him which was probably not only the greatest birthday present I could have had but the greatest blessing of my life [Music] [Music] remember che said to me that in previous lives I was able to keep you very close to me but this time you have taken female form so it's more difficult [Applause] I stayed with him and his community for about six years I was working as his secretary and also teaching English to the young monks but because those were very early days they really didn't know what to teach to a Western person and also being female and they only nun I didn't belong anywhere I didn't belong in the lay community I also didn't belong in the monastery so although it was wonderful being near to Rinpoche me of the Lamas it was also a time of great loneliness people asked if I was lonely in the cave but I wasn't lonely in the cave I was very lonely when I lived in the community and also very frustrated because I couldn't really get any solid teachings it was impossible to fight the prejudice within a monastery there was no way not only because of being Western but because of being female I mean I saw it when male Westerners came how they were treated and how much teachings they were given even if they weren't even Buddhists what to speak of monks if they were just scholars or just anybody that turned up I mean the lamas automatically without even questioning it gave them all sorts of teaching and so much time and so much attention just because they were males [Music] eventually after several years at the monastery Tenzin Palmer got enough teachings to feel confident she could go into extended retreat on the advice of her Lara chemtrail rinpoche she began to look for a suitable place eventually I heard there was sort of cave up on them on the mountain about an hour so away from tyre gompa so one day a group of us of monks and nuns we went up the mountain to have a look and so then when I saw it I thought that this would be a very ideal place to to stay so we built it up and made a proper wall and put in doors and windows and then mudded it over on the outside in the inside then I moved in [Music] this is the parrot cape we are tannenbaum or lipped for tulip years alone in the retreat here she put a small box that meditation box that is dividends called the gum T in the gum today did you can just sit as a in a meditation posture but you cannot lie down that she did for 12 years like Buddha did for six years but she lived for 12 years here in this high mountain tip so this is the meditation box and then this was a box which I used as the table and then is a Tibetan books wrapped in cloth mister the window this is the stove pipe and when Mom was in retreat then normally the day was divided into four sessions so you one got up around three and did the first session until 6:00 and then had breakfast and then start again around 8 until 11:00 and then I had lunch and then I had a break I mean there was always things to do especially winter a lot of clearing snow and chopping wood and another tasks and then just start again at 3 for number 3 hours and then have a tea break and then again in the evening there she is she used to grow some vegetables even in summer this small area she grows here turnip cabbages that small fence was there to keep the wild animals away and this is the way where she used to go for fetching water [Music] every year I also would come back to Tashi John does he come to aperture to check up with him when I was away then I would if any ideas came to me I would write questions all sorts of different kinds of questions and I would have these pages of questions and then when I would see him again he had something like and say okay read your list and I would asking all these questions and his answers were always so perfect because he would say well according to this tradition they say this come to that tradition they say that in this book it says this or that and on this level it's like this on this it's like that but I think but this is just my opinion I think and it was always exactly right here is just really he was a Buddha [Music] Henson Palmer's annual visits to her teacher guided her rigorous practice she studied classical Tibetan tax which described complex visualization techniques in accordance with the highest aesthetic traditions she slept for only three hours every night seated in a meditation posture [Music] temperatures drop to below minus 30 degrees snow made the cave damp and dangerous how many months a year did you have snow depended on the year anything from six to eight months yeah sometimes it would start snowing in November and just carry on until May I don't know one time there was a blizzard for a week and and everything got completely submerged by snow and so when you open the door which fortunately opened inwards ah there was just this like wall of ice it was completely black it was blacker than you can I mean it just was no light and I was afraid that the lamp would be eating up oxygen geom because I thought well you know there's mud we completely blocked on all sides everywhere and that there's there's only going to be a little oxygen and then you're gonna use it up very quickly so I thought okay so now I'm gonna die I mean because then you know when I was getting all you know yes you know take care of me in the Bardo and all of that and then I heard this voice inside saying dig out [Laughter] so then I tried thinking of Chris you know because it was a warm then you had to bring the snow into the cave right so indeed it was not the cave in the snow as snow in the cave right and so at first I I tried using a shovel and then after a while the saucepan lid and then as I was making this tunnel trying to go upwards I just scrambled with my my hands and then had this very cold little dot but anyway eventually we hit light and got out and then when I looked out and stuck my head out it was still blizzarding and then I actually tunneled out three times before we got to the outside and it wasn't listening anymore but was the hardest thing you went through when the police officer came at the end and knocked on the door and said you've been handing me a notice saying you've been in the country for three years in the Eagle a big leavin and you better come down because you've got no 72 hours to get out the country even Hermits are subject to bureaucratic red tape and tenzin Parma was forced to leave her beloved mountains she decided to travel to Italy it was some years before she returned to India having planned to spend her life in retreat Tenzin Palmer and I questioned what direction she should take her own early frustrations as a female practitioner or to influence her choice when I lived in lahul I saw so clearly how even though many of the younger nuns were so intelligent and bright and devoted they still had no opportunity for education no opportunity for study no opportunity for deeper practices and this is so throughout all the border regions while the monks are given opportunities for study and practice this is the 19 months who mostly end up just being household servants or servants for the monks there are so many nuns wandering around and will have no nunnery and especially nuns coming from Tibet because in Tibet the nuns are in the forefront of the freedom movement and so they're especially disliked by the Communists and so many of them have tried to come into India some of them succeed some of them don't but many of them are caught at the various borders and then again gang-raped and sent back handed over back to the Chinese to be put in jail many nuns who are here have been imprisoned and interrogated and so forth so they're very inwardly quite traumatized but very brave nuns who have managed to escape Tibet join the ranks of many other nuns in the border regions who have struggled to access teachings [Music] the lack of opportunities for women led tenzin Parma to consider the possibility of starting a nunnery [Music] we went to see an astrologer and so then I said to him look I had these two options either I can go into treet or I couldn't start a nunnery so which should I do and he looked in the chart and then he said well if you're going to retreat very harmonious very peaceful very nice if starting honoring many problems many conflicts many difficulties but both are good so you decide so then I thought well obviously back into retreat and then I met with a Catholic priest and I mentioned this to him and so he said oh well of course you start the nunnery he said what's the use of always being in a in a peaceful Pleasant situation we are like rough pieces of wood and if we're always stroking ourselves with silken velvet that's very nice but it doesn't make a smooth to become smooth what we need to send paper sort of another is my son [Music] having made her decision tenzin Parma embarked on a grueling international schedule of public talks and lectures in order to raise funds for the nunnery project a group of sympathetic volunteers stepped in to help with the logistics [Music] our proceeds goes through GDG Amanda races for the development of the nuts [Music] we think having big houses and fancy cars and lots of money is security but that's totally insecure especially in our present economy we think having family and relationships and children is security but that's not security because people leave people die if all our ideas of happiness and security are on the outside then we are like walking on ice [Music] tenzin Parma's talks and the story of her remarkable journey to become a Buddhist nun caught the imagination of people all over the world she became a Buddhist icon and an international celebrity I think one of the great things about being an analyst you never have to think about your hairdo you never have to think what you're gonna wear okay I don't have to get up in the morning and and open the Wardrobe and gaze at all my my costumes and decide what I'm gonna wear I wear whatever it happens to be clean you don't care what the fashions are no you don't have to care about anything you know what colors in this year or not in this year it's for you the same old color you know a mirror one of the first to recognize the inspirational nature of Tenzin palmo story was journalist Vicky Mackenzie her book cave in the snow has been translated into nine languages it quickly cemented the reluctant heroines Fame I have my glasses so I disagree writing blindly and hope it comes out like a signature proceeds goes to don't you get tooling so I can take a look you'll be a boss Isis thank you you're you know you give us great it's our issue with your courage I come seeking the wisdom generally and for specific things and and it comes through I get it always a gem or two to take home I I saw her two years ago and in Sydney and it's always a German to to take home and really transform my life with and we have noticing that the nuns really are really dedicated and practicing and we hope that in the future and some of them through their studies and further practices can also become teachers of others because there is a great dearth of female teachers in the Tibetan tradition so thank you how is a very unique situation there's long three times the amount nuts then marks so you will definitely find that there'll be more nuns service in this conference than months with me so right over here we will stress equality between the months and nights in regards of activity and what status pitocin is on so you notice that most of those are all not all women but mostly delegates men that's what that woman the Tangerines as a man so this is basically a boys club with the young girls doing all the work and maybe young Chinese girls who are working their guts out for everybody but they the big guys our guys I wasn't even scheduled to speak it's only because they had extra time left over and I think probably the older let's take her in but I mean you buy rights my input would have been absolutely nil in what is tradition we are taught that it's impossible for female or women to attend Buddhahood yeah we have to transform into a male body to become a Buddha here is strongly emphasized the Buddha himself was very open-minded but gradually the song of the community became more missile genic so the traditional meditation was to look for a monk or nun to go and meditate on the body from the top of the head to the soles of the feet as if you're taking the skin off and you're looking inside at what were traditionally called the 32 parts of the body you know the brains the lungs the the heart the spleen the intestines just seeing it as it is so as to create this sense of disenchantment towards the body some centuries later the texts by for example Nagarjuna or Shanti Devi who were great Indian pundits talk about seeing a female in front of you and you're peeling the skin away from her and looking at all her bodily parts or imagining her as a corpse and decomposing and all the worms coming out etc her body is filthy and foul and disgusting she is an object of contempt it's no longer the monk the monks fine and pure it's her and so this this attitude which is in some of the main texts which ultimately study it's very there to you mobile user yeah um I will say on with the class but human with the laughs sorry I didn't go to you my would you didn't have a mobile service for miss inaudible shoo shoo-shoo yes or no if you're not gonna let me get by the generalizability series nobody from my signature OHS on the unity disagree sorry we can't change the buddha himself said that we can change if we could not change I would not tell you to change but we can change we can turn our anger and our sense of of a version and and revenge into understanding and loving kindness and compassion we can do that just know you cuddle me a person would know I cannot cry but now I so touching that you'll love to me I tell nobody love me in this world but you do thank you very much I don't like giving talk otherwise it would be fine if there's always this little voice inside me saying what do you think you're doing and and I think you know what there are times when I really feel trapped by the process so to speak you know ending up starting this nunnery and going on world tours and things like that there are times when I feel a bit like her a rabbit in the cage [Music] the years of touring have borne fruit Tenzin palmo and her team of volunteers have finally raised enough money to purchase land on which the nunnery will be built makeshift accommodation is being used to house the first of many applicants 24 young girls have already arrived and been ordained plans are being made for a nunnery which will eventually house 169 Sophia and how it is being that is it put in puto in this little arena and the court hours in a similar to Amara Family Court and a pure name and promote oin e'n me grumbles are not easy and senatorial formula per line at Denison and situate and it's in another different food item you occasionally liver interference another little gem darling I did not poop Alleluia mana [Music] [Music] she is by temperament to hermit I mean not in the sense of being against the world but the way in which she enters the world the most completely is is of entering as in grace and in as a spiritual support which a tremendous spiritual support to all of her friends and the people who know her now in her expending her time and her energy on an exterior project what worries about her it's as though she's spending on a small specific everything that's great in her and I see it as a tremendous sacrifice of her every moment that she doesn't spend in private meditation is a gift and a sacrifice one of tenzin Palmer's ultimate objectives is to introduce ordination for nuns at the highest level she herself received the full bikini ordination in Hong Kong in 1973 such high ordination is only available in the Chinese Buddhist tradition [Music] echoing the experience of women from many faiths there is continued opposition within Buddhist institutions to the high ordination of women Tenzin Palmer's determination to change the status quo in the Tibetan system has led her to his Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama the spiritual leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile now I feel it is very very important to have one international Sangha sort of conference and discuss the and according to present circumstances of course the but the himself is it out or is it give the ordination the highest ordination for none now therefore now we must pass today we must make effort to possibly to reintroduce Hindu is those Buddhist community after now no longer mission in traditions this is my thorough is a task which not yet accomplished your holiness with all due respect since I was ordained as a big shiny in 73 we are now nearly in 2003 well what progress have we made we're still talking about it you know your holiness getting anyone to agree to anything there's always gonna be objections and it will never happen we just have to do it I'm not about the Dhara I'm not Buddha if I'm but then I have final authority is it to make news or traditions but this is not the case yeah just assume I already described myself as a simple Buddhist monk who following the Buddhist teaching and especially according the Nagarjuna teaching so Nagarjuna was pretty down on women I have to also and honestly honest you are not a female you cannot imagine how much one has had this projection onto one seven other females that one is impure whereas we are immaculate monks we are not impure that's all that's all that's all discouraged many occasion say I'm I've made as III made very the argument or suggestions but even then somebody's are difficult to change I know but it's always talked about impermanence and change but so they I think the best thing that I think one of the I think positive what's today I think way to approach you see this was the problem or issue is I think like our I'm your work I do this eventually I think real effect will come it's okay it will come your holiness it will come [Music] and we hope once our nun who is built from building it now and you will please come in grace suddenly suddenly suddenly [Music] all right all right Lonnie here's a phonetic how's your planet sounds Allah ha ha Tumbo oh yeah Trumbo ravenous angel sure Oh Donna [Music] in Tibet Rinpoche come to Rinpoche had a nunnery and within this nunnery there were also groups of these females left of them ma they were also very great practitioners by all accounts however as far as we know after the Cultural Revolution we haven't heard any more about any of them so come true in PO che and one time placed a Trotter around my neck and said that he always prayed that I would restore the lineage of talked M ma I have always felt that as a kind of inner sacred mission so what we're trying to do is to get some of our nuns at least to the point where they could at least start to be trained in this particular lineage Penton palmers lama always encouraged her to raise the standard of teaching offered to women and to reinstate the top ten my lineage before the teachings were completely lost the eighth contra rinpoche died long before she was to embark on an arduous journey the building of the nunnery honors a vision they shared [Music] one morning I was with my Dharma sister and a loader we went along to the monastery and meantime we met another older American monk and another Australian man and they said we think you haven't heard and we said what and they said come to her but she's dead and I mean I fainted I mean I was the last thing in the world that any of us were expecting he was only 48 anyway you are what can I say I mean I felt that I I was in a big desert and and suddenly my guide had left and I didn't know where to go but then any loader and I after a while we just sat and meditated together and then I realized really the lamas are within the heart the Lama isn't just the outer form but in the Buddhist tradition death is not the end high Lamas are reborn and recognized as incarnations Tenzin Palmer's teacher is believed to have been reincarnated as the ninth chemtrail Rinpoche now a young man has continued the support his predecessor offered Tenzin Parma as preparations are made to lay the foundations for the nunnery the ninth chemtrail Rinpoche is present to bless the land we're having a ceremony for consecrating the land for the first buildings which we're going to be putting up we'll be doing a puja for the spirits of the earth to us their cooperation and their blessings on this project [Music] it's a very sad reflection that religion and the spiritual path which should be something which opens us all up to our true human potential for wisdom and compassion has often been the very vehicle which is more to prejudice and to suppression I personally do not want to create any big waves that creates opposition I think it's just very slowly gradually things begin to change the very fact that now nuns actually study and debate it was already something which 10 years ago was unthinkable things are moving and the thing is to go carefully and slowly and gradually but just keep going forward [Music] [Music] [Laughter] she chose it I suppose the more I get to know her and spend time with her and I see how how she is with people what she gives to people how that people who come and listen to her teachings who come and visit her here how they go away each of them goes away with something that they need from her and I think she has these qualities of being able to help people and that she can combine her 37 years as a Tibetan Buddhist nun the most senior nun alive now there's nobody who's been ordained earlier than her who's still alive they go need to others were but her life has really crossed a lot of boundaries and and it's it's covered a lot of history if you like about Buddhism in the West which i think is also a really fascinating thing about her that she saw it when you know when the Tibetan Buddhists came out of Tibet and she was there and she's seen all the changes she's lived it she's had the teachings and yet she can view all of this with a Western perspective and she inspires many people women and men and women in particular I think you see that she's done it and therefore you know nobody else may be frightened of going for it as well living in the cave is very different from living in a house that's very much a shared experience there's something very immoral but about a cave which it's very stabilizing also for one's mind in practice honking boy how does this compare to your cave as with my cave the rock roof is black from smoke and has mud walls like my camp this one here is a little bit smaller because she has a separate kitchen whereas in my world a kitchen and a actual room went together but in many ways it's very similar how do you feel when you're sitting here again in a meditation box in a cave I think the best place in the world to be is sitting in a meditation box in okay I couldn't think of a nicer place to be [Music] in a way people are writing about and recording and relating to this being who doesn't really exist nobody believes me but honestly I just went to live in the cave because I wanted some peace or quiet and space I just like being alone for me to be alone it's blissful people always think oh you know what did you get from being in a cave and all this but I mean I think all that it's totally irrelevant it's it's not like that it's not like you're you're studying for a PhD and at the end you get your diploma you know and all the Buddha's and Bodhisattvas of the ten directions sort of stand out floating and saying well done Oh Bodhisattva names so and so you know it's not that I mean every life if it's used with any kind of consciousness is a journey of discovery and being in a cave was like poison to and you discover it's not that you're arriving anywhere but you're a journey the journey itself is the important thing [Music] the spiritual life is an ongoing process you breathe in and you breathe out what I breathed in by being in retreat then I breathe out by trying to help to raise us then that for women the potential for these girls that they can study and practice and after that then I need to breathe in again [Music] you

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Keywords: buddhism, buddhist meditation music, dalai lama, dalai lama meditation, dalai lama interview, white buddhist, RELIGION, spirituality, emma slade buddhist nun, emma slade ted talk, emma slade buddhist, emma slade bhutan, emma slade meditation, emma slade

Id: cs4CQx5Zk_E

Length: 51min 10sec (3070 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 21 2019