Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo is a Tibetan Buddhist

Tibetan Buddhism

Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India . It is the state religion of Bhutan...

 nun

Nun

A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...

 in the Drukpa Lineage of the Kagyu

Kagyu

The Kagyu, Kagyupa, or Kagyud school, also known as the "Oral Lineage" or Whispered Transmission school, is today regarded as one of six main schools of Himalayan or Tibetan Buddhism, the other five being the Nyingma, Sakya, Jonang, Bon and Gelug...

 school. She is an author, teacher and founder of the Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh is a state in Northern India. It is spread over , and is bordered by the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir on the north, Punjab on the west and south-west, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on the south, Uttarakhand on the south-east and by the Tibet Autonomous Region on the east...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. She is best known for being one of the very few Western yogini

Yogini

Yogini is the complete form source word of the masculine yogi- and neutral/plural "yogin." Far from being merely a gender tag to the all things yogi, "Yogini" represents both a female master practitioner of Yoga, and a formal term of respect for a category of modern female spiritual teachers in...

s trained in the East, having spent twelve years living in a remote cave in the Himalayas, three of those years in strict meditation retreat.

Vicki Mackenzie, who wrote Cave in the Snow about her, relates that what inspired the writing of the book was reading Tenzin Palmo's statement to a Buddhist magazine that "I have made a vow to attain Enlightenment

Enlightenment in Buddhism

The English term enlightenment has commonly been used in the western world to translate several Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese and Japanese terms and concepts, especially bodhi, prajna, kensho, satori and buddhahood.-Insight:...

 in the female form - no matter how many lifetimes it takes".

Biography

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo was born Diane Perry in the East End of London

East End of London

The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...

 in June 1943. Although spiritualist meetings were held in her childhood home, she realized at the age of 18 that she was a Buddhist when she read a library book on the subject. She moved to India at 20, where she taught English at the Young Lamas Home School

Young Lamas Home School

The Young Lamas Home School was a school established by the 14th Dalai Lama and Freda Bedi in 1960. Its funding was provided by Christopher Hills and its early abbot was Karma Thinley Rinpoche....

 for a few months before meeting her root lama, the 8th Khamtrul Rinpoche

Khamtrul Rinpoche

The Khamtrul lineage is part of the Dongyud Palden Drukpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.-Origins:The Fourth Gyalwang Drukpa Kunkhyen Pema Karpo, head of the Drukpa Lineage, was one of the most celebrated masters in the 16th century. One of his most accomplished disciples, Lhatsewa Ngawang Zangpo ,...

. In 1964 she became only the second Western woman to be ordained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, receiving the name Drubgyu Tenzin Palmo, or 'Glorious Lady who Upholds the Doctrine of the Practice Succession'. The ordination was as a shramanerika

Samaneri

A samaneri is a novice Buddhist nun, who lives according to the ten precepts. Male novices are called samaneras. A woman is to be ordained, according to Theravada tradition, by both a monk and a nun, first as a samaneri. After a year or at the age of 20, she will be ordained as a full bhikkhuni....

, or novice nun, the highest level of ordination currently available for women in the Tibetan tradition where the bhikshuni sangha

Sangha

Sangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose...

 has died out. However, with the support of her teacher, in 1973 Tenzin Palmo received the full bhikshuni ordination in Hong Kong, one of the first Western women to do so.

Living at Khamtrul Rinpoche's monastery as the sole nun among 100 monks provided Tenzin Palmo with first-hand experience of the discrimination

Discrimination

Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...

 that restricted women’s access to information that was imparted freely to men. Eager for instruction, she felt frustrated by the fact that she was kept out of most monastic activities because of misogynistic prejudices.
This phase lasted for six years. Then Tenzin Palmo left the monastery at her teacher’s suggestion to go to Lahul in the higher reaches of the Indian Himalayas, where she would eventually enter the cave and launch herself into uninterrupted, intense spiritual practice.

In 1976 Tenzin Palmo commenced living in a cave in the Himalayas measuring 10 feet wide and six feet deep and remained there for 12 years, for three of which she was in full retreat. The cave was high in the remote Lahul area of the Indian Himalayas, on the border of Himachal Pradesh and Tibet. In the course of the retreat she grew her own food and practiced deep meditation based on ancient Buddhist beliefs. In accordance with protocol, she never lay down, sleeping in a traditional wooden meditation box in a meditative posture for just three hours a night. The last three years were spent in complete isolation. She survived temperatures of below −30° Fahrenheit (−35°C) and snow for six to eight months of the year.

Tenzin Palmo emerged from the cave in 1988 and travelled to Italy as visa

Visa (document)

A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...

 problems meant she needed to leave India. Since her retreat Tenzin Palmo has taken on the cause of equal rights and opportunities for Buddhist nuns. In support of this, she spent several years travelling the world fund raising for a new Buddhist nunnery, as her root lama had asked her to do. In 2000, the Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery was opened with the purpose of giving education and training to women from Tibet and the Himalayan border regions. At this nunnery, Tenzin Palmo also plans to re-establish the extinct lineage of togdenmas, a Drukpa Kagyu yogini

Yogini

Yogini is the complete form source word of the masculine yogi- and neutral/plural "yogin." Far from being merely a gender tag to the all things yogi, "Yogini" represents both a female master practitioner of Yoga, and a formal term of respect for a category of modern female spiritual teachers in...

 order. within the Drukpa Kagyu tradition.

Tenzin Palmo is a member of the six member 'Committee of Western Bhikshunis', an organisation of senior Western nuns supported by two Advisors from Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

(Ven. Bhiksuni Heng-ching Shih, Professor of Philosophy at Taiwan National University [Gelongma ordination 1975 in San Francisco] and Ven. Bhikshuni Wu-yin, Vinaya Master). It was formed in the autumn of 2005, after the Dalai Lama told Bhikshuni Jampa Tsedroen that the Western bhikshunis should be more involved in helping to establish the bhikshuni ordination in the Tibetan tradition.

On 16 February 2008, Tenzin Palmo was conferred as Jetsunma (reverend lady) in recognition of her spiritual achievements as a nun and her efforts in promoting the status of female practitioners in Tibetan Buddhism by the head of the Drukpa Lineage, the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa /Gyalwang Drukpa the XIIth - Gyalwang Drukpa

Gyalwang Drukpa

The Gyalwang Drukpa or Drukchen are a line of re-incarnate lamas or tulku who are the head of the Drukpa school, one of the independent Sarma schools of Tibetan Buddhism...

,.

Books

• A collection of her teachings was released as the book Into the Heart of Life by Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, Snow Lion Publications, 2011. (ISBN 978-1-55939-374-4).
• Her life was profiled in the book Cave in the Snow by Vicki Mackenzie
  Vicki Mackenzie
  Vicki Mackenzie , an author and journalist, was born in England and spent much of her early life in Australia. The daughter of a naval officer, she graduated from Queensland University and became a reporter at the Sun newspaper in Sydney....
  
   (ISBN 1-58234-045-5).
• Tenzin Palmo released a book containing some of her teachings: Reflections On A Mountain Lake: Teachings on Practical Buddhism (ISBN 1-55939-175-8).
• Three Teachings is a compilation of talks given by Tenzin Palmo in Singapore, in 1998. Three Teachings - Three Teachings

Online texts

Abstract: A brief overview of the situation for nuns in the Tibetan Tradition speech by Bhiksuni Tenzin Palmo at the International Congress on Buddhist Women's Role in the Sangha

International Congress on Buddhist Women's Role in the Sangha

The International Congress on Buddhist Women's Role in the Sangha: Bhikshuni Vinaya and Ordination Lineages, took place on July 18–20, 2007, was an historic event. It was a meeting of internationally recognized Buddhist scholars specializing in monastic discipline and history, as well as...

Media

• H.H. Gyalwang Drukpa's explanation of "Jetsunma" Video
• Buddhas kämpferische Nonne Das abenteuerliche Leben der Diane Perry 3sat 07-12-2008

External links

• Page of Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery / http://www.tenzinpalmo.com/
• Tenzin Palmo is Watering the Nuns Interview in ascent magazine
• Realising the Potential of Nuns, Interview with Tenzin Palmo at Dongyu Gyatsal Ling Nunnery, near Tashijong, India, September 2006 by Di Cousens
• Buddhist Monastic Code II, Chapter 23 Bhikkhunīs, edition 2007 by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
• Buddhist Monastic Code II, Chapter 8 Respect by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
• The Path of the Yogini - A search for a true spiritual path which will lead aspirants beyond the awareness of gender identity by Jessica Torrens
• Tenzin Palmo videos