About Me
Tenzin Palmo is a Buddhist nun who is becoming known around the world as the English woman who spent twelve years in a cave, high in the Himalayas. She is also a Buddhist who has vowed to attain enlightenment in a woman's body, challenging the institutionalized belief that only the male form can reach liberation. Now, as she travels internationally giving talks wherever she is invited to speak, in order to raise funds to build a nunnery in northern India, Tenzin Palmo is a dynamic incarnation of the emerging and powerful feminine principle in Buddhism.Venerable Tenzin Palmo was raised in London and while in her teens she became a Buddhist. 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 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 Lahaulin 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 for 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. 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 collecting funds. Tenzin Palmo also agreed to cooperate with Vicki Mackenzie in the writing of her life story 'Cave in the Snow' and the book has been of immense value in raising interest in and support for Tenzin Palmo's nunnery project. In 1999 she established a Charitable Trust in India to establish Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery.
