Extract :
A Western Yogini (from chapter 1)
I AM TOLD that I’m supposed to talk about my experiences in retreat. I think that’s probably the last thing I would ever want to talk about! I don’t know what you want to know, so I will begin by describing how I got to my retreat in the first place. Let’s start at the beginning and see where we go. I was born in England and brought up in London during the war. My mother was a spiritualist and we had seances in our house every Wednesday evening, with tables flying around the room and that sort of thing. I am very grateful for this background because it meant that from an early age I believed in the continuity of consciousness after death. In fact, death was a frequent topic of conversation in our family, so I never felt any fear or reservations about it. I suppose I think about death every day in some way or other. An awareness of death gives great meaning to life.
As a child, I believed that we are all innately perfect, that our original nature was perfection, and that we are here to discover who we really are. I believed that we have to keep coming back again and again until we uncover our original perfect nature. The question for me was, “'How do we become perfect?'” I raised this question with many people who I thought might know, such as teachers and priests. I even asked the spirit-guides during a seance. Everybody seemed to reply along similar lines, saying, '“Well, you have to be good,”'or “'You have to be kind.”' But even though I was only a small child, I remember thinking, 'Yes, of course, but that’s not all there is to it.”' Naturally people needed to be good and kind. However, I knew people who were very good and very kind, but who were nonetheless not perfect. 1 knew that perfection lay beyond that. Being good and kind was the foundation, but there was something more we needed to do. I didn’t know what. Throughout my adolescence, 1 searched for the answer to '“How do we become perfect? What does perfection mean? What is it that I’m looking for?'” I tried different religions. 1 remember discussing religion with various priests and vicars. My sister-in-law was Jewish, and I discussed God with her. When I was about thirteen, I attempted to read the Koran, but didn’t get very far. The problem for me was that all these religions started with the notion of a soul and the soul’s relationship with its creator. The path laid Out was a path of devotion, of the soul seeking its creator outside itself. But this had no meaning for me. As far as I was concerned, God was a sort of superior Santa Claus.
When I was eighteen, I became interested in existentialism, and I read Sartre and Camus. I was working in a library at the time, and one day I happened to pick up a small book entitled The Mind Unshaken. I liked the title. It was written by an English journalist about his time in Thailand. It gave the very basics of Buddhism— the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Three Characteristics of Existence, and that sort of thing. I still vividly remember what an outstanding revelation it was to learn that there was a perfect path already set out and that it embraced all the things I already believed in. To think that there could actually be a religion that taught this was truly amazing to me! All the other religions I had encountered posited a deity as a sine qua non. In contrast, Buddhism was a path which led inwards, rendering any notion of an external creator or God totally superfluous. When I was halfway through the book, I said to my mother, “'I’m a Buddhist.'” And she said, “'That’s nice, dear. Finish reading the book and then you can tell me all about it.”' Six months later she became a Buddhist too.
So there I was, living in London. All the books I read kept saying that the essence of the practice was to be without desire, So I gave away my clothes. I stopped wearing makeup and broke up with my boyfriend. I started wearing a yellow costume, a sort of Greek tunic, which was the nearest approximation I had to what robes might be like, and I wore black stockings. I should mention that I hadn’t met any other Buddhists at that time.
My mother was so patient. She didn’t say a word. After about six months, I thought, “Maybe I should find some more Buddhists. I can’t be the only one.” So I looked in the telephone directory under “'Buddhist'” and came across the Buddhist Society. I went there one day and discovered that the Buddhists there were not wandering around in Greek tunics. Here were Buddhists who had been at it much longer than I, and they were actually wearing ordinary clothes! The women even wore makeup and high heels! Then I remarked to my mother what a pity it was that I had given all my clothes away. At that, she handed me the key to my wardrobe and said, 'Go and look in there.”' I opened the door and there they all were!
At that time, I was strictly Theravadin, and I became quite closely associated with the Singhalese Vihara in London. I loved the clarity of the Theravada. In fact, I loved everything about it. Of course, the way Theravada is taught in the West has very little to do with what happens in Theravadin countries, where you see a completely different picture. In the West, there’s little ritual or devotion. It’s very logical and clear, with lots of emphasis on meditation, This appealed to me very much. The only thing I didn’t like about it was the concept of the arhat. Somehow the arhats seemed kind of cold, and this worried me, because attaining arhatship was supposed to be the culmination of this path. I remember lying in bed and worrying about it, because I was on that path, and I wasn’t sure whether I liked where it was leading me. I even asked myself whether I was on the right path after all.
Whenever I thought of the Buddha, I would cry tears of devotion. I loved the Buddha, and I wanted to be like him. I didn’t want to be like those arhats. Then one day I read about bodhisattvas and thought, “'Ah ha!”' Here was what I wanted to be. This was the element of compassion missing from the notion of the arhat. I loved the idea that we were following the path not just for ourselves, but for the benefit of others, I thought, “'That’s what I want. I want to be a bodhisattva.'” This was in the early sixties, and in those days most Buddhists in London were Theravadin. Also prevalent at that time was a phenomenon which might be described as '“Humphries’ Zen.”' I am referring to Christmas Humphries, of course. He had developed his own form of Zen, which wasn’t like anything else. When Zen masters visited his center in England, they were stunned into silence. Christmas Humphries would deliver a very long talk, then turn to the Zen master and ask, '“Now, would you care to say something?”' They usually replied, “'I think you’ve said it all,”' and just kept quiet. These were the two kinds of Buddhism available at the time: Humphries’ Zen and Theravada. At that time, Tibetan Buddhism was regarded as little more than degenerate shamanism, black magic, and weirdo sexual rituals basically not Buddhism at all. Nobody wanted to be associated with it. It was referred to as Lamaism. Anyway, it looked very complicated and ritualistic, and I was not interested in all that.
It seemed to me like I was involved with this Buddhist milieu for ages, but in fact it could only have been about a year. It’s just that there was so much going on inside me. Anyway, one day I was reading a general overview of Buddhism, and at the end of the book there was one small chapter on Tibetan Buddhism. It described how in Tibet there were four traditions: the Nyingmapa, the Sakyapa, the Kagyupa and the Gelugpa. As I read the word '“Kagyupa,”' a voice inside me said, 'You’re a Kagyupa.'” And I said,'“What’s a Kagyupa?”' And it said, “It doesn’t matter. You’re a Kagyupa.' My heart sank, and I thought, “'Oh no. Wouldn’t you know it? Life was so simple and now look what’s happened.”' So I went to see the only person around who knew anything about Tibetan Buddhism (not that she knew very much), and I said to her, “'I think I’m a Kagyupa.” So she said, '“Oh, have you read Milarepa?'” And I replied, '“Who’s Milarepa?”' She handed me Evans-Wentz’s biography of Milarepa. I went away, and I read it, and my mind went through a thousand somersaults. It was like nothing I’d ever read before. At the end of it all, I realized that I was indeed a Kagyupa.
It became obvious to me that I would need to find a teacher, I was reading many texts at the time, and I noticed that there was never any mention of nuns, only monks. I was actually getting a little depressed about this. Then one day I heard that thcre was a Kagyupa nunnery in India, at a place called Daihousie. So 1 wrote to Freda Bedi, who was the organizer. She was an Englishwoman and an amazing person. She had married an Indian she’d met at Oxford University, lived in India for about thirty years, and had been part of the Indian Freedom Movement. Although she was English, she’d been imprisoned by the British. After India gained independence, she had worked for the Indian government. She was a good friend of Nehru and Mrs. Gandhi. She had been sent to help the Tibetan refugees and eventually had ended up in Dalhousie, starting both a school for young incarnate lamas and a nunnery. I wrote to her and asked if I could come there and work with her.
In the meantime, I had met a few lamas in England. I was working at the School of Oriental and African Studies, where they let me study Tibetan. Among the lamas I met was a young tulku named Chogyam Trungpa, who had arrived with Akong Rinpoche. They were both studying at Oxford. In those days, in 1962 to 1963, few people in England were interested in Tibetan Buddhism. So whenever we met Trungpa and asked him, '“When can we see you again?' he would say, '“Next weekend.”' One weekend he would come to us and the next weekend we would go to him. He had very few friends. One day he said, '“You might find this difficult to believe, but in Tibet I was quite a high lama, and I never thought it would come to this, hut please can I teach you meditation? I must have at least one disciple.'” So, I said, “'Sure, why not?'”
I was still intent on traveling to India, and he encouraged me in this. So in 1964, when I was twenty years old, I travelled by ship to India. It was a very pleasant trip. I went up to Daihousie and was working for Freda Bedi in the Young Lamas Home School. That is where I first met Lama Zopa, one of the young tulkus who lived there. I lived at the nunnery and served as a secretary to Freda Bedi, One day we received a letter about Tibetan handmade paper which some community was producing. They wanted to know if we could find a market for it. The letter was signed, “'Khamtrul Rinpoche.”' As soon as I read that name, faith spontaneously arose, as they say in the books. The next day I asked Freda Bedi who Khamtrul Rinpoche was. She replied, '“He’s a high Drukpa Kagyu lama. In fact, he’s the lama we’re waiting for.'”
I knew we had been waiting for some lama, for whom we had rented a small house. We were expecting him to come for the summer. I said, '“He’s a Kagyupa.'” She said,' “Yes.” 'And I said, “'So I can take refuge with him.”'And she said, '“Yes, yes, he’s a wonderful lama, When he comes, you must ask him.'” This was at the beginning of May. We waited all through May. We waited all through June. On the last day of June, my twenty-first birthday, there was a lama giving a long-life initiation because it was full moon day. The telephone rang and Freda Bedi answered it. When she put down the phone, she said, “Your best birthday present has just arrived down at the bus station.''” I was terrified. My Lama had come at last! I ran back to the nunnery and changed into a long Tibetan dress and got a khata, a long white offering scarf. Then I ran back to the house we had rented to tell them Rinpoche was coming and to get it prepared. By the time I got back to the school, he was already there. I remember how I kind of crawled into the room. I was too terrified to look at him. 1 had no idea what he was like; I’d never even seen a photograph. Was he old? Was he young? Was he fat? Was he thin? I had no idea. All I saw was the bottom of his robe and his brown shoes. I prostrated to these brown shoes and then sat down.
Freda Bedi was saying, “'This is so and so and she’s a member of the Buddhist Society.”' Then I said to her, “'Tell him I want to take refuge.'” So she said, “Oh yes, and she would like to take refuge with you.'” Rinpoche said, “'Of course,” 'in this voice which seemed to be saying, “'Of course she wants to take refuge, what else could she want to do?”' When I heard him say '“of course”' in that voice, I looked up and saw him for the first time. As I looked at him, it seemed as though two things were happening simultaneously. There was a sense of recognition, like meeting an old friend you haven’t seen for a long time. At the same time it was as if the very deepest thing inside me had suddenly taken an external form.
There it was. Freda Bedi was very kind. She would send me to Rinpoche every day so I could act as his secretary while he was there. One day I told him, “'I would like to be a nun.” Again he replied, 'Of course.” But he told me he would not ordain me there. “'I want to take you hack to my monastery,”' he explained. About three weeks later, we went back to his monastery, and I took my first ordination. I also went to visit His Holiness Sakya Trizin, and then I traveled to Thailand. When I returned about six months later, Khamtrul Rinpoche and his monks had moved to Dalhousie.
Rinpoche was the head of a community of about eighty monks and between three and four hundred lay people. He was organizing them into a craft community. He himself was a wonderful artist, painter, and poet, and the whole community was very talented. They had wonderful thangka painters, they made beautiful carpets and they produced the most incredible wood carvings. The community is still renowned for its artistic talent. When they moved to Dalhousie, I accompanied my Lama as his secretary. I also taught English to the young monks. Looking back, it was a very blessed time because I was with my Lama and all the other tulkus and yogis every day. At the same time, it was probably the most painful time of my life, because I was the only nun and usually the only Westerner around this monastery of eighty monks. I was extremely lonely. I couldn’t live with them, I couldn’t eat with them, I couldn’t do rituals with them, I couldn’t study with them. I wasn’t a lay person, but I wasn’t a monk, either, and there was no place for a nun in that society.
It would have been much easier if I had been a man, because I could have lived with Rinpoche and there would have been no problem. But because I was a female, they didn’t quite know what to do with me. Once Rinpoche said to me, “Previously I was always able to keep you close by me. But in this lifetime, you took form as a female so I’m doing the best I can, but I cannot keep you close forever because it’s very difficult.”' He certainly did the best that he could. After another six years, the community moved to its present location in Tashi long, which is in the Kangra Valley about three hours from Dharamsala. About three months after this move, Khamtrul Rinpoche said to me, ''“Now it’s time for you to go away to practice.”' I suggested going to Nepal, but Rinpoche said, “'Nepal is not so good. You should go to Lahoul.'”
Lahoul is a Himalayan valley located at an altitude of about i 1,000 to 12,000 feet. The Himalayas form a long ridge across the north of India. On one side of the mountains lies Tibet and on the other side, India. Lahoul is one of the many little valleys in the Himalayas which are geographically Indian, but whose culture and religion are Tibetan. It lies between Manali and Ladakh, and for about eight months of the year it’s cut off from the rest of India by snow. On both sides of the valley there are very high passes which become snow-bound for eight months at a time. In those days, there were no telephones nor any other means of long-distance communication. For the most part, there was no electricity either. Sometimes there would be no mail for weeks at a time. it is considered to be like Siberia by all the Indians stationed there, who loathe it because of its extreme isolation. But it was perfect for someone who just wanted to do a retreat.
When I first arrived, I stayed at a small Kagyupa monastery. There was a temple beside the mountain and above that there were separate houses. They were flat-roofed, made of stone, and finished with mud inside and out, like Tibetan houses. As is the custom in Lahoul, the monastery was shared by monks and nuns, which was nice, Of course, the monks were up front doing the rituals while the nuns were in the kitchen doing the cooking. I joined the monks. I made sure that I was out front doing the rituals too, because I hadn’t come to Lahoul to learn how to cook! I had a little house in the monastery precincts, it was very pleasant there. It was a small community and everyone was friendly. The Lahoulis are very sociable people, so that whenever there is a task like spinning to be done, they get together and work as a community. They move from one person’s house to another’s in turn, and each house provides food and everybody works. This is very nice, but it was also a big distraction for someone wanting to do retreat. When I first arrived, one of the nuns said to me, “'Well dear, of course you will need twenty plates and twenty cups.'” I replied, '“Twenty plates and twenty cups, what for?”' She explained, “In the winter, we like to get together and have parties, and there are twenty of us.”' So I said, '“In the winter I’m going into retreat. And even if I do hold a party, you can all bring your own cups and plates.'” When the winter came, I went into retreat, but I was the only one who did. |
