Cave In The Snow

After discovering Tenzin Palmo on the Global Oneness site, I was inspired to read her biography titled Cave In The Snow by Vickie MacKenzie. The book review from House of Hermits says:

"This book is comprised of three parts: 1) the life of Englishwoman Diane Perry up to becoming an ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun, 2) her twelve years of seclusion, beginning in 1976, in a Himalayan cave 13, 200 feet in elevation, and 3) her life after returning to the West. The middle part is of particular interest here because it illustrates an eremitic tradition in Tibetan Buddhism exemplified by the famous Milarepa in the 800's C.E. and by the contemporary Togdens, the latter an isolated community of ascetics possessing paranormal powers.

Tenzin Palmo (Perry's adopted name) learned of the Togden's female counterparts, Togdenmas, but discovered them to be nearly extinct, and resolved to reestablish their lineage. After six years in an isolated Lahoul monastery, she undertook a retreat in a cave as preparation.

The cave was actually an overhang on a natural ledge of the mountain. Open on three sides, Tenzin's associates walled in the structure, adding a door and double-glazed window. Ten feet wide and six feet deep, the spot had a magnificent view of the mountains and Lahoul Valley below, a nearby source of spring water, and profound silence and isolation. Her possessions included an old wood-burning stove piped outside, a wooden box for a table, a second for meditation and sleeping, plus a wall depression for housing books and articles.

The barren mountaintop was devoid of food, so all provisions were brought in, including kerosene, tsampa (a Tibetan dry bread), rice, lentils, flour, dried vegetables, ghee, cooking-oil, salt, soap, milk powder, tea, sugar, apples, and cut wood. The cave ledge she transformed into a garden bed which, however, only yielded turnips and potatoes - and flowers; other greens being consumed by rodents, her chief visitors.

She ate once a day, at noon, in keeping with a monastic tradition, always the same meal of rice, dhal (lentils) and vegetables, prepared together in a pressure cooker. "This meagre fare she supplemented with sour-dough bread (which she baked) and tsampa. Her only drink was ordinary tea with powdered milk. For desert [sic] she had a small piece of fruit.

The unrelenting cold was often minus 35 degrees F. in winter, though the cave remained relatively warmer. Tenzin lit her stove for her midday meal, but otherwise there was no source of heat, and she surely experienced much cold. Water was scarce in winter, rationed because the snow was not easy to melt. She slept upright in her meditation box.

"I was never lonely, not for a minute. It was nice if someone visited, but I was completely happy not seeing anybody," she told the author. However, there were animal visitors besides the rodents: wolves, a stoat, martens, a snow leopard (which she did not see but the footprints were confirmed by others). One chapter, entitled "Facing Death," relates an avalanche that nearly asphyxiated her in her cave. She left the cave only reluctantly when Indian authorities pulled her visa status, because an associate who had been renewing for her annually forgot to do so."

Some excerpts that particularly spoke to me were:

"Our minds are like junkyards. What we put into them is mostly rubbish! The conversations, the newspapers, the entertainment, we just pile it all in. There's a jam session going on in there. And the problem is it makes us very tired."

and.... "There is the thought, and then there is the knowing of the thought. And the difference between being aware of the thought and just thinking is immense. It's enormous... Normally we are so identified with our thoughts and emotions, that we are them. We are the happiness, we are the anger, we are the fear. We have to learn to step back and know our thoughts and emotions are just thoughts and emotions. They're just mental states. They're not solid, they're transparent."

and... "People are parched with thirst. Here people are hungry for real meaning and depth to their lives. When one has stopped satiating the senses one wants more. That's why people are aggressive and depressed. They feel everything is so futile. You have everything you want, and then what? Society's answer is to get more and more, but where does that get you? I see isolation everywhere and it has nothing to do with being alone. It's about having an alienated psyche."

and... "She teaches that 'being' is often better than 'doing' and that taking time out to be still and think is often a better investment for future productivity than cramming every waking moment with feverish activity."

video clip: The Nature of the Mind (Tenzin Palmo) http://www.globalonenessproject.org/video/Tenzin-Palmo/2