Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

One of a small handful of Western practioners to have undergone the rigours of such extended retreat, Jetsunma spent 12 years in a remote Himalayan cave before slowly beginning to teach.   Championing the role and status of female practitioners in particular, her unique and fresh insights are a gift to all those she comes across. 

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo was raised in London and whilst 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, a great Drukpa Kagyu lama, and became one of the first Westerners to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun. She remained with his community in northern India for six years and then, seeking 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.  The popular book Cave in the Snow, which chronicles her journey, has been an inspiration to many practioners around the world.

Before Khamtrul Rinpoche passed away in 1980, he had on several occasions requested Tenzin Palmo to start a nunnery, and eventually, to help resurrect the tradition of the "Togdenmas", a elite lineage of highly realized and rigorously trained yoginis that was wiped out during the Chinese occupation.  She understood the importance of this and so when in 1993, the lamas of her lineage again made the request, Tenzin Palmo was ready to take up the formidable task and began slowly raising interest worldwide.  In January 2000 the first nuns arrived and in 2001 the construction of Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery began and is now nearing completion.

In 2008 Tenzin Palmo was formally given the rare title of Jetsunma, which means "Venerable Master" by His Holiness the 12th Gyalwang Drukpa, head of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage, in recognition of her spiritual achievements as a nun and her efforts in promoting the status of female practitioners in Tibetan Buddhism.

website: tenzinpalmo.com