Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo's Quest for Enlightenment

Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo's Quest for Enlightenment
by Vicki Mackenzie

Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo's Quest for Enlightenment
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Book Summary Information

Author: Vicki Mackenzie
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-09-18
ISBN: 1582340455
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Book Reviews of Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo's Quest for Enlightenment

Book Review: One of my desert island books of spirituality
Summary: 5 Stars

I was only recently made aware of this 1998 biography of Tenzin Palmo and it was recommended to me not for the Buddhism, as I myself am not Buddhist, but for inspiration to deepen my personal spiritual practice. I just finished my first reading of Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo's Quest for Enlightenment and it is indeed moving and inspirational! The 2000 5-star review by L. Rephann "curious about everything" here in the spotlight position of Amazon readers' reviews captures the spirit of this book so well. I couldn't describe this story better than L. Rephann and I am concur 100% with that review.

However, I was a bit surprised to read some of the negative reviews here. Frankly, I think they are unduly harsh and, as I read it, are not in keeping with the spirit of Buddhism that Tenzin Palmo teaches. I think it's silly and irrelevant to mince words over the title, whether Tenzin Palmo's cave in the snow was really a cave or a hut. Cave in the snow is a metaphor for this Buddhist nun's quest for enlightment, just as the title states. That she, a regular western woman, could engage in twelve years of such intense spiritual practice under such extreme conditions in the Himalayas is extraordinary, even monumental.

Issue seems to also be made with the manner in which she came out after her twelve years of solitude and deep meditation. The mystics tell us to "be in the world, not of the world" and that is what impressed me about her integration back into the western world.

Simply put, I love Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo's Quest for Enlightenment and I will enjoy reading it again. I rank it highly among my desert island books of spirituality which focus on the women saints, teachers, disciples, practitioners and seekers on the Higher Path. My list is not built upon any particular religious faith or spiritual science that these women embrace, but on the Light in which they have seen the Truth. These are stories which move me and recharge my spiritual battery. Tenzin Palmo's story is indeed among them and like my other desert island books, deserves to be read again and again.

And my list is as follows~
Daughter of Fire: A Diary of a Spiritual Training with a Sufi Master
The Hunger of the Soul
Dipa Ma: The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master
Wild White Goose
The Desert Pilgrim
A Soul's Safari. 2nd Edition.
In Search of the Way
Daughters of the Goddess: The Women Saints of India

Summary of Cave in the Snow: Tenzin Palmo's Quest for Enlightenment

This is the incredible story of Tenzin Palmo, a remarkable woman who spent 12 years alone in a cave 13,000 feet up in the Himalayas.
At the age of 20, Diane Perry, looking to fill a void in her life, entered a monastery in India--the only woman amongst hundreds of monks---and began her battle against the prejudice that had excluded women from enlightenment for thousands of years.

Thirteen years later, Diane Perry a.k.a. Tenzin Palmo secluded herself in a remote cave 13,000 feet up in the Himalayas, where she stayed for twelve years. In her mountain retreat, she face unimaginable cold, wild animals, floods, snow and rockfalls, grew her own food and slept in a traditional wooden meditation box, three feet square. She never lay down.

Tenzin emerged from the cave with a determination to build a convent in northern India to revive the Togdenma lineage, a long-forgotten female spiritual elite. She has traveled around the world to find support for her cause, meeting with spiritual leaders from the Pope to Desmond Tutu. She agreed to tell her story only to Vicky Mackenzie and a portion of the royalties from this book will help towards the completion of her convent.

It sounds like a legend out of medieval Tibet: the ascetic who leaves home to join the Buddhist order, then spends 12 years in a cave, 15 hours a day in a meditation box. This is no legend, but you could call Tenzin Palmo legendary in her single-minded pursuit of higher realizations. From the East End of London to halfway up the Himalayas, she is now back in society, attempting to pull medieval Tibetan Buddhism into the modern era--women's rights and all. As biographer Vickie Mackenzie says by way of background, a group of elite women practitioners called "Togdemnas" still existed just decades ago. Tenzin Palmo, having studied with her male counterparts, is now canvassing the planet, welcoming women into full participation in Tibetan Buddhism and building support for an academy of Togdemnas that she plans to establish in the Himalayas. Mackenzie helps raise awareness for women's roles in Tibetan Buddhism by going into some detail about obstacles still faced by women as well as heroines who have overcome those obstacles, such as Yeshe Tsogyel (Sky Dancer) and Machig Lapdron, a mother who started her own lineage. If Mackenzie has it her way, it won't be long before Tenzin Palmo joins that list of heroines. --Brian Bruya

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