Compassion in Action, Compassion in Stillness: The Revolutionary Lives of Freda Bedi and Tenzin Palmo
with Vickie Mackenzie
Saturday, September 19th from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon, US PDT
This program will be presented via Facebook LIVE on our Facebook page.
This course will be presented on Facebook Live on the Tse Chen Ling Center for Buddhist Studies’ Facebook page.
Tse Chen Ling is honored to have acclaimed author and journalist Vicki Mackenzie join us as she guides us into the extraordinary lives of two pioneering Buddhist nuns: Freda Bedi and Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo. These two women, who knew each other, both embarked on spiritual paths that overlapped and diverged in unique ways.
Freda Bedi (1911-1977) was a power house, an unsung heroine of contemporary Tibetan Buddhist history. She was the first woman ever to become a fully ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun - the first person to recognise that the tulkus would bring Tibetan Buddhism to the West and established a school to teach them English and the ways of the modern world. She discovered, ‘adopted’ and mentored Choygyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Akong Rinpoche. She founded the first nunnery. A close disciple of the 16th Karmapa, she persuaded hm to make his first tour of the USA and Europe. She was also a wife, and mother of four children and a freedom fighter for Gandhi.
At the age of 20, Diane Perry (Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo), looking to fill a void in her life, entered a monastery in India and began her battle against the prejudice that had excluded women from enlightenment for thousands of years. Thirteen years later, Tenzin Palmo secluded herself in a remote cave in the Himalayas, where she stayed for twelve years. She then emerged from the cave with a determination to build a convent in northern India and to revive a long-forgotten female spiritual lineage.
Vicki Mackenzie has written extensively about both and will give us a nuanced view of the forces that shaped and motivated these two compelling Tibetan Buddhist figures.
Vicki Mackenzie is a professional journalist and author who has written for the national and international press for over 40 years. Her articles have appeared in The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Daily and Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and many national magazines. She has written extensively on Buddhist topics and was the first person to publish an interview with the Dalai Lama for The Sunday Times. She has been studying and practicing Buddhism since 1976. Since taking a month-long meditation course in Nepal in 1976, her primary interest has been to make the profundity of Buddhist philosophy accessible to the general public. Her books on Buddhism and reincarnation include: Reincarnation:The Boy Lama (Bloomsbury Publishing, 1988), Cave in the Snow (Bloomsbury Publishing, 1999), Why Buddhism?: Westerners in Search of Wisdom (Element Books Ltd, 2003), The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi: British Feminist, Indian Nationalist, Buddhist Nun (Shambhala, 2017), Reborn in the West, The Reincarnation Masters (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1995), Child of Tibet (Piatkus Books 2006).
This event will largely focus on Vicki Mackenzie’s acclaimed books, The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi: British Feminist, Indian Nationalist, Buddhist Nun (Shambhala, 2017 and Cave in the Snow (Bloomsbury Publishing, 1999)
We encourage you purchase these amazing work which is composed for a general audience.
Order The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi direct from Shambhala here:
https://www.shambhala.com/authors/a-f/james-b-apple/atisa-dipamkara.html
Order Cave in the Snow from Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.com/Cave-Snow-Western-Womans-Enlightenment/dp/0747543895/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1593547387&refinements=p_27%3AVicki+MacKenzie&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Vicki+MacKenzie
About the event:
This event will be presented simultaneously via Facebook LIVE on Tse Chen Ling’s Facebook page and via Zoom to a limited number of Tse Chen Ling ordained sangha and community members. Tse Chen Ling is dedicated to offering this program for free on Facebook to open it up to as many students and listeners as possible. If you are able, please consider sponsoring Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies to continue to help the Dharma flourish throughout the world.
Tse Chen Ling is honored to have acclaimed author and journalist Vicki Mackenzie join us as she guides us into the extraordinary lives of two pioneering Buddhist nuns: Freda Bedi and Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo. These two women, who knew each other, both embarked on spiritual paths that overlapped and diverged in unique ways.
Freda Bedi (1911-1977) was a power house, an unsung heroine of contemporary Tibetan Buddhist history. She was the first woman ever to become a fully ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun - the first person to recognise that the tulkus would bring Tibetan Buddhism to the West and established a school to teach them English and the ways of the modern world. She discovered, ‘adopted’ and mentored Choygyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Akong Rinpoche. She founded the first nunnery. A close disciple of the 16th Karmapa, she persuaded hm to make his first tour of the USA and Europe. She was also a wife, and mother of four children and a freedom fighter for Gandhi.
At the age of 20, Diane Perry (Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo), looking to fill a void in her life, entered a monastery in India and began her battle against the prejudice that had excluded women from enlightenment for thousands of years. Thirteen years later, Tenzin Palmo secluded herself in a remote cave in the Himalayas, where she stayed for twelve years. She then emerged from the cave with a determination to build a convent in northern India and to revive a long-forgotten female spiritual lineage.
Vicki Mackenzie has written extensively about both and will give us a nuanced view of the forces that shaped and motivated these two compelling Tibetan Buddhist figures.
Vicki Mackenzie is a professional journalist and author who has written for the national and international press for over 40 years. Her articles have appeared in The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Daily and Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and many national magazines. She has written extensively on Buddhist topics and was the first person to publish an interview with the Dalai Lama for The Sunday Times. She has been studying and practicing Buddhism since 1976. Since taking a month-long meditation course in Nepal in 1976, her primary interest has been to make the profundity of Buddhist philosophy accessible to the general public. Her books on Buddhism and reincarnation include: Reincarnation:The Boy Lama (Bloomsbury Publishing, 1988), Cave in the Snow (Bloomsbury Publishing, 1999), Why Buddhism?: Westerners in Search of Wisdom (Element Books Ltd, 2003), The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi: British Feminist, Indian Nationalist, Buddhist Nun (Shambhala, 2017), Reborn in the West, The Reincarnation Masters (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1995), Child of Tibet (Piatkus Books 2006).
This event will largely focus on Vicki Mackenzie’s acclaimed books, The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi: British Feminist, Indian Nationalist, Buddhist Nun (Shambhala, 2017 and Cave in the Snow (Bloomsbury Publishing, 1999)
We encourage you purchase these amazing work which is composed for a general audience.
Order The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi direct from Shambhala here:
https://www.shambhala.com/authors/a-f/james-b-apple/atisa-dipamkara.html
Order Cave in the Snow from Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.com/Cave-Snow-Western-Womans-Enlightenment/dp/0747543895/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1593547387&refinements=p_27%3AVicki+MacKenzie&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Vicki+MacKenzie
About the event:
This event will be presented simultaneously via Facebook LIVE on Tse Chen Ling’s Facebook page and via Zoom to a limited number of Tse Chen Ling ordained sangha and community members. Tse Chen Ling is dedicated to offering this program for free on Facebook to open it up to as many students and listeners as possible. If you are able, please consider sponsoring Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies to continue to help the Dharma flourish throughout the world.