Vicki Mackenzie - Cave in the snow. A western woman’s quest for enlightenment

But Tenzin Palmo also experienced at first hand the more controversial side of Trungpa. She was neither upset, nor outraged (unlike his recent detractors), nor did she take the high moral ground. Quite the contrary. ‘I can remember the first time I met him. As I walked in the room he patted the seat next to him on the sofa, indicating I should sit beside him. We were in the middle of afternoon tea, eating cucumber sandwiches and talking about deep Buddhist subjects when suddenly I felt his hand going up my skirt. I didn’t scream but I did have on stiletto heels and Trungpa was wearing sandals! He didn’t scream either, but he did remove his hand very quickly,’ she said laughing as she recalled the event.

Trungpa was not to be deterred. ‘He was always suggesting I sleep with him. And I kept saying “No way",’ she continued.’The fact was, he was not being truthful. He was presenting himself as a pure monk and saying that meeting me had swept him off his feet etc. which I thought was a load of baloney, although I did think he was “pure” because I couldn’t see how a high Tibetan lama would have had the opportunity to be otherwise. And I certainly was not going to be the cause of any monk losing his vows. I didn’t want anything to damage Mahayana Buddhism. If he had said to me, “Look, my dear, I’ve had women since I was thirteen and I have a son, don’t worry about it,” which was true, I would have said, “Let’s go,” because what would have been more fascinating than to practise with Trungpa? None of the men I knew were anything like him,’ she said with surprising candour, referring to the fact that in the higher stages of Tibetan Buddhism in tantra, one takes a sexual partner to enhance one’s spiritual insights. ’So, he lost out by presenting that pathetic image!’ she added.

In spite of the sexual skirmishes Tenzin Palmo and Choygam Trungpa remained good friends. ‘He definitely had something. Even though he was very casual and certainly never acted in a way I expected a lama to act, he was special,’ she acknowledged. He was also instrumental in encouraging Tenzin Palmo to go to India to find her guru. By February 1964 Tenzin Palmo, now aged twenty, had saved the £90 needed for the sea passage to India. It was the cheapest way she could find, but earning just £8 a week, it had been a slow process. Her ship, he Vietnam , was to sail from Marseille, in the south of France. A train, a Channel crossing and another train were necessary before the journey proper could begin. Trungpa was amongst the group who came to Victoria station to wave her off.

As the train pulled away from the platform leaving her mother, her country, for she didn’t know how long, Tenzin Palmo was dry-eyed. Her travelling companions, Ruth Tarling and Christine Morris, who were also headed for Freda Bedi’s school, were in floods of tears, however. ‘I couldn’t understand it. I was extremely happy. Finally I was off. This was the moment I’d been waiting for years,’ Tenzin Palmo said.

She was carrying two big bags containing an odd assortment of gear – six nightdresses, lots of soap and a big sweater which one of the London lamas wanted her to deliver to his brother in India. ‘I was carrying all the wrong things. Why I needed six nightgowns I’ll never know, and India makes perfectly good soap,’ she laughed.

Le Vietnam was a banana boat crewed by Ethiopians, Vietnamese, Sudanese and Algerians, recruited from the former French colonies. This was India on the cheap. There were no deck quoits, no cocktail parties, no luxury swimming pool, and just a handful of passengers, all making their way slowly eastwards to India and beyond. The voyage took two weeks, stopping off at Barcelona, Port Said, Aden, and Bombay before sailing further eastwards. Tenzin Palmo knew a girl who lived in Bombay and had written to her asking if she could stay for a few days while she orientated herself.

The leisurely pace of the voyage suited Tenzin Palmo’s mood perfectly. ‘It was like being in a bardo state, that world in between death and rebirth. You’re not part of the past and not yet in the future. I had this limited time where I could just be on the boat, before the next chapter. It was a lovely way to travel.’

The journey was to prove memorable, however. True to all good sea voyage stories, there was a ship-board romance. Also accompanying Tenzin Palmo was a young Japanese man whom she had only recently met. Like many of her suitors, he had fallen deeply in love with the vivacious and intelligent woman. Tenzin Palmo from her side had been extremely attracted to the tall Asian man, who came from a good family and was Buddhist as well. They had decided to travel together, the Japanese man intending to take the boat on to Tokyo. Inevitably, once on board romance flourished and one night under the stars he proposed, albeit in a most unusual way.

‘He told me he was going to say something and that I had to say “Hei” at the end. I said OK, thinking it was a game. He went on for about five minutes, stopped, looked at me and I said, “Hei”. I asked what I had agreed to, and he said, “You’ve just agreed to marry me.” I burst out laughing. I thought he was joking. We hardly knew each other. I didn’t think he was serious, but he was.’

Tenzin Palmo vacillated, caught once more between the two sides of herself. ‘The thing was he was so beautiful and such a lovely person. He had such a good heart. My friends said I’d better marry him quick because I wasn’t going to find someone like him again in a hurry. And it was the first time I’d ever met anyone who I felt “This one I want to be with.” Still, deep inside me, I didn’t really want to get married. My idea was that we’d live together for a while, he would get fed up with me because he was so incredible and I was really nothing and then I’d really understand that this life was suffering, as the Buddha had said. I could then come back and be a nun. That’s what I was thinking,’ she said.

’The problem was I never actually said “No.” When I suggested we live together he was horrified and said it was out of the question. The family, the tradition would never allow it. It was unthinkable. We had to get married. At that moment all the warning bells went off and I felt this terror of becoming entrapped.’

Caught in the two-way pull between the need for physical and emotional intimacy and the ever-present call of the spirit she decided to keep her options open. They made an agreement. Tenzin Palmo would stay in India for a year and then go to Japan. As it turned out, the Japanese boyfriend almost got his way sooner than he expected. Disembarking at Bombay Tenzin Palmo discovered, much to her dismay, that there was no one waiting on the docks to meet them as arranged. Taking control of the situation, the Japanese boyfriend left the girls with the luggage and went to look around.

‘He came back absolutely appalled. “This is a terrible place. It’s hell. I can’t leave you here,” he said. I didn’t know what to do. “If someone doesn’t come for us in half an hour I will come on with you to Japan,” I finally agreed. We had waited for another twenty minutes when a man suddenly came rushing towards us waving a letter. “You wrote to my daughter – but she is not at home, so I opened it. It only came by this morning’s mail. I rushed here immediately,” he said. Such is the fine-timing of fate. I remember crying myself to sleep that night, thinking of leaving my boyfriend. The next morning, however, I woke up and felt quite cheerful! Ah, never mind, I thought.’

So Tenzin Palmo and her girlfriends made their way to Dalhousie, in northern India, and Freda Bedi’s school for young lamas. It was March when they arrived, Tenzin Palmo having trudged the last two hours through the snow in sandals. Her feet might have been wet but her spirits were ebullient: ‘I was going up into the mountains and more and more Tibetans were appearing. When I finally reached Dalhousie there were thousands of them. There were snow mountains all around, the sky was bright blue - it was so lovely.’