Vicki Mackenzie (Author) - The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi: British Feminist, Indian Nationalist, Buddhist Nun

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(Courtesy John Hills)

THE REVOLUTIONARY LIFE OF

Freda Bedi

BRITISH FEMINIST, INDIAN NATIONALIST, BUDDHIST NUN

Vicki Mackenzie

Foreword by Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

SHAMBHALA BOULDER 2017

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

4720 Walnut Street

Boulder, CO 80301

www.shambhala.com

2017 by Vicki Mackenzie

Cover art: Courtesy of the Bedi Family Archives

Cover design: Gopa & Ted2, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Mackenzie, Vicki, author.

Title: The revolutionary life of Freda Bedi: British Feminist, Indian Nationalist, Buddhist Nun / Vicki MacKenzie.

Description: First edition. | Boulder, co: Shambhala, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016028308 | eISBN 9780834840713 | ISBN 9781611804256 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Bedi, Freda, 19111977. | Buddhist womenBiography. | Buddhist nunsBiography. | BISAC:RELIGION / Buddhism / Tibetan. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Religious. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women.

Classification: LCC BQ942.E38 M33 2017 | DDC 294.3/923092 [B]dc 3

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016028308

To all mothers everywhere, especially my own inexpressibly kind mother, Irene Mackenzie (19191998), in gratitude for her unfailing love and support.

CONTENTS

H ERE AT LAST is the long-awaited biography of a remarkable woman named Freda Bedi or Sister Khechog Palmo, who was a pioneering figure in the early years of the Tibetan exile in India. A wife, mother, and former freedom fighter in the Indian Independence movement, Freda went on to become one of the first Western nuns in Tibetan Buddhism and was the founder of a school for young reincarnate lamas and also the founder of the first Tibetan nunnery in India. She was a close disciple of the Sixteenth Karmapainstrumental in his first visit to the United Statesand was also the mentor of Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche, along with many other lamas who brought Tibetan Buddhism to the West.

Her outreach and enlightened projects empowered so many others during the early days of the Tibetan exile and deserve to be remembered and appreciated. So I am indeed grateful to Vicki Mackenzie for her efforts to recover so much biographical material, before it is too late, in order to tell us the inspiring story of Sister Palmos extraordinary life and her contribution to the preservation of the Tibetan dharma during a time of precarious transition.

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

I MISSED HER by a few short weeks, which in the light of what was to transpire many years later was a great pity. By the time I trekked up the washed-away dirt road to that magical hilltop monastery called Kopan, peering over the Kathmandu Valley, for my first-ever meditation course on a bright November morning in 1976, everyone was still talking about it. One afternoon, the senior lamaa round, charismatic character named Thubten Yeshehad walked into the meditation tent, ushering before him a tall, beautiful, somewhat stout Western woman in her mid-sixties. She had fair skin, blue eyes, a perfectly round face, and a decidedly dignified bearing. She had the bald head of a Buddhist nun and was wearing maroon and yellow robes. Much to the onlookers bemusement, Lama Yeshe proceeded to lead her to the high brocaded throne, and when she was settled, stood before her, brought his hands together at his heart, and reverently threw himself on the floor in three full-length body prostrations.

The course participants, who had never seen (or indeed heard of) any female on a throne, let alone a Westerner in fancy robes, were taken aback. In this patriarchal religion, living women were never bowed to. But if Lama Yeshe held this woman in high regard, she had to be special, because over the weeks they had come to respect this kind, powerful man who had spoken out of his own wisdom and made them laugh.

The womans name was Freda Bedi, born in Derby, in Englands Midlands region, the daughter of a watchmaker, who had married a Sikh whose last name was Bedi.

I thought no more about itthen. Back in 1976, I was far more excited by the prospect of sampling the very radical business of meditation, delivered by exotic and mysterious lamas only recently emerged from their secret, forbidden land of Tibet. Here was high adventure. I had crept away from my job as a feature writer on one of Britains leading national newspapers in the heart of Londons Fleet Street without telling anyone what I was doing. In those days Buddhism was so unknown in the West, it was regarded virtually as a cultforeign, full of heretical beliefs, and highly dangerous. I knew I would have lost all credibility as a responsible, serious journalist if I had revealed where I was going.

I was drawn there not just by curiosity to tread the unknown path (an essential quality for a journalist) but by some nonspecific, sincerely felt need to explore the deeper meaning of things that lay beyond the getting and spending, as Wordsworth put it. This quiet yearning had been with me since childhood, and over the years as my Christian background failed to deliver what I sought, I began to feel drawn to the East, intuitively suspecting their ancient wisdom might hold what I was looking for.

Kopan and the lamas didnt disappoint. What I discovered on my clandestine journey was fascinating and fulfilling enough to keep me engrossed for forty years. During that time Freda Bedis name continued to crop up, dropped into the conversation by people who had met her in the very early days of Tibetan Buddhisms appearance in the outside world. Everyone spoke of her with affection and a little awe. I heard that she had had a stellar career, was a household name in India, as well as being the mother of three childrenone of whom was a handsome Bollywood star and a James Bond villain.

Something radical had happened to Freda Bedi in her middle age, because she turned her back on her fame, her work, and her family and had become the first Western Tibetan Buddhist nun. I learned that she had started a school for the young reincarnated lamas when they were refugees newly arrived in India, to teach them English and the ways of the world. One of her pupils was Zopa Rinpoche, Lama Yeshes heart disciple, who had taught me first in Kopan and subsequently in other venues around the world. Freda had plucked him out of a terrible disease-ridden refugee camp, a skinny kid wracked with tuberculosis, provided him with medicines, new robes, a sponsor, and the beginnings of a Western education.

Maybe that was why Lama Yeshe, always full of gratitude, had bowed before her.

Other tidbits about Freda came my way. Strangely, this subtle amassing of information gathered momentum as time went by, as though something I was not conscious of was building up. I discovered that she had been a freedom fighter for the cause of Indian independence, joining Gandhis powerful movement in defiance of her own people, the British. And she had gone to jail for her trouble, the first Englishwoman to do so. My journalists antennae began to twitch. Maybe there was a story here. Freda was becoming increasingly interesting.