The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi: British Feminist, Indian Nationalist, Buddhist Nun

171 Pages·2017·2.11 MB·English

by  Vicki Mackenzie (Author)

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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, 1911–1977. | Buddhist women—Biography. | Buddhist nuns—Biography. |
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 (1919–1998), in gratitude for her unfailing love and support.
CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction: First Glimpse
1. Beginnings
2. Expanding World
3. Love
4. Transitions
5. Freedom Fighter
6. Prisoner
7. Kashmir
8. Aftermath
9. Turning Point
10. Meeting the Tibetans
11. The Tulkus
12. Dalhousie
13. The Nuns
14. Ordination
15. Spreading the Word
16. Forging the Bridge
17. Last Days
Epilogue
E-mail Sign-Up
FOREWORD
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 Karmapa—instrumental in his first visit to
the United States—and was also the mentor of Chögyam 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 Palmo’s extraordinary life and her contribution to the preservation of the
Tibetan dharma during a time of precarious transition.
—Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
INTRODUCTION: FIRST GLIMPSE
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
lama—a round, charismatic character named Thubten Yeshe—had 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 woman’s name was Freda Bedi, born in Derby, in England’s Midlands
region, the daughter of a watchmaker, who had married a Sikh whose last name
was Bedi.
I thought no more about it—then. 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 Britain’s leading national newspapers in the heart of
London’s 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 cult—
foreign, 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 didn’t disappoint. What I discovered on my clandestine
journey was fascinating and fulfilling enough to keep me engrossed for forty
years. During that time Freda Bedi’s name continued to crop up, dropped into
the conversation by people who had met her in the very early days of Tibetan
Buddhism’s 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 children—one 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 Yeshe’s 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 Gandhi’s powerful movement in
defiance of her own people, the British. And she had gone to jail for her trouble,