Tenzin Palmo

I have received a precious gift yesterday, the French translation of Cave in the Snow (Un ermitage dans la neige) written by Vicki Mackenzie. It is a book on the life of a still very active Western buddhist woman, Tenzin Palmo, who has spent 12 years in retreat practicing meditation. The books states she is the first european woman to have done it, but as most of you know, the first one was most probably Alexandra David-Néel (and I do encourage everyone to read her books, she was an amazing woman!).
The book is very inspiring in ways which probably differ with each person who reads her story, so I will not dwell on this.

However, one of the things that the book adresses is the condition of buddhist nuns, the difficulties they - and Tenzin Palmo - have to face because of so many preconceived ideas about the inferiority of the body of the woman and other such nonsense.
She states that - aside from here guru - the only ones who didn't make any distinction between them and her were the yogis (togden).
Her master wanted her to create a monastery and reinstate the tradition of female yogis that had pretty much become extinct because of the Chinese invasion. She is working at this project right now, and progress is being made! She asked her yogi friends to teach what they know to the nuns in the nunnery she founded so that they too could become accomplished yoginis and teach other women and eventually help change all these preconceived ideas about the limit of women on the spiritual path.
As you would imagine, most great buddhist masters today, headed by HH the Dalai Lama agree that the situation is not normal and that it should be changed but there is this whole tradition which dates back thousands of years and which is very much anchored in psyché of the lamas. (this goes not only for Tibetan buddhism, but for all types)

There is a very interesting passage in the book which reports Sylvia Wetzel's words -a German buddhist - at the very first conference organized by HH the Dalai Lama on Western buddhism (1993), and which adressed amongst other subjects the question of the role of women in buddhism. I find it very suggestive:
"Imagine that you are a man coming into a buddhist retreat center. You can see the paintings of this beautiful Tara surrounded by 16 female arhats, and you can see HH the Dalai Lama who deliberately incarnated 14 times under female forms. You are surrounded by great female Rimpoché, beautiful, strong, intelligent women. Then the bhikshuni (nunns) come in, confident and straighforward. And then, behind them, the monks enter timidly and and in a hesitant fashion. You start to hear talking about the holders of the ligneage whom are all women, descendants from Tara."

Now you interchange the sexes and you get the real picture.