Reflection on Unit 6: Spiritual Renewal

Reflection

             Upon studying the governing topic of this unit, I must say that I’ve found myself fascinated with how far people are willing to go in order to seek spiritual growth and ultimately find their true self. I was especially mesmerized with Tenzin Palmo’s story, or as she was once known, Diane Perry, and her quest for spiritual fullness.

             Her journey began at the tender age of 21 in London’s East End in the 1950s. She described herself as being then, a common British young adult who was unfocused, rebellious, and quite far from any religious views or motivations. However, she soon developed an interest in Eastern religions while in college, particularly of Buddhism. Such interest had her actually embarking on a spiritual endeavor all the way to India, where she ended up meeting her guru Khamtrul Rinpoche, who later became her mentor.

             The astonishing part of her story is how certain she felt a month into that trip, to the extent of suddenly breaking up her engagement with her then fiancé, shaving up her head, putting on the saffron-dyed nun robes so characteristic of Buddhist monks and nuns, and finally throwing herself into monastic life. She lived in that particular monastery for 8 years and as if that was not enough, she subsequently went on a solitary retreat in the mountains for 13 more years surviving against all odds, all and every tribulations thrown at her.

            I was particularly drawn by how she expressed her experience with solitude, to which she said, and I quote: “The solitude awarded me with a sense of infinitive time and space”. To which I would like to add a quote that just popped into my mind about the beauty of solitude from a book a recently read that says: “Silence was definitely golden” and golden it was indeed if it granted her such an outer world perspective of our reality.

            In conclusion, the quest for spiritual growth and the achievement of fullness come in different forms for all people, for some is through prayers, going to church, reading the bible, and meditating from time to time, while for others those practices are simply not enough and what works for them is to relinquish all that is material or belonging to the physical domain and strictly abide by the rules of an ascetic lifestyle characterized by an overall austerity, like in in Tenzi Palmo’s case. What is remarkable about her journey is that through such an extreme choice in her youth, she ultimately found her calling, which was to educate young girls who like her wished to pursue a life of spiritual fullness, encouraging them that as women they could also achieve the status of their male counterparts within this fascinating Tibetan Buddhist ideology.