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has held a conference addressing the most pressing issues facing
Buddhist women.
Over the past thirty-two years, Sakyadhita has grown into a
well-respected organization with over two thousand members inter-
nationally. It has been instrumental in advocating for the welfare
of women in Buddhism, supporting their education, and publishing
research on the role of women in the dharma, both present-day and
historical. It has also jump-started a movement to reintroduce full
ordination for nuns in all Buddhist traditions.
The current president of Sakyadhita, Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, is
another trailblazer for women. In 1973 she traveled from India
to Hong Kong to take ordination as a bhikshuni; in doing so, she
became the second-ever fully ordained nun practicing Vajrayana
Buddhism. The first woman was her friend Freda Bedi, who had
ordained in Hong Kong one year earlier.
Born as Diane Perry in Britain, Tenzin Palmo became interested in
Buddhism as a teenager and moved to India in 1963. Three months
after her arrival she met her teacher, the Eighth Khamtrul Rinpoche,
and she decided to take novice vows at the age of twenty-one. Ten
years later she requested permission from Khamtrul Rinpoche to
travel to Hong Kong to take ordination as a bhikshuni, since she
could not do so in India.
Tenzin Palmo was not involved in the first years of Sakyadhita;
during that time, she was in a cave in northern India, completing a
twelve-year meditation retreat as part of her training to become a
yogini in the togdenma lineage of the Kagyu tradition, a lost female
yogini lineage tracing back to Milarepa. She has since established
Dongyu Gatsal Ling, a nunnery for the training of the togdenma inSakyadhita has been instrumental in advocating for the
welfare of women in Buddhism, supporting their education,
and publishing research on the role of women in the dharma.photos Olivier Adam³