Melbourne – One woman’s extraordinary Himalayan quest inspired an Australian documentary, writes Rebecca Urban.
MANY Westerners would consider living alone inside a remote Himalayan cave for 12 years to be a kind of cruel punishment.
But for Tibetan Buddhist nun Tenzin Palmo, it was “the best place in the world”.
The life of Palmo, one of the first Western women to he ordained into the faith, is the subject of an SBS documentary financed by the Australian Film Finance Corporation.
Writer and director Liz Thompson had been inspired by reading Vicki Mackenzie’s book of the same title and went to hear Palmo lecture in Australia. Struck by her quest for spiritual growth, Thompson met Palmo to talk of making a documentary about her life and her efforts to build a convent in northern India for women from Tibet and the Himalayan border.
“Anyone who’s spent that kind of amount of time in a cave has got to be fairly evolved,” says Thompson.
“Initially I felt a little intimidated but as the process carried on and I saw her as a human being… it became easier to relate.”
The documentary was filmed over two years and focuses heavily on Palmo’s battle against sexism within Tibetan Buddhism.
There are limited opportunities for Tibetan nuns to study and practise their faith and many end up working as household servants for monks.
Thompson says that making the film about Palmo – born a fishmonger’s daughter named Diane Perry in England in 1943 – was challenging.
The self-declared hermit, who was ordained three weeks after her 21st birthday, made it clear that she did not want to he seen as a “radical, bra-burning feminist”.
“She’s not really interested in being a celebrity and doesn’t particularly enjoy being interviewed and having films made about her,” Thompson says.
“it’s not like she wanted to make this film so people would know more about her life. She wanted to make the film so that people knew more about the nunnery and ultimately, perhaps, incite people to contribute funds.”
Thompson followed Palmo on lecture tours of Taiwan and Singapore and visited her in India three times. She also went to the ruins of the cave that was home to Palmo from 1976.
For 12 years, Palmo’s life revolved around strict meditation. She slept no longer than three hours a night sitting upright in a meditation box and faced months of heavy snow.
In the film, Palmo tells a friend she once feared suffocating after becoming trapped inside the cave by snow after a week-long blizzard.
But when asked what was the hardest part of her time in the cave, Palmo says: “When the police officer knocked on the door and told me I had 72 hours to get out of the country.”
Thompson sat at the ruins of the cave about 4000 metres above sea level and marvelled at the spectacular view, but “couldn’t quite get my head around what it would have been like to be up there for 12 years”.
Thompson, based in Sydney, is not aligned with any particular religion. However, she says she has always been drawn to Buddhist teachings and meeting Palmo partly inspired her recent visit to a 10-day meditation retreat in the Blue Mountains.
Thompson expects that her audience will be able to relate to Palmo’s remarkable story.
“A lot of people are disillusioned with accumulation and accelerated materialism and a lot of people ask questions about what their life is about,” she says.
“There’s a lot of people seeking more spiritualism in their lives.”
Cave in the Snow screens Friday at 8.30pm on SBS Television.
