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I don't know why I got reborn as a female. Maybe in my past life I had some sympathy or something for women, but I certainly wasn't a female last time.

Tenzin Palmo

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Tenzin Palmo
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: January 1
Author
Bhikkhuni
Nun
Writer
Herts
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
Life
Wasn
Maybe
Lasts
Last
Past
Reborn
Women
Sympathy
Something
Female
Time
Certainly

More quotes by Tenzin Palmo

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We need to be sincere in our practice, but at the same time we can't take ourselves too seriously.
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A lot of people with the purest motivation end up getting completely burned out. And that's because they lack the wisdom and the skill and the inner space.
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We do look for inspiration amongst our own sex. Why not? You go into temples and they're full of all the lineage lamas who are male. What message does that give to a young girl, except that somehow she got trapped in the wrong body because of bad things she did in a past life?
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We don't always need to be sitting at the foot of the teacher, but from time to time we need someone who can overview us and give us direction.
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Just entering into the dharma and taking refuge and bodhisattva vows is a tremendous amount of merit, but we need more and more and more.
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You see people swimming, and you think, oh, how wonderful to swim. But most people stand on the edge swaying back and forth, afraid to jump. They don't think they can swim.
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In the early '60s there was very little reliable information on Tibetan Buddhism. I was living in London and I had joined the Buddhist Society. For the most part, people there were either interested in Theravada or Zen Buddhism. There was almost no one into Tibetan Buddhism at that time.
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When I was 18 I read a book about Buddhism and, before I was halfway through it I said to my mother, I'm a Buddhist! She said, That's great. Finish reading the book and then you can tell me all about it. From that moment on I knew I was a Buddhist.
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To be completely enlightened means that you're a Buddha.I don't speak of enlightenment.
Tenzin Palmo
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Joining the Sangha and renouncing worldly life is necessary in order to devote your whole life and all your energies toward the Dharma.
Tenzin Palmo
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We have to transform those ordinary actions of our day into dharma practice because otherwise nothing is going to move.
Tenzin Palmo
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My mother was a spiritualist. We had weekly séances at our house with a neighbor who was a medium and various friends, and so I was brought up with the idea that there are many realms of being all around us. So that prepared me for Buddhism, and especially Tibetan Buddhism with all its talk of different realms and dimensions of being.
Tenzin Palmo
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First you have to help yourself.
Tenzin Palmo
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If you go to any nunnery and ask them what the main obstacle is, they'll always say low self-esteem and lack of confidence. It will take time. But the difference between the first girls from Ladakh who became nuns, to the girls we have now, is very encouraging.
Tenzin Palmo
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The new nuns don't know that they're 'supposed' to be meek and submissive, and so in many ways they believe they can do anything, because they've seen the earlier ones do it. In this way, there's nothing for them to doubt.
Tenzin Palmo
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Caves are beautiful things you know. They're thermostatically controlled - warm when it's cold out and cool when it's warm. Very quiet. Nobody there. Especially in the winter - it was perfect. Also, because it's a cave, you can't do much with it.
Tenzin Palmo
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Most religions have always appreciated the extreme power of concentrated thought directed toward the benefit of others, especially when that person is practicing in solitude. That's why they have contemplative orders.
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In the texts, and as His Holiness the Dalai Lama reminds us, we should check the person's behavior not when they're sitting on a big throne, but behind the scenes. How do they treat ordinary people - not the big sponsors - but just ordinary people who are of no particular importance to them.
Tenzin Palmo
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There is a tremendous rise now in feminine awareness and wishing for equality, equal opportunities.
Tenzin Palmo
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The Buddha always emphased the important of good friends.
Tenzin Palmo