The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi Page 12
“The number grew to about twenty young lamas—very naughty little kids and very cute,” remembered Guli, who visited the Young Lamas Home School during her winter holiday from boarding school.
The British author Lois Lang-Sims, who was staying with the Bedis, recorded her own impression of the school in her book The Presence of Tibet. Sims was clearly convinced of the authenticity of the tulku pupils. “I marvelled at these children—that strange conjunction in them of an unconscious dignity and poise with pure childishness: the manner in which they combined an unfailing consideration for others with the expression of normal boyish high spirits. In their monkish robes and heavy boots they clattered, laughing until a bell rang for lessons or prayers and promptly called out ‘good-bye’ and disappeared as if promptness in obedience were a matter of course. Surely these young ones, who were believed to carry within them the virtues of bygone saints, were indeed the vehicles of that spirit which had created and informed the old Tibet.”
Having founded her school Freda’s next task was to recruit her tulkus. Over the following years scores of tulkus from all sects of Tibetan Buddhism passed through the Young Lamas Home School. Proving her intuition absolutely correct, many of them went on to become the founding fathers of Western Buddhism. Among them was Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who came to the Young Lamas Home School as a pitifully thin teenager suffering from tuberculosis; today he holds the lofty title of Kyabje, a lama whose realization and powers are extraordinary, and heads the FPMT (Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition), arguably the largest network of Buddhist centers and affiliated enterprises across all continents. There were also Gelek Rinpoche, who went on to study at Cornell University and whose students include Hollywood actors and esteemed musicians; and Tarthang Tulku, who established a publishing house as well as institutes in California, Europe, and Brazil.
And then there were two boys, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his childhood friend Akong Rinpoche, who were to play major roles not only in bringing Buddhism to the West but also in Freda’s personal life. From the moment she encountered Trungpa, Freda was irresistibly drawn to him, detecting an outstanding intelligence, charisma, and what she called his “spiritual purity.”
The Eleventh Trungpa, once destined to become abbot of Surmang Monastery in Kham, East Tibet, and who had over thirteen thousand people attend his enthronement, was to become one of the most eminent, dazzling, innovative, influential, and controversial Buddhist teachers in America. Apart from writing groundbreaking books, such as Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, he was responsible for cofounding, with Akong Rinpoche, the first Tibetan monastery in the West, Samye Ling, in Eskdalemuir, Scotland, and the first Buddhist university in the United States, Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.
Akong Rinpoche, from Dolma Lhakang Monastery, also in Kham, was the second incarnation of a holy lama and a renowned physician. The two rinpoches had met when they were fourteen and had become close friends. Within their spiritual hierarchy, Trungpa was regarded as senior, having initiated a superior eleven reincarnations to Akong’s two.
It was when Trungpa, in retreat, heard that his monastery had been sacked and the tomb of his predecessor, the Tenth Trungpa, opened and its remains spread around the courtyard that the two rinpoches decided it was too dangerous to stay any longer in Tibet. They arranged to escape together in April 1959.
Freda met the two young men as they literally staggered into the refugee camp. They were in a worse state than any other Tibetans she had encountered, and her heart went out to them.
Akong Rinpoche told the story of the meeting shortly before his tragic murder in Tibet in October 2013, while on a visit with the approval of the Chinese authorities. He spoke from the magnificent Samye Ling, which he had helped build and had directed after Trungpa moved to the United States. During his lifetime, Akong Rinpoche had also contributed greatly to the spread of Buddhism in the wider world, expanding Samye Ling, initiating a number of impressive long-term retreat programs for Westerners, and establishing Rokpa, an international humanitarian organization. His reputation as a healer grew, and he was particularly interested in treating people with mental health problems.
“Trungpa and I were both around twenty when we met Mummy Bedi. She was the first white person I had ever seen, and frankly I thought she had come from outer space, that she wasn’t human. She took special interest in us both because of what we had gone through, although she was particularly drawn to Trungpa. I think it was because we were both in such a terrible state and we had endured one of the hardest journeys of all. She asked us lots of questions about our lives and our escape. We told her everything.
“Our escape was so hard because it was so long. We thought it would only last three months, but in the end it took ten because we took such a circuitous route avoiding the Chinese. Our route was to get to Assam through the Brahmaputra region. For four months we traveled by mule and horse, but we had to do the rest on foot—and the going was hard, because we had to hide during the day and could only travel by night. It was really dangerous—there were many high passes and raging rivers we had to cross on swinging rope bridges. The Chinese were after us because Trungpa, as a high reincarnnate lama with many followers, had a price on his head.
“We had only brought enough food for three months, so it ran out. Trungpa and I cooked our yak leather shoes and bags for whatever nourishment they contained. When you’re that hungry, there’s no such thing as horrible.
“We started off with three hundred people, but many died en route, mostly of hunger. Sometimes we lost as many as twenty to thirty a day. It was winter and there were no berries or leaves, and we didn’t know which were edible anyway. Things became more desperate when one of our party stole a cow for us all to eat, and the villagers told the Chinese about us. Troops descended on us, shooting, killing, and capturing those who didn’t get away. When we reached the Brahmaputra, those of us that were left built coracles to cross the river. We crammed nine people into each boat, which was really treacherous, especially as we had to cross at night. The water came up to our mouths, and our clothing became wet and frozen.
“When Trungpa and I reached the other side, it was light and the Chinese were still chasing us. They were closing in fast and we could hear them coming. We were desperate for somewhere to hide, but there wasn’t anywhere. Then we saw a large fallen tree with space underneath it. We crawled underneath and hid. The troops went over the tree three or four times, but didn’t see us. We were very lucky. The following night we found a cave and crawled in there to sleep. We couldn’t go any farther. There was no more leather to eat, and we were unable to walk anymore. Trungpa and I talked about which one of us was going to die first. I wasn’t afraid—I had my meditation practice.
“We were still wearing precious relics and jewelry. I realized then we were decorated with useless things. At that moment, near death, I decided that if I managed to survive, the only job I would like to do is help others—education, clothing, medicine, food, shelter were the things that mattered. Everyone dies, whether they are rich or poor, have jewelry or not, but food and health are essential to all. I had been sitting on my throne all my life, giving orders, not being allowed into the kitchen of my monastery in case I got dirty. In that cave my mind changed completely. From then on I wanted to serve.
“By chance some hunters found us the next day and gave us food. What we hadn’t realized was that we had already crossed the border and were safe. Out of the three hundred who had left Tibet, only fifteen of us made it to India.”
Without much hesitation Freda invited them both to Delhi so that they could learn English. Chögyam Trungpa and Akong eventually moved into the already crowded Bedi government flat at Defense Colony and were absorbed into the family, as were most visitors. Once again Freda saw herself as mother and from then on referred to Trungpa as “my spiritual son.”
“And I saw her as my mother,” said Akong. “Who is the mother but the one who gives you nourishme
nt, who takes care of you, who teaches you not to go near danger, who lets you grow to be a proper, useful human being? Without the mother the child could not survive. Freda Bedi was a real mother and very precious to me.
“Both Mummy and Papa Bedi were very kind. Whatever they ate they shared with us. I was not as keen to learn English as Trungpa—who was much better than me. Mummy Bedi was always busy, working hard every day, but she taught us whenever she could and would always take us along to parties at the embassies to introduce us to that kind of society so that we could get to know and understand it. She also wanted them to get to know Tibetans!” he said.
But it was not so easy for the Bedi children to have these new additions to their family. “They were with us for at least two years,” Kabir recalls. “I was at college by this stage and Guli was at school, and they were there when we came home for the holidays. Initially I resented them a lot. To me they were interlopers. I hardly got to see enough of Mummy as it was. I really didn’t like them being in our home at all. We hardly had any room. Just two bedrooms, a sitting room, and a hut that Papa had built in the garden, which functioned as an office. Guli and I slept with Mummy in one room, Trungpa and Akong shared the other.
“Then I grew to like them. They were very, very nice. Trungpa was extremely quick, flamboyant, with a naughty sense of humor. He took me under his wing. And you could not help liking Akong—he was humble, self-effacing, helpful. He was more solid and conservative than Trungpa. We remained close, and he referred to me always as his brother.”
Guli was more resigned to the tulkus’ presence in her home. “My life had always included other people—my mother was always bringing people into the house. She did care for her family, but we had to share her all our lives. It was part of the deal of being her child. I used to speak English with Trungpa and Akong, and I remember their day seemed extremely organized by Mummy. She made them keep to a timetable of when to get up, when to have their meals, when to have their lessons. My father, of course, was far less strict. He got Akong to take off his robes and wear ordinary shorts so that he could go to the market and have more fun.”
Gelek Rinpoche was another frequent guest at the Bedi household. A highborn reincarnate lama related to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Gelek Rinpoche was found by Freda in the Buxa refugee camp, plucked out, and taught the niceties of how to behave in Western society, Professor Higgins–style. “I stayed with Mummy and her family on and off for about three years. Trungpa and Akong were already living with her. Trungpa was very diligent, but I was lazy. I felt I was on holiday! Mummy Bedi helped me get over my monk’s superiority complex. She also taught me to respect women and other people in general.
“Her intention was to teach me about life outside my small monastic world. I was completely unaware of anything other than Tibetan life. She taught me to speak proper English. ‘Don’t run your words together, say them separately,’ she’d instruct. Mummy would also take me to social events such as diplomatic parties. She would literally take me by the hand and show me how to enter a room, how to behave, and what to say. ‘If you do not know the person, you put out your hand and say, slowly, “How do you do, how lovely to meet you.”’ Sometimes we acted out these scenes with her husband and two children, Kabir and Guli, as the audience.
“Mummy was very strict and stern, especially if I did not do my homework. But she was also very, very kind and extremely good at administration. Whatever she said she was going to do, she did it. She was completely generous with everything. Totally altruistic. There is no doubt she put me on the path for coming to the West. In fact, she told me to go to America. She said that Westerners needed the Dharma, that they needed help. She also told me that Westerners were more open than Tibetans and more forthright, which was encouraging. ‘Whatever you know you can say—the more you say, the more they will understand. You don’t have to hide.’ She was correct,” he said.
The small Delhi flat was now crammed to overflowing. Lois Lang-Sims, in The Presence of Tibet, summed up the flavor of the warm, eccentric, and chaotic Bedi household when she went to stay there while gathering information on the Tibetan refugee situation for the Tibet Society in London:
A tall, fair-haired Englishwoman with a face that was both soft and strong, looking remarkably Anglo Saxon despite the rumpled sari which she wore as if she had never known any other kind of dress, stood in the doorway of the ground floor flat to which I had found my way. She was smiling warmly in welcome. There seemed to be a great many people in the room in which I found myself, (including young monks, another fair-skinned woman in a sari and Freda Bedi’s husband). They were all seated around a low table on the floor with the exception of an elderly Tibetan monk who was sitting apart from the rest on a raised seat.
The time was half past ten in the evening, but I could see the working day had only just finished. I began to look around the room which had a dingy beauty of its own. . . . There were no chairs, only cushions and mats, and the hard bed-seat covered by a Tibetan rug. In one corner of the room was a Tibetan shrine glowing with lighted butter lamps. As my eyes turned to the level of the ground, I saw a large brown rat sidling along the wall on soft feet.
At last I was shown the place where I was to sleep and the tap under which I was expected to wash. After a week in an Indian household I was still defeated by the sight of a cold tap splashing water onto a stone floor, a mug by which I realised I was expected to douche myself, nowhere to lay my clothes and no inch of floor space that was either dry or clean beneath my bare feet. The bed was of wood with no mattress; but at this I had become accustomed so that I even liked it. As a concession to my foreign habits I had been given a pair of sheets. I was sharing a room with an American woman while the other members of Freda’s huge household disposed themselves to sleep either on the hard bed-seats or on the floor all over the rest of the flat. I was kept awake for most of the night by lights, snores, spiritual exercises, and campaigns against the bed bugs by the American.
The room in which I slept was used for meditation classes throughout the day and for part of the night so I could not enter it even to fetch a handkerchief. In Freda I had an example of an Englishwoman who had successfully Indianized herself, but I could not get behind the barrier of her total self-dedication, her all-pervading sense of social responsibility, her blind indifference to her comfort and convenience.
Scores of refugees came straggling down from the camps and appearing on Freda’s doorstep, without money, food or decent clothes, and frequently in an advanced stage of sickness. Freda, being less concerned with categories than with individuals, never turned away a single Tibetan who came to her for help.
Trungpa was installed as the principal of the Young Lamas Home School, and Akong was its manager. When all was complete, Freda had an audience with Nehru to thank him profusely for his help. Nehru smiled and said in a low, quiet voice, “It was not for you I did it.” Nevertheless Freda had single-handedly planned and brought into being the Young Lamas Home School. She had succeeded in her pioneering task to bring the tulkus into the twentieth century, and she was on her way to realizing the next stage of her vision—to bring them to the West.
If Nehru provided the political clout for her school, the spiritual blessing was to come from the Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa, Freda’s guru. She duly invited him to Delhi to perform the necessary rituals, and took advantage of his presence by requesting him to grant her Refuge, the formal ceremony marking one’s official entrance onto the Buddhist path. Refuge confirmed Freda’s faith that the Buddha, his teachings, and the community of his followers would provide her ultimate place of safety and succor, not just in this life but in all her lives to come. She was fifty, old for someone to take this step, but then she had been busy doing other things.
To Freda this was a hugely sacred and profound milestone in her spiritual journey. “When you take Refuge, you go on with your life, but in the cave of your heart you feel you have found the oasis, the place where you can take refuge in t
he sea of suffering, and where you can develop the enlightened mind. Taking Refuge is a great source of strength and blessing. Sometimes it can change your life, just like that. I’ve seen an unhappy life transformed almost immediately from taking Refuge,” she said.
“Ultimately, in the Buddhist sense, Refuge is something within. We take Refuge in the seed of buddhahood, which is in all sentient beings. We think, ‘May I aspire to that which is perfect within me and which already exists although I cannot see it. I want to remove the veils, not because the ego “I” wants it but so that I may help all beings.’ We need a living guru, and we train to see the Buddha in him. That gives us the water to make the seed of enlightenment grow. Taking Refuge with His Holiness the Karmapa started my deeper meditation,” she confided.
The duties of running her school were now added to her considerable workload. Freda did not complain. “I now have seventeen young Tibetan reincarnate lamas in my latest effort for the refugees—such a joy to have them, and to see their happiness reflected in their faces,” she wrote to Olive in her Christmas letter of 1961.
The pull of the Tibetans and her Buddhist practice were growing ever stronger, and the ties to her secular and domestic life weaker. Freda was in transition, on a halfway bridge between two worlds.
12
Dalhousie
THE INNER TENSION created by the pull between her secular and spiritual life could not last. By 1961 Freda had already swapped her saris for long maroon dresses reminiscent of the robes worn by Tibetan monks and nuns, although she still wore her hair tied back in a bun. In the same year she quit her job at the Social Welfare Board and moved the Young Lamas Home School and herself from Delhi to Dalhousie, a former British hill station, in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, some 370 miles (595 kms) from her flat and her family. Her commitment to the Tibetans and her spiritual life was now almost complete.