Freda Bedi

Freda Bedi

Freda Bedi and Baba Pyare Lal Bedi, at Nishat Bagh, Srinagar, 1948
Religion Tibetan Buddhism
School Kagyu
Lineage Karma Kagyu
Other names Sister Palmo
Dharma names Karma Kechog Palmo
Personal
Nationality British
Born 5 February 1911
England, Derby
Died 26 March 1977 (aged 66)
New Delhi, India
Spouse Baba Pyare Lal Bedi
Children Gulhima Bedi, Kabir Bedi, Ranga Bedi
Senior posting
Title Gelongma
Religious career
Teacher 16th Karmapa

Freda Bedi (sometimes spelled Frida Bedi, also named Sister Palmo, or Gelongma Karma Kechog Palmo) (5 February 1911 – 26 March 1977) was a British woman born in Derby, England, who became famous as the first Western woman to take ordination in Tibetan Buddhism.

Early life

Freda Bedi was born Freda Houlston, in Derby, England, 5 February 1911, and was the daughter of Francis Edwin Houlston and Nellie Diana Harrison.

The family appears in the 1911 Census when Freda was two months old. Her father was killed in the First World War, in 1918, and her mother remarried in 1920, to Frank Norman Swan. She studied at Parkfield Cedars School, and then at St Hugh's College, Oxford where she obtained a MA degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and encountered her future husband, a Sikh from the Bedi family, linked to a Sikh clan tracing back to Guru Nanak Dev Ji,[1] Baba Pyare Lal Bedi (1909–1993), who was an author and philosopher from the Sikh faith.[2] She also studied a few years at Sorbonne, Paris.[3]

Life in India

In the 1930s, she moved to India where she settled in 1934. She participated in the Indian national independence movement and was arrested and detained with her children[4] along with Mohandas K. Gandhi as a satyagrahi.[5] She has been professor of English at Srinagar in Kashmir, then editor of the magazine "Social Welfare" of the Ministry of Welfare; social worker of the United Nations Social Services Planning Commission to Burma; advisor on Tibetan Refugees to the Ministry of External Affairs. In 1952, she visited Rangoon where she learned vipassana from Mahasi Sayadaw, and Sayadaw U Titthila.[1][6]

In 1959, when the 14th Dalai Lama arrived in India along with thousands of Tibetans, she was asked by Jawaharlal Nehru to help them and she was in charge of the Social Welfare Board. She dedicated herself to social activity and she followed the guidance of the 16th Karmapa of the Kagyu School. She worked with the Dalai Lama to establish the Young Lamas Home School[7] (Freda Bedi asked Chogyam Trungpa to train young Tibetan monks, and he became the spiritual advisor of them;[8] Thubten Zopa Rinpoche,[9] Akong Rinpoche, Tulku Pema Tenzin, Gelek Rimpoche, Yeshe Losal, and the sons of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Chokyi Nyima and Chokling of Tsikey[10]) of which she was the principal in Delhi and then in Dalhousie. In 1963, with Lama Karma Thinley Rinpoche and under the guidance of the Karmapa, she founded the Karma Drubgyu Thargay Ling nunnery for Tibetan women in northern India. It is today relocated in Tilokpur, Kangra Valley.[11][12]

In 1959 Christopher Hills had lobbied Nehru to approve a government in exile for the Dalai Lama fleeing persecution in Tibet and to grant full refugee status to exiled Tibetans. He had become connected to the Tibetans through his study of Buddhism and in 1960 provided funding for his English friend Freda Bedi to start the Young Lama's Home School[13] in Dalhousie, Himachal Pradesh. Later he contributed to Freda Bedi's building of the Karma Drubgyu Thargay Ling nunnery and helped organise her journey to the West with the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje in 1974.

After the young tulkus' school stopped, Bedi went to Rumtek in Sikkim, the seat of the Karmapa in exile. In 1966, she took sramaneri ordination by the Karmapa, and was given the name Gelongma Karma Kechog Palmo. She was the first Western woman to take ordination in Tibetan Buddhism. In 1972, she took full bhikshuni ordination in Hong Kong. She accompanied the Karmapa on his first visit to the West in 1974. In 1971, a book she had written was published by Lama Anagarika Govinda's Arya Maitreya Mandala in Germany. She died in New Delhi on 26 March 1977.[14][15][16]

She is the mother of two sons, Ranga and Kabir Bedi, a Hollywood and Hindi film star, and a daughter, Gulhima.[17]

She was a Tibetan–English translator.[18]

Books

Translations

From French

From Tibetan

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Gelongma Karma Khechog Palmo, Curriculum Vitae
  2. ↑ Kabir Bedi Biography (1946–)
  3. ↑ Hanna Havnevik, Tibetan Buddhist nuns: history, cultural norms, and social reality, 1989, p. 87
  4. ↑ Rick Fields, How the swans came to the lake: a narrative history of Buddhism in America, Shambhala, 1986, ISBN 0-87773-354-6, p. 278 : "Baba Bedi spent about fifteen years in prison. Freda herself was detained for a shorter time along with her children."
  5. ↑ Andrew Rawlinson, The book of enlightened masters: western teachers in eastern traditions, Open Court, 1997, ISBN 0-8126-9310-8, p. 181 : "She took part in the national independence movement and spent a short time in detention with her children after being arrested along with Gandhi as a satyagrahi."
  6. ↑ Andrew Rawlinson, op. cit. "In 1952 she went to Rangoon and practised vipassana with Mahasi Sayadaw (Friedman, 276), one of the first Westerners to do so. She also practised with Sayadaw U Titthila (Snelling, 321). "
  7. ↑ Chögyam Trungpa, Sam Bercholz, Meditation in Action
  8. ↑ Diana J. Mukpo, Carolyn Rose Gimian, Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, p. 71
  9. ↑ Jamyang Wangmo, The Lawudo Lama: stories of reincarnation from the Mount Everest region p. 191 : "The Young Lamas Home School started in Delhi in 1961 in the house of Frida Bedi, with Chogyam Trungpa, Akhong Rinpoche, Tulku Pema Tenzin, and Geleg Rinpoche as the first students. After a while, Mrs. Bedi rented a beautiful new house at L-7, Green Park, in the Hauz Khas area of New Delhi. When I joined the school in 1962 there were twelve tulkus attending."
  10. ↑ Young Lamas Home School in Dalhousie
  11. ↑ Tilokpur, Tibetan Nuns Project
  12. ↑ Karma Drubgyu Thargay Ling
  13. ↑ Cave in the Snow: A Western Woman's Quest for Enlightenment, Vicki Mackenzie, 1999, ISBN 1-58234-045-5
  14. ↑ Bernard de Give, LES MONIALES TIBÉTAINES
  15. ↑ Mick Brown, The Dance of 17 Lives: The Incredible True Story of Tibet's 17th Karmapa
  16. ↑ Hanna Havnevik, Tibetan Buddhist nuns: history, cultural norms, and social reality, 1989, p. 88 "Freda Bedi died in New Delhi on the twenty-sixth of March 1977."
  17. ↑ Fiona Fernandez, A Bedi good rhyme, MiD DAY, 15 August 2010
  18. ↑ In Memory of The Venerable Gelongma Karma Kechog Palmo

External links