Making Daily Life our Spiritual Practice

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo’s first public talk in Bangalore

Prajnadhara in association with its Sangha partners Vana Foundation and Siddhartha’s Intent India was delighted to host Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo’s first public talk in Bangalore, titled ‘Making daily life our spiritual practice’.

The event was held on the 2nd of February 2020 in Prajnadhara’s new Nelamangala campus, with participants from many parts of the city attending the same. Jetsunma took the participants through Geshe Langri Thangpa’s ‘Eight verses of training the mind’. She made all the listeners see that obstacles in life are indeed opportunities for spiritual practice and why it is important to sit on the banks of the river and watch it flowing by. When she was showing the light at the end of otherwise dark tunnel, one could see the whole bright sky itself. Jetsunma shared her observations on the rise of feminine energy over the last 25 years in the Buddhist Sanghas and teaching circles and stressed the role of educated Buddhist nuns in the transmission of Buddhist teachings. The lively question and answer session saw her addressing all queries ranging from “How does one become a Jetsunma?” to “What did you do in the cave for 12 years?” Holding herself as lightly as ever and yet transmitting the teachings of the great teachers in her inimitable style, Jetsunma had the audience in thrall for over four hours, despite having developed a fairly severe cold. The session ended with her making the participants sit in silence and that brought back the still-summer-afternoons spent in our grandmas’ homes.