Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

Born Diane Perry in England in 1943, Tenzin Palmo travelled to India in 1964 and became one of the first Western women to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun. Between 1976 and 1988 she lived in solitary retreat in a remote Himalayan cave, an experience later told in the biography Cave in the Snow. In 2000 she founded Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in Himachal Pradesh to give women in the Drukpa Kagyu lineage the same education traditionally reserved for monks.

She retired from public teaching in April 2022 and no longer gives talks, tours, or appears on calls. Her books, including Cave in the Snow and The Heroic Heart, along with archived teachings, remain the way to encounter her work.