The best biographies within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition

This book is as much fun to read as an Indiana Jones story! Theos Bernard, born in 1908, was a grad student at Columbia University in 1936 when he decided he needed to go to India to do research on Tantric Yoga. He eventually became only the third American to even be allowed to enter Tibet, where he finally was able to study with the highest Tantric masters. But he was still and always an American; a big, strapping, handsome guy with a great asana practice and so his story unfolds in New York, California, Arizona just as much as in India and Tibet. And then, in 1937, he disappeared. I would love to see this book made into a movie!

You might recognize the author’s name – she is a regular contributor to the Opinion Page of The New York Times. In this book, she has used her journalistic skills to uncover the layers of Indra Devi, from her birth in Russia to her status in Hollywood as one of the first yoga teachers to the stars. Indra Devi was a longtime devotee of Krishnamurti, and the first-ever woman to convince the great yoga master Krishnamacharya to teach her yoga. I remember knowing about her back in the ’70s when I was a novice yogi/college student in southern California and Devi was still teaching privately in Los Angeles. But only through reading this book did I learn how much her work contributed to the current popularity and acceptance of yoga in western culture.

This book is a true treasure. It tells the incredible story of Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, now a world-renowned dharma teacher in the Tibetan tradition. Born as Diane Perry in London, she decided at the age of 18 that she was a Buddhist, saved up her money, and sailed to India in 1964 to pursue her spiritual path. There she battled the prejudice against women in Tibetan Buddhism, did a 12-year solitary retreat in a remote cave in the high Himalayas, and emerged from the cave with the stead-fast determination to build a monastery for nuns in India. Vicki Mackenzie recounts the practicality, sheer determination, and fearless intelligence of Tenzin Palmo in detail, so we really get to experience her amazing inner and outer journey. Furthermore, the writer weaves the history, beliefs, and practices of Tibetan Buddhism in a way that gives us a clear insight into this often complex religion.