We recently received the very sad news that Ven. Thubten Pemo, ordained since 1974 and one of the first students of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, has passed away. 

In the late 1990s Ven. Pemo, an American nun, was in retreat and wrote a letter to Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Rinpoche sent this letter to Ven. Robina Courtin, who was editing Mandala magazine at the time, and asked her to publish it, which she did anonymously. Ven. Robina recalls, “I was so moved by this. It just shows that we really do not know who anyone is. There was this seemingly ordinary nun, but from her letter it sounds like she was a holy being.”

As we prepare a tribute to her life and incredible qualities, we thought others would find great inspiration and causes for rejoicing reading this letter she wrote to Lama Zopa Rinpoche many years ago. 

Ven. Thubten Pemo, being offered a birthday party in 2012. Photo courtesy of Land of Medicine Buddha.

My dearest Precious Rinpoche,

Please be well and happy and continuously teach and guide numberless beings to full enlightenment. With your great kindness and compassion, please take care of me, a helpless creature overwhelmed by ignorance.

After numberless years of hardships and suffering, I have arrived at Shiné Land and a retreat house. I constantly work on my mind and every day there are new understandings and I learn more things about Dharma and about myself. I found delusions that I did not know I had. I see my faults, stupidity and mistakes. I see my ignorance all day and night.

I see the appearance of a person, together with every moment of mind. And I wonder how to be free of this appearance of a person – who is the dictator of my life and actions. I understand “self cherishing” or “selfishness” in a different way than before. I see how attachment arises. I see how anger arises. I see how we constantly want happiness. And on many levels I understand the eight worldly dharmas and put more effort into abandoning them.

I have a different understanding of karma, and different understanding of patience. New understanding of what Mahayana is, what bodhicitta is. And how to live the life as a “merely labeled person” instead of as a self-existent, independent person who wants everything for me.

I know and understand what the “guru” is. I know that the guru is all the buddhas. The guru is all the yidams. All the buddhas are the guru. All the yidams are guru. Looking at the merit field, all the holy beings have the same mind, blissful, empty, clear awareness. Just this outer body is different. The appearance or form changes but They all have the same mind. That is what You are. That is what I am.

One day I was looking at a picture of Padmasambhava and I received blessings from him. After that, my winds keep entering the central channel. One night I was sitting on the chair at the kitchen table. When I breathed in, the winds entered my central channel and my breathing stopped. I sat like that for one hour, without breathing. It felt like I could stay like that, without breathing, for as long as I wished. During meditation, if we really manifest the most subtle mind of clear light, with all the winds absorbed in the heart chakra, then, Rinpoche, what is it that stops or prevents us from dying? What causes us to come out of the clear light and to continue to live? What is your answer to this?

After this experience, on another day I was lying on the bed and there was a vision and presence of Chakrasamvara and Vajrayogini. After looking at Chakrasamvara for some time, the thought came to request initiation from Him. For the next few days, three or four or five days, its seems like I received the vase initiation and the secret and wisdom initiations from Chakrasamvara with the body mandala. There was so much bliss that for the first time I understand what an initiation is. When it came to the fourth initiation, the word, then there was no emptiness feeling and it stopped. The next day I woke up and received the fourth initiation.

Since that day, my mind keeps going into clear light, thoughts stop and I stay like that for hours. In this thoughtless space, usually my breathing stops also. This meditation on pure awareness without thoughts, gives great peace to my mind, and satisfaction and contentment. I lose all interest to seek happiness from sense objects. I do not need to do anything nor to go anywhere.

Sometimes I wake up and my mind goes into dharmakaya and stays there for hours. I cannot go to the toilet or eat. Sometimes at around two or three o’clock in the afternoon, I finally can stop and go to eat breakfast.

I find it difficult to manifest as the nirmanakaya form. Some days I can just make it to the sambhogakaya. Mostly I am stuck in dharmakaya. While I am in thoughtless space, I can clearly see the appearance of a person begin to arise. Then thoughts come like, “I did this and I did that.” Even the thought comes, “Let me out of here.” It must be like this at the death time. The mind is the subtlest mind of clear light and a self or person arises and wants to take another body.

My question is: how much time should I stay in dharmakaya before manifesting sambhogakaya? How much time in sambhogakaya before arising in nirmanakaya form? Is it good to remain for hours in dharmakaya so that I can get used to it?

The mind/body of bliss causes the clear light mind to manifest. Ven. Lama Yeshe told me to meditate “with no thoughts.” I thought this would be impossible, but now I see that my mind can remain like that for hours and watch the mind closely and when a thought arises then I bring the mind back the clear light experience. This is the mind that arises as Tara. The problem is that I never get to arise as Tara. Rinpoche, what is your advice?

Now there is the situation that so much energy is coming. At the base of the spine, the energy exploded for days. Now my charkas are full of energy and the energy is going down and up the central channel. The chi energy has appeared. I never had chi energy before. While meditating, the body starts to do chi-gong. There is so much chi energy. It feels like I could do chi-gong for hours. The hands get so much chi energy that I am using it to heal my body. One day it seemed like I went into trance and my hands healed my body and cleaned my aura. This never happened before. There is so much chi energy coming from the navel chakra and base of the spine. Question: what should I do with the chi energy, Rinpoche? How do I direct the chi energy?

It is giving life to my exhausted body. Yesterday there was so much happening that I did not eat breakfast until five o’clock in the afternoon.

Rinpoche, what is your advice for meditating on bliss and emptiness? It is difficult for my mind to experience emptiness when there is bliss. Should I do some analysis first? If there is a clear awareness bliss and no appearance of a self-existent person who is having this experience, then is that a correct way to meditate on bliss and emptiness according to tantra? Should I generate the self-existent person and then negate it? What are the various ways that I should do this?

I noticed that bliss stops desire and anger from arising. There is no desire for getting small pleasures from sense objects or people. I don’t care if I eat pizzas or mo-mos. I don’t want something. I don’t crave for small worldly happiness. I don’t care if someone harms me. I don’t feel jealousy of other people’s happiness. I don’t feel the need to be with people nor to look at beautiful scenery or objects. When the mind is satisfied and craving stops, then the eight worldly dharmas have lost their power. There is an inner peace and calm. The mind of the buddhas must be something incredible – beyond anything we can conceive of.

What all sentient beings want is the everlasting Bliss of the Enlightened mind, but do not know that such a thing exists. So we live in suffering and we create the causes for more suffering in the future. And we think that we are happy and everything is okay. We are so stupid and foolish. Our life is a dream created by our own concepts and appearances of situations and things. Everything appears so real.

One important question. Help! The texts say to see all to see all forms as the body of the deity. What does this mean? I can understand to see people as the body of Tara. What is the meaning of all forms? When I see a tree, then I don’t see the form of a tree? Instead I see the form of Tara? When I see a mountain, I see Tara instead of the form/shape of mountain? I sleep on a bed that is Tara? I eat a bowl of rice and vegetables – that is a bowl of Taras? Rinpoche, please explain the correct way of doing this and how to train my mind.

The text say to hear all sounds as mantra. When the airplanes fly over my house, instead of airplane motor, do I hear OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SVAHA? When the blue birds go “squawk” outside my house, instead of “squawk” do I hear OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SVAHA? How do I do this practice? Please explain clearly because I do not understand it. I can understand the outer objects are of the nature of emptiness and bliss. That is the same nature as the mind of the deity. But “all forms as the body of the deity?” I am Tara and the whole space is filled with bodies of Tara? Is this possible? When a person speaks to me, I only hear Tara mantra? I do not understand. What kind of world is Tara living in? Please help.

I received your kind card and a photos of Rinpoche with His Holiness. Then I received your beautiful blanket and a box of food and tissues (for the running nose of Tara). And really thank you Rinpoche for your kind offering (of blissful empty Taras)….

When one’s mind is blissful, empty, clear awareness, then sound becomes the manifestation or appearance of emptiness and bliss. And the world is seen as a pure land of the lama-yidam, who are inseparable from each other and inseparable from one’s own mind. Blissful, empty awareness – I offer you. Please bless me to complete all the realizations from devotion to the guru up to full enlightenment. Please bless me quickly. Please bless me soon. Please bless me now. Please bless me without ceasing. Forever.

Please pray that Ven. Pemo, “May never ever be reborn in the lower realms, may she immediately be born in a pure land where she can be enlightened or to receive a perfect human body, meet the Mahayana teachings and meet a perfectly qualified guru and by only pleasing the gurus mind, achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible.”

Ven. Thubten Pemo, from New York, was among the first students of Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Ordained by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in 1974, she spent many years studying and practicing in India. She was a holder of a mystical mirror-reading divination lineage and renowned for her wish-fulfilling jola (a type of bag often carried by monks and nuns). Ven. Pemo passed away in March 2023  (we are still confirming the exact date of her passing) at her home in Santa Cruz, California, USA.