Tenzin Palmo grew up the daughter of a fishmonger in London. Hers was an ordinary adolescence. She had a boyfriend, a job, a crush on Elvis Presley.
But at age 20, she traded in her life of convention for one of contemplation. She bought a one-way ticket to India and became one of the first Western women to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist nun. Then she went into a cave in the high Himalayas and meditated for 12 years.
Since she's come down, she's been a saffron-clothed globetrotter, teaching Buddhism and trying to build a nunnery in a religion where women are often overlooked. "I had planned to stay in my cave," she said. "But life has a way of serving you up with what you need rather than what you think you want."
