Alexandra David-Neel

I vividly recall how in my youth when there were vastly fewer books on Buddhism in the English language than there are today how I stumbled upon a remarkable little volume that shifted the depth of my Buddhist investigations. I was sitting with a Soto Zen sangha and the conventions of the Zen communities in that time and place were to discourage study in favor of practice. I’m sympathetic to the deeper reasons for this approach, but actually feel one needs both. And more beyond that, as well, which one might pick up as my opinion in regards to a wholesome approach to the spiritual life.

Anyway, I was in San Francisco in the City Lights bookshop (ah, City Lights!), when I found it, the Secret Oral Teachings of Tibetan Buddhist Sects. Despite the rather over the top title, it turned out to be my introduction to the Madhyamaka school. As invaluable as that was, it also introduced me to the remarkable Alexandra David-Neel. Alexandra remains one of my heroes to this day…

I notice she was born on this day in 1868, in Paris. Alexandra led a life of adventure and spiritual investigation that has scant parallel. She would visit much of East Asia in a time when few Westerners traveled to the East. She gave particular focus in both her travels and her studies to Tibet and its religion. When Tibet was still very much a forbidden kingdom she disguised herself as a Tibetan matron and visited Lhasa.

Alexandra David-Neel would be among the first Westerners, and maybe the first in much, to study Tibetan Buddhism deeply, and to make it her religion.

Alexandra lived to be one hundred and one years old, dying in 1969. Near the end of her life in the interview below she is telling people about how after her return from Tibet, people asked her to heal them, to which she replied, “go see a doctor.”

Amazing woman.

And one of our Western Buddhist ancestors, who should be recalled…