Freda Bedi
| Freda Bedi | |
|---|---|
Freda Bedi and Baba Pyare Lal Bedi, at Nishat Bagh, Srinagar, 1948
|
|
| Religion | Tibetan Buddhism |
| School | Kagyu |
| Lineage | Karma Kagyu |
| Education |
Parkfield Cedars School St Hugh's College, Oxford |
| Other names | Sister Palmo |
| Dharma names | Karma Kechog Palmo |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | British |
| Born |
5 February 1911 England, Derby |
| Died | 26 March 1977 (aged 66) New Delhi, India |
| Spouse | Baba Pyare Lal Bedi |
| Children | Gulhima Bedi, Kabir Bedi, Ranga Bedi |
| Senior posting | |
| Title | Gelongma |
| Religious career | |
| Teacher | 16th Karmapa |
Freda Bedi (sometimes spelled Frida Bedi, also named Sister Palmo, or Gelongma Karma Kechog Palmo) (5 February 1911 – 26 March 1977) was a British woman born in Derby, England, who became famous as the first Western woman to take ordination in Tibetan Buddhism.
Freda Bedi was born Freda Houlston, in Derby, England, 5 February 1911, and was the daughter of Francis Edwin Houlston and Nellie Diana Harrison.
The family appears in the 1911 Census when Freda was two months old. Her father was killed in the First World War, in 1918, and her mother remarried in 1920, to Frank Norman Swan. She studied at Parkfield Cedars School, and then at St Hugh's College, Oxford where she obtained a MA degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and encountered her future husband, a Sikh from the Bedi family, linked to a Sikh clan tracing back to Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Baba Pyare Lal Bedi (1909–1993), who was an author and philosopher from the Sikh faith. She also studied a few years at Sorbonne, Paris.
In the 1930s, she moved to India where she settled in 1934. She participated in the Indian national independence movement and was arrested and detained with her children along with Mohandas K. Gandhi as a satyagrahi. She has been professor of English at Srinagar in Kashmir, then editor of the magazine "Social Welfare" of the Ministry of Welfare; social worker of the United Nations Social Services Planning Commission to Burma; advisor on Tibetan Refugees to the Ministry of External Affairs. In 1952, she visited Rangoon where she learned vipassana from Mahasi Sayadaw, and Sayadaw U Titthila.
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