Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Zeoli was born in Canarsie, Brooklyn on October 12, 1949, to an Austrian/Dutch Jewish mother and Italian father. She and her half-brothers and sisters were raised by her stepfather and mother, and alternately attended the Dutch Reform Church and the Catholic church.[1][4] The family moved to Hialeah, Florida when she was 14.[5] Her stepfather was an alcoholic and physically abusive towards the children, and Zeoli tried unsuccessfully to run away at age 17. After high school, she married Jim Perry and gave birth to her first son, Ben. The marriage ended in divorce and she moved to a farm outside Asheville, North Carolina with Pat Mulloy.[6] They married and she had another son, Christopher.[7] Zeoli adopted her daughter, Atira, years later in 1988.

Based on a series of instructive dreams since she was 19, Zeoli began a meditation practice, later identified as chod by HH Penor Rinpoche, culminating in a spiritual experience at age 30.[8] She studied with a New Age teacher named Jim Gore and led classes at the Black Mountain Light Center in North Carolina.[9][10] In 1980, she met Michael Burroughs, a graduate student in religions at the University of Virginia and separated from Malloy in 1981.[11]

Zeoli moved with Burroughs and her son Christopher to Kensington, Maryland. She married Burroughs in 1983 and changed her name to Catharine. Together they formed the Center For Discovery and New Life beginning with former members from the Black Mountain Light Center. She gave channeled teachings, specifically a three-year cycle of teachings called the Santu Series[9][12][13][14][15] Her group quickly expanded, with the students practicing the meditation techniques Zeoli herself practiced from her dreams, a Light Expansion Prayer, and taking vows of compassion that Zeoli composed. The group began a 24-hour prayer vigil in the basement of their Kensington home in April, 1985[16] inspired by her experiences when she searched for a place to pray and found locked doors.[17]

In 1984, Zeoli's growing group of students met a Tibetan man named Kunzang, Penor Rinpoche's main lay attendant, who was selling rugs to support Namdroling Monastery.[9] The students sponsored seventy Namdroling monks.[16] A few months later, Penor Rinpoche stayed with the Burroughs on his first visit to the US. During that week, he interviewed most of Jetsunma's students, as well as Jetsunma herself, about what was being taught and what they were practicing.[18] The students asked him what their missions were to help the world. He concluded that Zeoli had been teaching Mahayana Buddhism without any formal instruction[18] and attributed it to a very high level of practice accomplished in previous lifetimes.[19][20] Penor Rinpoche then gave Jetsunma's students the traditional refuge and bodhisattva vows, which constitute formal entry into the Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhist paths, respectively.[21][22] Rinpoche visited the meditation and prayer center operated by the Burroughs, which at the time was nonsectarian rather than Buddhist.[1]

Thereafter Zeoli continued the channeled teachings, but they took on a more Buddhist flavor[9][12] as the center hosted Khenpo Palden Sherab and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal and she and her students began traditional Buddhist preliminary practice, ngöndro. Beset by health problems, she made a trip in 1986 to Ashland, Oregon to visit Gyatrul Rinpoche, one of Penor Rinpoche's other hosts on his American tour the previous year. She formed a strong and immediate connection[23] with Gyatrul Rinpoche, himself recognized as an incarnation of Palyul Monastery's founder, Rigdzin Kunzang Sherab (1636-1699).[24] Gyatrul Rinpoche echoed the sentiment that the practices and teachings that naturally arose in Zeoli's mind were due to many past lifetimes as a lama, and encouraged her to visit Penor Rinpoche in India to investigate the matter further.[25]

At the age of 37, Jetsunma began the sequence of Buddhist practices that most tulkus begin very young. She was given the Nam Cho Ngöndro by Gyaltrul Rinpoche in 1986, accumulating prostrations alongside her students. A year later, she was given the Three Roots from Penor Rinpoche at Namdroling monastery in India.

She received the Rinchen Terzod, Nam Cho Tsa Lung, Nyingthik Yabshi, Ratna Lingpa, Dudjom Tersar, Yeshe Lama, and Nam Cho cycle of empowerments, which were hosted at Kunzang Palyul Choling from 1988 through 1996. She received the Kama transmission at Tashi Choling in Ashland, Oregon, in 1988,[26] and the Nam Cho a second time from Karma Kuchen in McDonough, New York, in 2018.[27]

In 1985, the Center for Discovery and New Life formed a corporation and purchased an antebellum style mansion in Poolesville, Maryland where the Kunzang Palyul Choling temple was established. They also purchased numerous large crystals[28] weighing hundreds of pounds and held a three-day retreat to instate the 24-hour prayer vigil at the new location.[29]

Participants have maintained two-hour prayer shifts.[17][30] The vigil is dedicated to the end of suffering and has remained unbroken,[17][31] In 1999, Kunzang Palyul Choling (KPC) began another 24-hour prayer vigil shortly after Alyce established the Sedona, Arizona location.[17]

The temple built a 36' stupa in 1988 which was consecrated by H.H. Penor Rinpoche during the Rinchen Terzod.[26] A circle of eight small stupas encircling an 18' stupa were built in 1991 and consecrated by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso. H.H. Penor Rinpoche gave Jetsunma a relic from Tulku Migyur Dorje to be housed in the Migyur Dorje Stupa, which was built and consecrated in 1996.

In 1996, in addition to the temple, prayer vigil, teachings and stupas, Jetsunma's vision for Kunzang Palyul Choling included a place for pilgrimage with a hospice, school for children, a monastery and an institute for higher education in the Buddha's teachings.[32] The school, called Pema Choling, ran from 1992 to 1997, and the Migyur Dorje Institute continued from 1996 through 2001.

The temple has been partially closed to indoor activities since 2013, awaiting necessary renovations to comply with Montgomery County's Building Use and Occupancy Code. The prayer room, which is separate from the main building, remains open and houses all teachings and activities, and the prayer vigil remains undaunted.[33] The organization raised $1 million for the building of the new temple as of February 18, 2019.[34]

The first Genyenma Ahkon Lhamo, a meditator recognized as a primordial wisdom dakini[3] was one of the main disciples of Namchö Mingyur Dorje (1645–67)[3] and sister of Rigdzin Kunzang Sherab, Migyur Dorje's Dharma heir[40] and the First Throneholder of Palyul Monastery (founded 1665).[8] She is remembered both as being instrumental in the founding of Palyul (now one of the Nyingma's six main or "mother" monasteries[41]) and for leaving an extraordinary relic. During the cremation of her body, her kapala (top half of the skull) is said to have flown three kilometers and come to rest at the foot of the teaching throne of her brother. Found to be miraculously embossed with the sacred syllable AH, the kapala became one of the most treasured relics at Palyul monastery.[3]

Penor Rinpoche has recounted how, as a young tulku in Tibet (he was recognized and brought to Palyul Monastery in 1936, at the age of four),[42] inspired by seeing the skull relic, he made prayers to find Ahkon Lhamo's incarnation.[3][43] Though most of the kapala relic was pulverized into dust during the Cultural Revolution, one Tibetan man managed to save the silver dollar-size piece on which the syllable "AH" appears. Penor Rinpoche acquired it from him on a return trip to Tibet in 1987. He had it preserved in a crystal lotus and presented it to Jetsunma just prior to the occasion of her enthronement ceremony at Kunzang Palyul Choling (KPC) in 1988.[44] The relic remains at KPC and is displayed on auspicious days.

In 1994, Terton Orgyen Kusum Lingpa indicated in a long life prayer he composed that Jetsunma was an emanation of Lhacham Mandarava, the Indian princess of Zahor and one of the consorts of Padmasambhava, a tantric master who helped establish the Buddha's teaching in Tibet.[45][46] In 1996, she traveled to India and visited many of the places where Mandarava was known to have practiced.[47] Inspired by these events, several of Jetsunma's students sought out and found a copy of Mandarava's middle-length spiritual biography, revealed as a terma in the 17th century by Samten Lingpa, at the U.S. Library of Congress. They then sponsored the first English translation of the text, published as The Lives and Liberation of Princess Mandarava in 1998.[48]