Author: Tahlia

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The Benefits of Tibetan Buddhism

Despite the issues with the religion, there are benefits of Tibetan Buddhism, and I think it’s important to recognise these. It’s easy when we’re first discovering the drawbacks (like abusive lamas, cult tendencies, and spiritual bypassing) to reject everything about it, but those who stuck around for decades did so because they did actually gain some benefit – at least those of us who weren’t directly abused.

Tibetan Buddhism may leave out important aspects of human development, be easily misued (but aren’t a lot of things?) and fail in training their gurus such that they don’t become corrupted by their power, and we may have been brainwashed into accepting behaviour we would never accept in any other circumstances, but we did gain important skills for working with our mind and with others. And even if we move on from the religion, we’ll still retain the skills we developed through all those practice accummulations.

Where Buddhism excels

Human beings have psychological, emotional, energetic, physical, spiritual, and mental aspects to their being with various overlaps between these areas, and (unlike what we see in many Tibetan Buddhist Teachers) a truly self-actualised/enlightened being would not be developed in only one or two areas, but in all. If we’re aiming for this kind of balance in our personal and spiritual development, then we need to recognise what works well on what aspects of ourselves, and Buddhism is a powerful tool (perhaps the most powerful tookl) for developing our mental and spiritual aspects.

Some teachers do teach on energy (the tsa, lung teachings) and I know of one who did include a physical aspect—Namkhai Norbu’s Vajra dance—but the teachings in general deal with the mind and going beyond the mind to develop the spiritual aspect of our experience. If we study and practice knowing this without expecting that the teachings and practice will also solve our psychological, emotional and physical issues, then some study and practice of the Buddhist teachings are very beneficial, and I found the extensive practice that I did extremely beneficial.

Some, however, had some adverse effects, so it’s not a one-size-fits-all deal. You have to know yourself, your needs and trust your own instincts on this as in all things.

Benefits of Tibetan Buddhism in skill development

If you ever wondered why we did all those recitations of practices, it’s because the brain needs a certain number of hours to actually change its structure such that the centres of our brain associated with love and compassion and regulating emotions, for example, light up automatically. This is why, once you’ve done the required number of hours – assuming you did them correctly – the skills you learned from your Buddhist practice become part of how you approach your life and my mind.

Mind you, since the brain is very plastic, you could lose it if you don’t use it. But if you’re truly integrating these practices into your life, then you won’t lose them, and you can always return to your cushion for a top up when things get challenging.

Below, I list briefly the skills developed by Tibetan Buddhism that I believe are valuable and probably even necessary for our spiritual and mental development. Most of these skills can be developed through secular means, of course; they are not only the realm of Buddhism. However, Tibetan Buddhism does do an excellent job of teaching us about the subtle levels of mind.

Meditation:

Being able to settle and observe our thoughts and emotions is a vital skill to develop for the sake of our personal well being. We all need to be able to find relief from our thoughts and emotions when they’re too wild and overwhelm us. It’s important, however, to also be aware that that same ability if used to excess can blunt all emotions, including positive ones. Meditation is a tool for us to use wisely.

Loving kindness and compassion practices:

These practices, if done correctly, make us kinder and more compassionate people and help us to relate better to others. When directed at ourselves, they can increase self-esteem and heal feelings of unworthiness.

Vajrayana practice:

What is the point of all that chanting and visualisation? Let’s start with the preliminaries, the ngondro: when done with the awareness that all deities are representations of the nature of your own mind, not some external being or a representation of an external being, and even when done essentially without all the bells and whistles, refuge gives us confidence in our true/Buddha nature, our inner wisdom; bodhichitta/compassion practice makes us kinder and more attuned to others; Vajrasattva practice is a healing tool within which we can right wrongs, energise ourselves and build our immune system; mandala offering is a practice of gratitude and generosity and at its deepest gives insight into the ‘empty’ nature of reality; guru yoga assists us in recognising the nature of our own mind—but I find that if I’ve done offering sufficiently deeply, I don’t need guru yoga.

Oh, and there’s the contemplations on the 4 thoughts that turn the mind to the dharma. What does that do? Exactly what it says it does – develops renunciation. I learned to have deep gratitude for the life I have, an awareness of impermanence that makes me appreciate every moment and every human interaction, an understanding of the nature and pervasiveness of suffering and disatisfaction and a determination to escape that, and a recognition that all my actions have results – postive negative or nuetral. But I got this not from casual reading or from saying them quickly daily but from spending 3 months contemplating each thought, bringing whichever one I was working on into my life as manay times a day as I can remember. After that the 4 lines of the practice were just a reminder.

The three roots practice – guru, yidam and dakini – in which the practitioner arises as the deity: For me, the guru practice helped me to see every sound, perception and thought as sacred, as empty and luminous; Vajrakilaya practice helped me to see that my obstacles were mostly in my mind, and since I worked specifically on some of those obsctacles that I knew I carried from my childhood, it helped me release them. Since I never did the dakini practice, I can’t comment on that.

Other than that, there are various sadhanas that do various things, but the ngondro and three roots practices are the ones from which I gained the most personal benefit, and all while also visualising the same benefit for all other beings.

In general, the practice of visualisation and mantra, when done fully using the three samadhis, and actualising the elements of purity, equality and vajra pride gives a direct experience of the luminous empty nature of ourselves and reality – and yet, the same practices can be nothing more than a fancy form of shamata mediation. It all depends on whether or not you know what you’re doing and actualise it. The knowledge and meditative experience required to do it fully and gain these benefits, however, requires a lot of study and time committment, and I don’t see why you can’t get the same kind of experience using other methods.

Vajrayana practice for me was very inspiring until I became bored with it. I can move on now not because I reject vajrayana, but because I did enough of it.

Dzogchen and Mahamudra:

These teachings drew many of us to Tibetan Buddhism, and practiced well, they can give you a direct insight into the true nature of your mind and reality. Having confidence in your true nature and being able to remain in a state of pure awareness connected to everything and everyone, isn’t just a wonderful state of being, it also enables us to truly find and follow our own wisdom – so long as we don’t get attached to our teacher. The result of that is a sense of freedom and a sense that you can handle anything one way or another. Everything is fluid and workable.

Undoubtably, these teachings are the jewel in the Tibetan Buddhist crown, and beware of look-alike options. You’re better off with a traditional Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen text translated by someone like Erik Pema Kunsang than a Western cult leader. These are subtle teachings, very easy to misunderstand, and, despite his faults and crimes, I am extremely grateful to Sogyal for introducing me to them.

Balancing it out

The danger with any form of meditation is when students use it (at any level) as a kind of drug to get you away from the difficulties of life and/or as an avoidance mechanism, a way to bypass your emotional and psychological issues. So some examination of our childhood patterns and the role of beliefs in our thinking, feeling and perception is an important adjunct to Buddhist practice as well as some kind of conscious body work or exercise.

If you’re feeling a bit numb, or if your non-attachment is making you unable to relate to the people or situation before you with any real empathy, you’re out of balance. I doubt the Buddha meant that to be the result of his teachings on non-attachment, but I’ve seen it in students who have been Buddhist practitioners for many years. There’s a tendency to gravitate towards the nature of mind teachings and leave the compassion teachings behind as if, being Mahayana, they are lesser somehow.

This shows how important it is to take the path step by step, making a firm foundation in each step before focusing on the next. It might be inspiring to have Dzogchen teachings straight up, but we mustn’t neglect those compassion teachings because they help to keep us grounded.

The weakness and the integrity

The weakness in the religion today is in the poor quality of some of the teachers, and yet you can gain benefit even with a teacher you later discover is a fraud—as I and many others did. This indicates that there is some integrity in the Vajrayana ‘system’ untouched by the failings of an individual or even general corruption in the religion. I’m not the only one who feels that the Vajrayana practices themselves—minus guru yoga—are free of Sogyal’s taint.

Some time ago, I emailed Tenzin Palmo and asked the following:
“Can one gain some measure of genuine realisation through relying on an unqualified teacher? 
This is referring to a situation where the student has given complete, unquestioning devotion and fulfilled their obligations as a student and then only later they discover that the lama was not worthy of that devotion. “

Her reply was:

“Yes, it is possible to gain genuine realisation even when the teacher later proves to be unqualified. If the student has a direct realisation of the nature of the mind, then that is so, whatever the status of the lama who gave the pointing out instruction or facilitated this insight. Some teachers have the ability to open the minds of the students even when in other ways the conduct and wisdom of the teacher may be questionable. This is one reason for the confusion nowadays with lamas who have helped so many students yet have been shown to be unworthy of their role. Still these students were helped….”

Image by Михаил Нечаев from Pixabay

If you’d like a more private place to chat about your ongoing spiritual path after you’ve left an abusive community, you can join the Beyond the Temple Facebook group. This group is for people who don’t want to talk about abuse, but want to keep in touch and share their discoveries, inspiration and challenges as they move on with their lives.

If you want to talk about abuse, then Rigpa or ex-Rigpa students can join the secret What Now? group. Apply via the contact form here, telling us about yourself and why you want to join the group. 

Students from other Vajrayana communities who need somewhere where they can talk about abuse and find survivor support can join the Survivors of Vajrayana Abuse and their Allies group.  

Note that you will not be added to these groups if you don’t answer the questions.

The Facebook page and You Tube Channel associated with this blog are called Living in Peace and Clarity. Click the relevant link on the side bar to ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’.

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Is Tibetan Buddhism Really a Complete Path?

One of the result of Sogyal’s betrayal for me is questioning EVERYTHING about Tibetan Buddhism. I realise that I accepted too much on faith alone. I had faith that ‘Buddhism’ was all good. But the Buddha himself said we shouldn’t take what he said on faith alone, let alone what some teacher 2500 years in the future might say.

I tested some of it, the stuff that related specifically to me, my mind, and how I handled my life, but I never doubted that Tibetan Buddhism was a complete path as Sogyal said. It certainly appeared to have everything covered, and we did have a step by step progression to follow that was supposed to end up with us being enlightened – in one lifetime. Given the actual results, however, I now have to ask whether or not this is actually the complete path we were told it was.

What are the results?

After forty years in Rigpa, and longer for Shambala, do we have any enlightened beings amongst the students? Are Sogyal and Trungpa’s oldest students the wise and compassionate beings they should be if this path according to them is truly what they say it is? And look at these abusive lamas; If they did actually practice the path they taught – which is highly doubtful – then they are hardly a good advertisment for their path. They may be highly developed in the area of meditation and be able to share some dharma gems, but they are also emotionally immature and highly manipulative people. This is hardly the kind of person we should be aiming to emulate, and they are clearly further from any genuine ‘enlightenment’ than the average law abiding citizen, so something must be amiss in what they taught.

Look at those still running Shambala and Rigpa. In both organisations we see the same kind of DARVO responses (Deny. Attack. Reverse Victim and Offender) as given by every person and institution accused of abuse. There is nothing enlightened or even genuinely compassionate in their behaviour – and certainly no following the vajrayana teachings on purification of bad karma as the basis for their actions (confession, regret and reparation before a witness). What we’re seeing is people concerned primarily with protecting and continuing the very institutions, teachings and teachers who caused and enabled the abuse in the first place.

Can a cult stop being a cult?

In both cases, Shamabala and Rigpa, the changes are superficial, and will remain so unless they actually denounce the behaviour of the teachers who perpetrated the abuse – and in Shambala that’s a lot of teachers, since abuse of one kind or another seem to be throughout all levels of the organisation. These organisations are clearly cults, and I don’t believe they can be redeemed, because though they may remove their teachers from the organisation, they will not denounce their behaviour. They still think it was crazy wisdom and therefore accept abuse as a legimate part of the vajrayana path. For so long as this is the belief at the core of these organisations, their codes of conduct are only for show, and the lovely facade they present at local centres are nothing more than cult induction techniques.

Does the path work with the whole of us?

I realise now that I suppressed my feelings for years under Rigpa’s tutelage, so though my awareness of my own mind and the empty nature of reality is fairly firmly established, I’m underdeveloped in terms of my emotional intelligence – just like my lama. I’m grateful for what I gained in the area of mental awareness, but I can’t say that it’s a complete path.

I’d done a lot of work on my childhood patterns before coming to Rigpa, and I have a high level of physical awareness gained from years as a dancer, but there was no place to work on those aspects of ourselves in Rigpa. The physical aspect of ourselves was simply ignored, and we were advised against looking into our past to examine what we might have picked up from our childhood that is holding us back today.

Not all teachers are the same

Other teachers don’t ignore the physical aspect, however. Namkahi Norbu had his Vajra dance (which I always wanted to learn and never managed to) and Tsoknyi Rinpoche talks about dropping our mind down into our body and tuning into what is happening there. He also talks about acknowledging our feelings by giving them a ‘handshake’ before letting them go. So clearly there is variety within the tradition which makes a general evaluation impossible.

Some people tell me that there are some teachers who are genuinely good people. His Holiness the Dalai Lama appears to be a fine example of compassion and wisdom, so really here, I’m talking about Tibetan Buddhism as it’s taught in Shambala, Rigpa and other organisations of abusive lamas, because in these organisations, the results are not well-balanced wise and compassionate people, and those that are were likely like that before they joined up.

Because there is no central authority in Tibetan Buddhism, many lineages, and individual lamas can basically do and say what they want, there will always be exceptions to disprove any evaluation of the tradition as a whole. But in general the teachings do primarily work with one’s mind, emotions are the enemy and the body is ignored, and so it’s easy to end up with people (including teachers) who are not grounded in their body and in the world, and who are experts at bypassing their issues and emotions rather than dealing with them.

If you have experience of teachers who do seem to teach and embody a path that acknowledges and works with all aspects of ourself -physical, mental and emotional – please do share in the comments. I’d also like to hear your thoughts on how Tibetan Buddhism did or did not live up to your expectations. Do you feel as if you’d been sold a lemon?

For more on this topic check out my vlog.

If you’d like a more private place to chat about your ongoing spiritual path after you’ve left an abusive community, you can join the Beyond the Temple Facebook group. This group is for people who don’t want to talk about abuse, but want to keep in touch and share their discoveries, inspiration and challenges as they move on with their lives.

If you want to talk about abuse, then Rigpa or ex-Rigpa students can join the secret What Now? group. Apply via the contact form here, telling us about yourself and why you want to join the group. 

Students from other Vajrayana communities who need somewhere where they can talk about abuse and find survivor support can join the Survivors of Vajrayana Abuse and their Allies group.  

Note that you will not be added to these groups if you don’t answer the questions.

The Facebook page and You Tube Channel associated with this blog are called Living in Peace and Clarity. Click the relevant link on the side bar to ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’.

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Does Tibetan Buddhism Condone Abuse?

Does Tibetan Buddhism condone abuse? Let’s look at the information we have on this.

The crazy wisdom tradition

A favourite story of all teachers in the religion is that of Marpa and his student Milarepa. Milarepa had a lot of bad karma so in order to purify his karma, Marpa made him built towers of rock and then pull them down and build another. I think he built and demolished seven towers. Apparently this purified his negative karma and eventually he became enlightened, and a favourite saint of the Tibetan people. Marpa also beat him and this is seen as an acceptable teaching method for Milarepa because apparently he had great potential. Marpa is seen as a great master. However, Marpa also beat his wife and she didn’t become enlightened.

There are other stories of masters throwing stones and hitting students with sandals – shared by Sogyal in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying – and these stories are told to show that unconventional teaching methods can wake students up if those students are ‘ready’ for some realisation and the teacher is a great master who knows that the student needs this.

Whether or not you believe there is some value to this kind of idea, and whether or not you believe teachers use the idea as an excuse to do what they want, it is a fact that this kind of behaviour is part of the tradition.

Sogyal certainly thought he was a crazy wisdom master and so do those students who are still devoted to him. In this video he tries to justify his actions to a student hes just hit. If you think this does actually justify it, then I’d say you’ve been brainwashed. The idea that hitting someone brings that person closer to their attacker is nonsense! And why would you want to be close to someone who hits people?

(If the You Tube video has been removed, the file is attached below.)

SOGYAL RINPOCHE JUSTIFIES HITTING STUDENTDownload

Of course, some lamas recognise that abusive behaviour isn’t crazy wisdom.

‘Unfortunately the term “Crazy Wisdom” has now become so popularised that people will use it to explain any kind of bad behaviour by gurus, as if “Crazy Wisdom” is some special Tibetan cultural practice which allows a Vajrayana guru to ignore all laws and vows, all of the Buddha’s teachings on ethical behaviour, and any consequences for their actions! …  The time for the misuse of “Crazy Wisdom” is over. “Crazy Wisdom” is not an excuse for breaking vows or for bad behaviour.’


Dr Nida Chenagtsang, Karmamudra:The Yoga of Bliss, Sexuality in Tibetan Medicine and Buddhism

A lineage of abuse

 ‘The people of Katok experienced Khyentse Chokyi Lodro’s arrival as something of a tsunami. They said he was like an “invading force” (they used the same Tibetan word to describe the advance of the Communist Chinese) because his sovereignty over them was absolute and indisputable. Monks were punished ten at a time. When a flogging was called for, Rinpoche insisted in four or five hundred lashes, never a mere hundred, and he always watched from the window of his residence as the punishment was meted out.’ The Life and Times of Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö: The Great Biography by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and Other Stories. Dilgo Khyentse and others, Shambhala (July 25, 2017)

This is the man Sogyal talks about in the TBLD as a great master and saint.

During a talk at the Paris centre, Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche said about spiritual teachers, ‘Such great beings, whether it corresponds to western ideas or not, if they kill someone, it’s fine,’ and, ‘Beating hard increases wisdom.’

Abuse is widespread in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries. The young Kalu Rinpoche on You Tube talks about being gang raped in a video titled Confessions of Kalu Rinpoche. I saw a video of a monk beating a young monk—badly—and a friend told me of nuns she had spoken to in India who were regularly raped by the local monks, monastics who apparently have no concern over breaking their vows.

‘Sexual misconduct is very common amongst high level lamas.’

Dr Nida Chenagtsang, Karmamudra:The Yoga of Bliss, Sexuality in Tibetan Medicine and Buddhism

Teachings on how to follow a teacher.

Rigpa students chant the following in their daily Longchen Nyingtik Ngondro practice:

‘Towards the lifestyle and activity of the lama,
May wrong view not arise for even an instant, and
May I see whatever he does as a teaching for me.
Through such devotion, may his blessing inspire
and fill my mind!’

This idea that you have to see anything your guru does as a teaching (and therefore okay) is not helped by one commentary on this text used by Rigpa which adds another phrase to the last verse: ‘and may I see whatever he does, whether it seems to be in accordance with the Dharma or not, as a teaching for me.’ A Guide to The Words of My Perfect Teacher, another commentary on this Ngondro, expands this idea on page 261 by saying: ‘His [the teacher´s] charisma may attract men and women alike, but even if he were to seduce a hundred girls daily, see it as the activity of bringing under control. And when he causes trouble, stirring up disputes and so on, even if he slaughters hundreds of animals every day, regard this as the activity of fierce subduing.’

If you take these words at face value without the depth of understanding to moderate their apparent meaning, then what is it saying to those who chant it every day?

The Dalai Lama doesn’t agree with this, but then he’s from the Gelupka lineage. There are 3 other lineages and the heads of those lineages have not said a single thing about all this abuse.

As far as Gelugpa is concerned, Lama Tsonghkapa clearly mentioned; if a lama teaches something that is against the dharma it should be avoided and opposed. If the lama’s teaching is in accord with the dharma it should be followed, if it is in discord with the Dharma it should not be followed.

Dalai Lama, National Seminar on Buddhism in Ladakh, India on August 1, 2017.

The Words of My Perfect Teacher and a commentary on it A Guide to The Words of My Perfect Teacher are the two core texts of Rigpa on the Vajrayana preliminaries or Ngondro—the entrance into the Vajrayana path—and both books make it very clear that once you’ve taken a teacher as your Vajra master you have to do what he or she says, see them as a Buddha, see everything they do as enlightened activity, and never criticise. Many teachers use these books as a reference for how students should follow their teachers. The book is based on being a student of a perfect teacher, however, not an imperfect one! And these days, even the book in question (written a couple of centuries ago) admits that good teachers are rare:

‘All the qualities complete according to purest dharma are hard to find in these decadent times.’

Patrul Rinpoche. The Words of My Perfect Teacher

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche is the only lama who has spoken extensively on the matter, and for that I am grateful, but he sees the problem of guru abuse in Vajrayana as being caused by student’s misinterpretation of Vajrayana Buddhism, not the guru’s behaviour. He is often ambiguous, but if you look carefully, you’ll see he does make the bottom line clear.

‘The key point here is that if his students had received a Vajrayana initiation, if at the time they received it they were fully aware that it was a Vajrayana initiation, and if Sogyal Rinpoche had made sure that all the necessary prerequisites has been adhered to and fulfilled, then from the Vajrayana point of view, there is nothing wrong with Sogyal Rinpoche’s subsequent actions.’


Dzongsar Khyentse, Guru and Student in the Vajrayana, Facebook 15t August 2017

In a teaching called Being Savvy at following the Guru , Part 2
Chile, January 20th 2019 he said:  ‘And what I have basically, among other things that I’ve said, if Sogyal Rinpoche had applied the correct procedure and if the students also knew what was happening, then if they had taken him as a vajrayana master, that’s it, then you have to continue with this practice of pure perception, but if SR haven’t taken the correct procedure, and I have said that that time and I say now, that I doubt that SR had taken the correct procedure. This is my personal thought. You know the correct procedure … and someone says you do my chores for 3 years, these are the correct procedures. If SR didn’t apply the correct procedures, students didn’t know what was happening and students also don’t know was happening, it is totally wrong for Sogyal to demand whole-hearted pure perception so that he can do what he likes; it’s totally wrong. Okay. ‘

In other words, abuse by a guru is only ‘totally wrong’ if that guru hasn’t taken the correct procedure to prepare you. He’s saying that the problem with Sogyal’s abuse of students was not the behaviour itself, but that he behaved that way to students who weren’t properly prepared. He doesn’t say that a teacher shouldn’t abuse students who were properly prepared – and some were.

In page 19 of his book The Guru Drinks Bourbon? he makes this even clearer. In a section headed ‘Liberation Through Imprisonment’, he admits that in the student teacher relationship as traditionally laid out in Tibetan Buddhism ‘The potential for abuse of power exists.’ Then, in the very next sentence, he says: ‘However, once you have completely and soberly surrendered, you may not interpret certain manifestations and activities of the guru as the abuse of power. If you want to be fully enlightened, you can’t worry about abuse.’

There you have it. Vajrayana according to DZK does permit abuse just so long as
the guru has properly prepared you. Not only that, but if this is the case, then you can’t even complain about the abuse when you discover that that’s what’s happening to you. Ouch!

Failure of lamas to condemn abuse

In an attempt to encourage some more native Tibetan lamas to state their position on abuse, some of us got the letter by the eight translated from English into Tibetan and sent it, along with the Lewis Silken report and over 100 signatures to thirty-eight lamas, with a question. We asked: Do you think the behaviour of Sogyal Lakar/Rinpoche as described in the 2017 letter by eight close students and confirmed by the Lewis Silkin Report is ever an acceptable way for Tibetan Buddhist teachers to behave towards their students?

We received only two replies and one of them referred students to The Words of My Perfect Teacher for information about how to follow a teacher! Apparently no one wants to simply say that beating, promiscuity, humiliation, abuse, are not acceptable behaviours, not in the Vajrayana, nor in any Buddhist context. We explained how important it was that they respond, how their silence is seen as complicit, and still they did not respond. I understand that there are cultural reasons that make speaking out difficult for them, but to not do so after we made it clear in our email just how important it was shows a sad lack of concern for their Western students.

Where teachers in a religion do not denounce abuse when asked to, does it not indicate that they condone it?

The names and responses of those few lamas who have made a clear stance against guru abuse can be found on the ‘Which Lamas are Trustworthy?’ page on the Beyond the Temple website. Take a close look at those who received the letter and never replied. You may be surprised to find lamas you respected on that list.

Conclusion

It’s hard to talk about Tibetan Buddhism as a whole because each lama rules his own little kingdom and isn’t beholden to anyone else, so every lama has to be taken on his or her own merits. However we can discern generalities.

The Nyingma lineage clearly does condone guru abuse for the student who is properly initiated into vajrayana – at least according to DZK, Orgyen Tobgyal and Sogyal Lakar. Though Mingyur Rinpoche said that ‘abuse is not a teaching method’ in his Lions’ Roar article, the Kagyu is the lineage with the most ‘crazy wisdom’ masters in their history. I know nothing about the Sakaya’s philosophy because none of them have said anything, but I do know of at least one woman abused by a high Sakaya lama. The Gelupka lineage appears to be the only one where their leader has clearly stated that lama abuse is not acceptable.

This post uses some excerpts from my upcoming book Fallout: Recovering from Spiritual Abuse in Tibetan Buddhism

If you’d like a more private place to chat about your ongoing spiritual path after you’ve left an abusive community, you can join the Beyond the Temple Facebook group. This group is for people who don’t want to talk about abuse, but want to keep in touch and share their discoveries, inspiration and challenges as they move on with their lives.

If you want to talk about abuse, then Rigpa or ex-Rigpa students can join the secret What Now? group. Apply via the contact form here, telling us about yourself and why you want to join the group. 

Students from other Vajrayana communities who need somewhere where they can talk about abuse and find survivor support can join the Survivors of Vajrayana Abuse and their Allies group.  

Note that you will not be added to these groups if you don’t answer the questions.

The Facebook page and You Tube Channel associated with this blog are called Living in Peace and Clarity. Click the relevant link on the side bar to ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’.

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Vajrayana Buddhism Issues – Arrogance

Vajrayana Buddhism issues abound and if you’ve been around a Tibetan Buddhist sangha for any time, you may have heard a teacher talk about the supremacy of the Vajrayana, how it’s the fastest path, has the most skilful means, is for students of the greatest capacity and so on. If we heard someone from another religion talk like this, we’d probably scoff, so is this kind of arrogance something we should buy into? And if we do, what are the results, apart from soothing our ego by making us feel that we’re on the one right path?

The following quote, written by one of the members of the Beyond the Temple Facebook group, inspired this post.

I’m going back to so-called Basics. The 4 Noble Truths, the Noble 8 fold path. I’ve already decided it’s well worth focusing on that for me. The Noble Eight Fold Path is full of suggestions and statements that are more than enough for me to validly follow and see how that works (not just read about and then move on to ‘posher’ ‘clever’ stuff.)

Surely it’s all meant to be about doing It – walking your talk. And if anyone tries to tell me I’m not Buddhist because I reject the clever, complicated Vajrayana practices etc, that’s their problem. I wonder if sometimes people simply (not that simply) just try to do too much and get scattered and forget the really crucial stuff like right speech etc etc. It leads them away from the well-being of all, including themselves, despite their good motivation. And teachers should help remind them when they go down a wrong, time-wasting or unkind side alley. I am not trying to tell a teacher what their remit is, but surely that is blindingly obvious.

Beyond the Temple member

These kinds of thoughts and approach to their spiritual path moving forward are shared by many ex-students of abusive vajrayana teachers and their cults. Below I pull out the main points and expand on them.

Many paths, all valid

  • The Buddha taught many paths to suit different kinds of people. All are complete paths and all lead to liberation – why would he have taught anything less? If you look closely, you’ll see that all the Buddha’s teachings are contained in the foundation yana in an implicit way if not explicit. Later teachings – if they are genuinely Buddhist – simply build on what’s there. Any Buddhist path is as good as any other Buddhist path.
  • The idea that the vajrayana is somehow better than other forms of Buddhism is just arrogance, and yet that’s what we were taught. Such elitism – the idea that vajrayana is the best/fastest/most skilful path – is common in cults, and is as ridiculous as saying that the Christian or any other religion is the best one. The idea that it’s faster is misleading since if it isn’t the right path for you, then you may just be wasting your time, and if you have an abusive guru, then vajrayana will bring you more harm than good.
  • Vajrayana arrogance leads to people not paying enough attention to the foundation teachings on which vajrayana is supposedly built. They skip over it or give lip service to it, but don’t actually study and put into practice things like the 10 negative actions to be avoided. If they had done that work, they would be able to discern right from wrong action and never consider that the kind of abuse we saw in Rigpa was anything other than wrong action. A house without a strong foundation will eventually fall down, and isn’t that what we’ve seen here with this massive failure of vajrayana to uphold even a basic ethical stance?
  • What use is the study and practice of a path that supposedly teaches wisdom and compassion if it doesn’t lead to followers living the teachings and becoming genuinely good people?
  • Isn’t it better to follow a simple path that leads you to be a genuinely good person than to follow a complex one where you get confused about what is right conduct?

Is vajrayana Buddhism truly Buddhism?

After the rose-coloured glasses fell from my eyes in the wake of the revelations of Sogyal Lakar’s abuse, I saw how wafting off into vajrayana land of rainbow light and mantras had resulted not in wiser and more compassionate people, but in minds and eyes closed to the truth of what was actually happening before them. Like the commenter above – and many others – I decided that the most important thing in life was not to follow a complex spiritual regime, but to actually be a good person.

It seemed bizare to me that teachings full of compassion and wisdom could have led to such a result, and I wondered just how far Rigpa had departed from what the Buddha actually taught. To find out, I spent some time looking at the Buddha’s earliest teachings, and some of what I found made it look as if vajrayana wasn’t even Buddhist. Certainly the Tibetan emphasis on unquestioning devotion and ritual seemed the opposite of what the Buddha taught.

The Buddha before Buddhism

One of the books I read was The Buddha before Buddhism: Wisdom from the Early Teachings by Gil Fronsdal. It’s a translation of one of the earliest of all Buddhist texts, the Atthakavagga, or Book of Eights, which comes from the earliest strain of Buddhist literature, before the Buddha came to be thought of as a ‘Buddhist’. The approach to awakening laid out in the Book of Eights is incredibly simple and free of adherence to any kind of ideology. Instead of doctrines to be believed, it describes means for realizing peace that bring genuine results to those who live by them.

What may be perplexing to many is that the Book of Eights does not espouse a religious doctrine that exists in opposition to other doctrines. Nor does it put forth a teaching that is meant to be seen as superior to other teachings. In a manner that challenges the religious beliefs of many people – including many Buddhists – the test explicity denies the role of ultimate religious “truth” and “knowledge” in attaining personal peace.

Gil Frondsdal. The Buddha before Buddhism

Truth or arrogance?

Of course those who like to maintain that the Mahayana and Vajrayana are superior to the early teachings of the Buddha on the basis that the attainment of ‘peace’ is not full enlightenment will scoff at this simply for the use of the word ‘peace’, but really, why would the peace the Buddha referred to in the first turning teachings be anything other than the peace of full enlightenment? If he was enlightened, why would he teach a path that lead anywhere less than the full state of enlightenment? That idea simply doesn’t make sense. And the Buddha would agree that we shouldn’t accept something as truth just because some lama says so!

Nothing basic about the basics

How does following the ‘best’, ‘the fastest’, or the ‘most skilful’ path that requires us to sit on our bums for hours spacing off in a rainbow realm help us if we can’t even follow the noble eightfold path? ( Right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditative absorption.) And let’s be honest here, can you? Do you? I certainly don’t. I have plenty to work on without falling for the ‘enlightenment-in-one-life-time’ hook. I’m not saying I didn’t benefit from vajrayana, I did, a lot, but I still have to come back to earth and live the teachings in the real world, and what does that come down to? Following the eightfold path!

There is nothing basic about the Buddhist basics and nothing simplistic about their simplicity. The point is that you can have the teachings and practice the practice without all the bullshit. These days, there are so many books and talks and videos around, that you don’t even need to go anywhere near a physical teacher. Like with husbands, you’re better off with none than with a bad one.

I find it very useful to have a valid, real-live teacher, but if I feel a need to see him/her too often, that may be a danger sign – for me anyway. It shouldn’t be necessary really.

Beyond the Temple member

What do you think?
Leave your comment below.

If you’d like a more private place to chat about your ongoing spiritual path after you’ve left an abusive community, you can join the Beyond the Temple Facebook group. This group is for people who don’t want to talk about abuse, but want to keep in touch and share their discoveries, inspiration and challenges as they move on with their lives.

If you want to talk about abuse, then Rigpa or ex-Rigpa students can join the secret What Now? group. Apply via the contact form here, telling us about yourself and why you want to join the group. 

Students from other Vajrayana communities who need somewhere where they can talk about abuse and find survivor support can join the Survivors of Vajrayana Abuse and their Allies group.  

Note that you will not be added to these groups if you don’t answer the questions.

The Facebook page and You Tube Channel associated with this blog are called Living in Peace and Clarity. Click the relevant link on the side bar to ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’.

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Abuse-Enabling Beliefs Remain

Someone sent me the latest Rigpa sangha news and it inspired another vlog. I know I said I was planning on not talking about Rigpa, but I did say that I would respond when something called for it, and this did. I find that the way Rigpa continues as if everything is solved or being dealt with when the core issue of their thinking on the matter remains unexamed kind of sleasy. It’s like car salesmen giving a speel on a car that’s had a new paint job but the engine is barely holding together. Buy at your own risk.

The vlog is about 20 mins.

If you’d like a more private place to chat about your ongoing spiritual path after you’ve left an abusive community, you can join the Beyond the Temple Facebook group. This group is for people who don’t want to talk about abuse, but want to keep in touch and share their discoveries, inspiration and challenges as they move on with their lives.

If you want to talk about abuse, then Rigpa or ex-Rigpa students can join the secret What Now? group. Apply via the contact form here, telling us about yourself and why you want to join the group. 

Students from other Vajrayana communities who need somewhere where they can talk about abuse and find survivor support can join the Survivors of Vajrayana Abuse and their Allies group.  

Note that you will not be added to these groups if you don’t answer the questions.

The Facebook page and You Tube Channel associated with this blog are called Living in Peace and Clarity. Click the relevant link on the side bar to ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’.

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Research Project Investigating Manipulation and Abuse in Buddhism

Miriam Anders is conducting a research project investigating manipulation and abuse in Buddhism with a focus on mental health and mental healthcare, funded by German Ministry of Education and Research. It’s great that this is happening, and I encourage anyone who has been abused in a Buddhist context to participate. The results will be used for education for prevention and providing information for treatment to medical doctors and psychotherapists. More details below.

Here’s the project website: https://www.en.transtibmed.ethnologie.uni-muenchen.de/survey/index.html

Miriam is using psychological questionnaires to investigate the impact of what people experienced. She sends these through E-Mail Links (and respective TANs) and they can be filled in using a pseudonym. The questionnaire is designed for people to describe their experiences and thoughts. It is especially useful for those who want to communicate their experience while staying protected through using a pseudonym.
She also conducts interviews with those who want to talk and offers them biofeedback. She can travel sometimes.

A few results from Germany can be seen here (in German language): https://www.transtibmed.ethnologie.uni-muenchen.de/zeitzeugenberichte/index.html 1.3.

Miriam has studied in a monastic context in Nepal for eight years and conducted interviews with doctors of Tibetan medicine thereafter, finished Buddhist Studies at Kathmandu University and Mag.phil. in Tibetology and Buddhist Studies at Vienna University. She’s analysing words, phrases and concepts used for manipulation and indoctrination and comparing this to what she’s learned in original language contexts, e.g. the concept of “karma-purification” used for manipulating people.

Based on her doctorates in psychology and psychotherapy science, the longterm goal is to understand the effects on people and to build therapeutic aid. She’s started this by informing medical doctors and psychotherapists on what happened to people.

She started the project last August (2018) and the time frame of this project is till July 2021 (3 years).

Another aspect of the project is preservation of knowledge of Tibetan medicine – She’s asking doctors of Tibetan medicine about diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues.

The results should go into teaching of university students (education for prevention), information to medical doctors and psychotherapists (information for treatment), open access publications and sometimes also to the research website. The original design was to compile books towards the end, but it seems the recent developments are much better covered with a more immediate response. Under the rubrique “law” at the project website one can see current investigations and links to current open letters and in this way people may (a bit indirectly) learn how to proceed if something is going wrong and which procedure worked.

I think this is an important study and I’m going to keep in communication with Miriram so we might have some updates over the next few years. I reckon my book, Fallout, will be useful for her research as well since it’s all about the effects of the abuse and group process in healing.

Will you participate?

If you’d like a more private place to chat about your ongoing spiritual path after you’ve left an abusive community, you can join the Beyond the Temple Facebook group. This group is for people who don’t want to talk about abuse, but want to keep in touch and share their discoveries, inspiration and challenges as they move on with their lives.

If you want to talk about abuse, then Rigpa or ex-Rigpa students can join the secret What Now? group. Apply via the contact form here, telling us about yourself and why you want to join the group. 

Students from other Vajrayana communities who need somewhere where they can talk about abuse and find survivor support can join the Survivors of Vajrayana Abuse and their Allies group.  

Note that you will not be added to these groups if you don’t answer the questions.

The Facebook page and You Tube Channel associated with this blog are called Living in Peace and Clarity. Click the relevant link on the side bar to ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’.

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An Open Letter to the Shambhala Community from Long-Serving Kusung

Shamabala_An Open Letter & Statements 16 Feb 2019Download

Here’s an update in the ongoing issue of abuse in Tibetan Buddhism in the form of an open letter by long-serving Kusung. It’s the Shambala equivilent of the letter by the eight Rigpa students that revealed Sogyal’s abuses. I haven’t got all the way through this myself yet, but … wow. I figured you’d want to get it asap, so download it above.

Once again I want to say thankyou to those who speak up. We really need to know what goes on in the inner circles of Tibetan Buddhist sanghas. Just how many of them are destructive cults like this? Will we ever know? And how long will the majority of lamas remain quiet on the topic?

Speak up, speak up. Please. Break the silence. Tell the truth about your sanghas and gurus, so others won’t fall into these abusive situations and become nothing more than surfs in the house of a feudal lord. I mean, for heaven’s sake, this is 2019! We left this kind of garbage behind with the French Revolution! I am so glad that people are waking up. So glad those eight courageous students told me the truth.

If you’d like a more private place to chat, you can join the Beyond the Temple Facebook group for discussions not about abuse but about your ongoing spiritual path, or if you need to talk about your experiences of and healing from guru abuse or about Rigpa’s ongoing bungling, ex-Rigpa students can join the secret What Now? group, (apply via the contact form here, andtell us about yourself and why you want to join the group). And if you’re not a Rigpa or ex-Rigpa person and need support related to abuse in Vajrayana you can join the Survivors of Vajrayana Abuse and their Allies group.  Note that you will not be added to these groups if you don’t answer the questions.

The Facebook page and You Tube Channel associated with this blog are called Living in Peace and Clarity. Click the relevant link on the side bar to ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’.

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Spiritual Practice or Spiritual Bypassing?


in the early 1980s, psychologist John Welwood coined the phrase spiritual bypassing to refer to the use of spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid dealing with uncomfortable feelings, unresolved wounds, and fundamental emotional and psychological needs.  When I first came across this term, I didn’t think it applied to me, but when I looked at my reaction – or lack of it – to the verbal abuse I witnessed while in Rigpa, I realised that I had certainly been bypassing my discomfort – and in a very active way.

Active repression

I had been taught to bypass any feelings of discomfort or disgust in response to anything Sogyal did. Remember being told not to think too much, to let our feelings just rise and fall away without paying them any attention, to not ‘go there’, to see our reactions to the verbal abuse we all witnesses as just our ‘judgemental mind’? Any kind of normal reaction, like horror, disgust or even concern, were seen as a lack of a stable mind – an attitude I’ve unfortunately also seen in the response of some lamas to those who speak out about abuse or show any kind of emotion due to the abuse.

Of course, we’re not supposed to repress our emotions, but that’s what I did, and I suspect that a whole lot of others did as well. Why else (apart from the brainswashing discourse of, ‘Oh he’s a crazy wisdom master, what you’re seeing is love, not anger’) did we sit unreacting and with blank faces?

Jeff Brown: Spiritual Graffiti

Meditation isn’t the answer to everything

My daughter used to say to me, ‘Oh, Mum, you think everything can be solved through meditation.’ I don’t think that way now, not now that I’ve seen it used to make people pliable so they can be more easily controlled and manipulated, and not now that I know that even with the right kind of instructions, it can be used to set aside issues that we really do need to face and deal with.

I also used to think that Buddhism was the answer to everything, and perhaps if we could hear the Buddha himself speak to us it might be, but not the way some teach it–especially in Tibetan Buddhism. Teachers talk about our emotions as ‘poisons’ and ‘enemies’ and refer to psychological methods of examining our problems as some kind of inferior activity, while teaching us to simply ignore our problems under the guise of ‘watering the seeds of joy’. But pretending issues don’t exist doesn’t make them go away. Look at Rigpa’s track record with Sogyal’s abuse. If we hadn’t tried so hard to ignore our feelings – the ones that were sending us a very valid message that something was seriously wrong – Sogyal would have been stopped a long time ago.

I think we need a more balanced approach. We need to be able to look at our issues, and sort them out without getting stuck in them. We need to honour the wisdom in our emotions – like physical pain, negative emotions are, after all, telling us something is wrong – but that doesn’t mean that we’ll roll around in our emotions ad nauseum or deny the role our own thoughts, beliefs and perceptions play in our happiness and suffering. It’s not an all-or-nothing thing. We can choose the middle way.

‘To me, spiritual bypassing is fundamentally about taking a so-called absolute truth — such as “everything is okay” — and using it to ignore or deny relative truths — such as the grief we feel when we lose a loved one, or the shame that arises when we fail at something important. On the personal and interpersonal level, sometimes everything isn’t okay. And that’s okay.’

https://upliftconnect.com/spiritual-bypassing/

Let’s not delude ourselves

When I discovered Tibetan Buddhism, I found it all so wonderful, inspiring, and heart-warming, and the practice made me feel so calm and just plain goooood. But if all we’re doing by buying into any religion is spiritually distracting ourselves from our feelings while thinking that we’re walking a healthy spiritual path, then we’re just deluding ourselves.

So what to do about it? Ask questions of any teacher who seems to be straying into this area in their instruction, and take control of your own path by tuning into your body and feeling what’s there to be felt. Your body doesn’t lie. It knows what you might be unwilling to feel.

‘We need to remember that spiritual practice and emotional growth are not about achieving a particular quality of feeling (“good”). Being a human being on a spiritual journey isn’t about getting cash and prizes all the time, it is about being in the present moment, whatever it happens to look like. What are you experiencing right now? And how about now? Can you be present to all of your feelings without any one of them defining you? ‘

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/emotional-sobriety/201110/beware-spiritual-bypass
I filmed this a while ago, so I don’t remember exactly what’s in it, but it includes my experience of spiritual bypassing in the Rigpa context and a method for avoiding spiritual bypassing in our meditation.


What about you? What’s your experience? Do you think you might have used Tibetan Buddhist practices to spiritually bypass some issues? And what does knowledge of spiritual bypassing mean for our spiritual path going forward?

If you’d like a more private place to chat, you can join the Beyond the Temple Facebook group for discussions not about abuse but about your ongoing spiritual path, or if you need to talk about your experiences of and healing from guru abuse or about Rigpa’s ongoing bungling, ex-Rigpa students can join the secret What Now? group, (apply via the contact form here, and tell us about yourself and why you want to join the group). And if you’re not a Rigpa or ex-Rigpa person and need support related to abuse in Vajrayana you can join the Survivors of Vajrayana Abuse and their Allies group.  Note that you will not be added to these groups if you don’t answer the questions.

The Facebook page and You Tube Channel associated with this blog are called Living in Peace and Clarity. Click the relevant link on the side bar to ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’.

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What Now Rigpa?

What now Rigpa? Building on the past

The What Now? blog, no longer wishing to be defined by our relationship to Rigpa and Sogyal Rinpoche / Lakar and his abuse, has changed its name to Beyond the Temple . We want to write more about where we go from here with our spiritual lives, instead of only writing about Sogyal’s abuse and Rigpa’s gaslighting tactics. But just as when we grow from a child into an adult, our childhood shapes us, so too does our experience of spiritual abuse shape our outlook moving forward, and our interests.

And so as an important reference area for all students of Buddhism, we have in our Abuse in Buddhism Reference area all the links to articles of interest and support that we’ve found helpful and collected over the last 18 months – though better organised now. It’s all great reading for anyone wondering if they’ve been abused rather than blessed or if they’re in a cult instead of a sangha. We have links to excellent articles on all facets of the guru abuse issue, from cult education to links to what lamas have said about lama abuse.

In keeping with this acknowledgement of where we’ve come from, this first post with our new name and URL http://beyondthetemple.com is a kind of ‘where I am with this spiritual abuse stuff now’ kind of post.

When I think of Rigpa or Sogyal these days, I just have a gentle sadness, one of those bittersweet sadnesses that recognises the good, which makes the bad so much sadder.

Abuse-enabling beliefs

I don’t think Rigpa will ever have healthy beliefs around following a Lama for so long as they listen the Orgyen Tobyal, Khenpo Namdrol and Dzongsar Khyentse. They are just too rigid on the ‘once you’re properly prepared and have taken me as your lama, shut up, don’t complain, and do as you’re told’ angle. That’s what it comes down to. (Even their code of conduct has a special section for your relationship with a tantric guru.) The way they enterpret their religion the power is still squarely with the lama, and the student is still expected to be totally submissive to and uncomplaining of his or her every action no matter how harmful. If people are clear that that’s the deal in Rigpa, (at least at the tantric level) then they can be sensible and stay away. And that’s what I’m doing – staying away.

Sogyal Rinpoche, Rigpa & abuse

I feel that Sogyal is just a sick man (mentally as well as physically) with illusions of grandeur and other symptoms of a narcisitic personality disorder along with a special ability to channel the transformative power of his teachers to give genuine introductions to the nature of mind. And Rigpa is a devious organisation, who never mentions the word abuse, despite the abusive behaviour of their lama, Sogyal Rinpoche, being the cause of their problems. The organisation is run by people who seem to have lost their way and become stuck in bad habits and skewed beliefs – though I suspect many are simply trapped by codependent tendancies and some come from abusive backgrounds that made the abuse seem ‘normal’ to them.

That Rigpa still talk to their members like a PR firm doing damage control – directing their members perception away from the truth of ‘the situation’ to a distorted version that makes them think their problem is an attack by ‘disgruntled students’, not the abuse and it’s enabling – is highly manipulative, and it isn’t care. It’s ‘we must keep our membership at all costs, so let’s direct their attention away from the nasty truth that our lama beat people, sexually harassed and used them, and kept them trapped in an abusive relationship through trauma bonding. Let’s pretend everything is right now and get back to earning money, even though we still hold the same abuse-enabling beliefs as we did before.’

Dzongsar Khyentse & the bottom line.

That’s the root of the problem with Rigpa, that they still don’t think that Sogyal did anything wrong in terms of vajrayana even though they know that he did all those things in the report. They won’t say it publically, but Dzongsar Khyentse – their main advisor – does. In his latest comments on the topic in Chile still made it clear that he hasn’t changed his bottom line that once you’re ‘properly prepared’ and you take a lama as your tantric guru, then you have to ‘continue with this practice of pure perception’, something that for many in Rigpa simply means you have to see everything the guru does as beneficial even when it’s clearly harmful.

‘And what I have basically, among other things that I’ve said, if Sogyal R had applied the correct procedure and if the students also knew what was happening, then if they had taken him as a vajrayana master, that’s it, then you have to continue with this practice of pure perception.

But if SR haden’t taken the correct procedure, and I have said that that time and I say now, that I doubt that SR had taken the correct procedure. This is my personal thought. You know the correct procedure … someone says you do my chores for 3 years, these are the correct procedures. If SR didn’t apply the correct procedures, students didn’t know what was happening and students also don’t know was happening, it is totally wrong for Sogyal to demand whole-hearted pure perception so that he can do what he likes; it’s totally wrong.’

Dzongsar Khyentse, Being Savvy at Following the Guru, Santiago, Chile, January 20, 2019. https://youtu.be/A0HGS_iP0No

I gather being ‘properly prepared’ means being warned about how you’ll be treated – like anyone is actually going to tell you the truth when they’ve been sworn to silence as part of their ‘preparation’ and they see whatever their guru does to them as a blessing anyway. It seems to me that he’s saying that it’s still okay for a teacher to abuse a student, just so long as the student knows they’re going to be abused before they take him as their tantric guru.

At least he has admitted that what Sogyal did was ‘totally wrong,’ but only for those not ‘properly prepared’, and I suspect that some of those who were abused were actually ‘properly prepared’ when they asked to be trained. He doesn’t tackle the actual question of the appropriatness of Sogyal’s behaviour even for the ‘properly prepared’, he doesn’t state as Mingyur Rinpoche does, that abuse isn’t a teaching method.

Pure perception & abuse

How, I wonder, does he interpret pure perception here? Because the suggestion is that it means we see the abuse as okay, which isn’t pure perception, it’s the ignorance of not recognising the interdependence between the absolute and the relative. My studies tell me that, pure perception does not mean seeing abusive behaviour in your lama as somehow ‘good’ or ‘beneficial’; it’s simply seeing that the abusive behaviour is empty of inherent existence. It’s still abusive; it still causes harm, even when you see its true nature, which is, of course, beyond any concepts of anything – including benefit and harm. But despite an actions ultimate emptiness, on a conventional level, through interdependence, there is benefit and harm. There is only emptiness because there is form and visa versa. Yeah, it’s hard to get your head around. No wonder there’s so much confusion.

Root of the problem

So for me, as long as at the top levels of Rigpa there’s this idea that for the ‘properley prepared’ student whatever their lama does to them is okay and they care more about keeping their business running than their members or those they harmed, Rigpa is not a healthy place to be.

The what now? question will always remain because we never know what will happen next – because of emptiness anything can arise – but without awareness of our actions, people do tend to keep behaving the same way – organisations have karma just as individuals do – and so when a pattern is established over time, it’s likely it will continue. Unless a great deal of awareness and honesty enters the picture. Anything is possible.

If management ever actually admits that Sogyal did wrong, gives a genuine apology, and stops their gaslighting then I’ll reconsider my opinion, but pointing out their failures has become a bit like flogging a dead horse, so I’m happy to walk away and leave that horse to rot. I don’t want their stink on me.

The future

Now I’ve got that clear. What Now? What Next? Watch this space …

About the new site

And now, some information you might want to know about the new site:

  • This blog contains all posts and pages from the original What Now blog. It is the same blog, just with a different name and URL and with better organised pages optimised for search engines to make the information easier to find.
  • Apart from URL changes to the reference pages, all internal links should send you from one page to another here on this site, but links you’ve posted elsewhere to the What Now? blog will still go to the old site. Those links will still work, but won’t get any updates, so it’s best if you point your links here.
  • The old blogsite will not be updated. There’s a post stuck to the front page of the old site that will send people here.

I’d love to hear what you think, so please leave a comment.

If you’d like a more private place to chat, you can join the Beyond the Temple Facebook group for discussions related to our ongoing spiritual path, or the secret What Now? group, for Rigpa students only, which focuses on Rigpa and related abuse issues, (apply via the contact form here), or if you’re not a Rigpa or ex-Rigpa person and need support specifically related to abuse in Vajrayana try the Survivors of Vajrayana Abuse and their Allies group.  Note that you will not be added to these groups if you don’t answer the questions.

The Facebook page and You Tube Channel associated with this blog are called Living in Peace and Clarity, please click the relevant link to ‘Like’ and ‘Subscribe’.

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