His Holiness the Dalai Lama again mentions Sogyal Rinpoche.

In contrast to the comments by Khenchen Namdrol we discussed in our last post, His Holiness the Dalai Lama during day 1 of his two day teaching on Kamalashila’s “The Middling Stages of Meditation” and Tsongkhapa’s “Concise Stages of the Path to Enlightenment” at Skonto Hall in Riga, Latvia on September 23rd, 2017, again questioned Sogyal Rinpoche’s level of practice (making an unprecedented four times). He was speaking on the qualities of spiritual teachers.

Here’s a link to the teaching: https://youtu.be/46kukFKFJrM

Some relevant quotes to provide a context for the mention are as follows:

“The Four Noble Truths are the basis of the basic teachings in the all the teachings of the Buddha and that the teachings of Mahayana, Hinayana on and so forth and so this is how you also should lead your disciples, your students, on the basis of the teaching of the Four Noble Truths. So otherwise the teachings of the Buddha would also be like other traditions where, the other traditions such as the theistic religion say that, if you don’t believe in God you’ll go to hell. It would be similar to that and then we also come across mention of all the different kinds of the hell realms, say eighteen different layers of hell and so forth if you don’t practice well you’ll go to hell and so forth. And so this what these teachings would be like: scaring people without giving them good understanding of their teaching as a whole. “

And later:

“With regard to the teaching of the Dharma we are not telling stories we’re not going through some history or anything like. We are talking about disciplining one’s own minds, taming one’s own minds.

Therefore, someone who claims to be a Dharma teacher, must become tamed themselves.

And therefore, master Tsongkhapa mentioned that, and with regard to taming the mind, you cannot just have anything that it comes across that you come across as a practice, but, you actually should follow the pattern that is found in the general teaching of the Buddha itself.

And so what that means is this one should be actually tamed through the three trainings: – the training of morality – the training of concentration and through – the training of wisdom.

And so master Tsongkhapa’s writings are quite, they’re comprehensive. He says you cannot just have any kind of practice, and any kind of experience, but, you should actually go through the training based on the three trainings, and the general teaching of the Buddha. …

And so a lama must be someone who has all these qualifications mentioned in the Sutra Alamkara in in short the lama must be a learn-ed, as well as experienced. So we have in the Kadam tradition, the scholarly Kadam tradition, studied these texts, the six different texts so such as <lists six texts @ 2:22:45>.

So these must be used as texts for study. Of course you could be really learning, but if you don’t have experience and practice that doesn’t make you a qualified teacher as such, Dharma teacher as such.
…

And therefore you must be experienced, while being scholarly, learned ones.

And therefore you should also be someone who is learned.

That learning, that scholarship does not actually undermine or kill being disciplined and [having] humility.

So Sogyal Rinpoche was disgraced recently in America. And so he maybe learned, but without any practice and experience of the teaching, therefore, abusing disciples, deceiving them.

And so there were people in Taiwan and other places in Tibet also this happen.”

What His Holiness is saying is that though Sogyal Rinpoche knows some dharma (“he maybe learned,”) he hasn’t practiced sufficiently to have any real experience of the teachings (“but without any practice and experience of the teaching,”) because if he had, he would never have behaved in the abusive manner attested to in the letter from the Eight (“therefore, abusing disciples, deceiving them”).

I feel that this does not mean that students should reject everything they have learned, just that they should consider that though he gave some good teachings, and even introduced many students to the nature of their mind, he didn’t have enough practice experience to embody the teachings in his everyday life.

Be sure to check out the What Now? Reference Material page for links to a wealth of articles in the topics related to abuse in Buddhist communities. For links to places to assist in healing from abuse see the sangha care resources page.
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3 Replies to “His Holiness the Dalai Lama again mentions Sogyal Rinpoche.”

Joanne Clark says:

September 26, 2017 at 10:12 pm

Moonfire, just to be careful and thorough in your citation, you might want to mention that this quote is a translation. In all the other instances, HH spoke in English.

susihornig says:

October 4, 2017 at 11:20 am

Personally I really like the whole speech, not only the parts that are quoted here, but thanks for sharing anyway. Always precious moments for me to listen to his words.

gendunblog says:

October 4, 2017 at 1:16 pm

indeed, susanne. and the snippet that’s been chopped out here is not really the best or most important part of his speech at all…all parts of this event are worth being watched in full length.