Yesterday, I came across a comment by Tenzin Peljor on the Beyond the Temple blog that stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t flashy or dramatic, but it hit me deeply because it spoke to something I’ve wrestled with for years. He wrote:
“As I have learned over the years, qualities and limitations, even profound ones, can coexist. The former do not cancel the latter, nor the latter, the former.”
It’s such a simple statement, but it carries a weight that can be hard to hold. Especially for those of us who’ve been part of spiritual communities where the teacher—the person we trusted—turned out to have a dark side.
The Reflex to Reject
When I first left Rigpa, the Tibetan Buddhist organization led by Sogyal Rinpoche, I felt like my world had split in two. On one side were the profound teachings I’d received— the education on Buddhism in its many facets, careful guidance through practices like shamatha and vipassyana, the glimpses into the nature of mind — and the deep sense of connection to the sangha. On the other side was the undeniable truth of Sogyal’s abuse: the manipulation, the harm he caused to his closest students, and the way the community failed to address it with any kind of integrity or genuine compassion.
It’s natural, isn’t it, to want to simplify things? To say, “If this person did terrible things, then everything they taught must be terrible too.” It’s easier to reject it all than to sit with the contradictions. But life isn’t that simple.
The Tension Between Good and Bad
What Tenzin’s comment reminded me of is how hard it is to hold both truths at once. Sogyal Rinpoche was a deeply flawed, sometimes abusive man. But he was also a teacher who transmitted the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism with care to be true to the lineage. He could click his fingers and shift into a mode where he seemed to channel the wisdom of his own masters. And in those moments, he gave us something real.
But as soon as the teaching ended, he was just … unkind and mentally unstable. A tragic figure who caused profound harm.
It’s tempting to let one truth cancel out the other. To say, “Because he was abusive, the teachings must be worthless.” Or, conversely, “Because the teachings were so powerful, the abuse must not matter.” But neither of those positions reflect the reality of the situation. Sogyal benefited some and harmed others. Some experienced only harm, others only benefit, some a mix of both.
My Experience of Holding Both
After the abuse came to light, those of us who left Rigpa faced a difficult task: sifting through the wreckage to figure out what was worth keeping. It wasn’t easy. The good and the bad were both so extreme that it felt almost impossible to hold them together in the same mind.
And to make it even harder to hold both, sometimes if I said something positive about my experience of having Sogyal as my teacher, others immediately assumed that I thought the abuse was okay. They accused me of apologising for him, which I was not and never have done. His behaviour was inexcusable as far as I’m concerned. And, on the other side, if I expressed my disgust with what he’s done, people assumed that meant that I saw nothing good in my experience at all.
This is why I haven’t written on this before – and I expect I’ll get some flack for it now. I hope people read it fully and with an open mind before reacting!
Our human minds seem to find it hard to hold both sides of a situation. People immediately want to label you friend of enemy, or a follower of this camp or that. What about holding both sides of a situation without allowing one side to cancel out the other? Isn’t that more in tune with how things actually are?
And isn’t that the middle way? What the Buddha taught. In Buddhist terms, the middle way is about recognizing that though everything is empty of inherent essence, those things also exist. They may not be solid in the way we think they are, but they still function in a world of cause and effect. They have effects. And those effects matter.
For me, the middle way in this situation means acknowledging that Tibetan Buddhism offers profound benefits—practices like Mahamudra and Dzogchen that can transform lives—but also it carries an enormous risk of manipulation and abuse due to cultural and religious structures left over from feudal times. And neither truth cancels the other.
Not an Excuse for a Lack of Discernment
I feel I need to clarify another point here as well, and that’s that this idea can be used as an excuse for not discerning right from wrong, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I heard people say – in a very holy manner – that they weren’t making a decision about Sogyal’s abuse, but holding both the possibility that it did and that it didn’t happen. That’s not the middle way, that’s a cop out to absolve you of the moral responsibility of discerning right behaviour from wrong behaviour.
The Buddha was quite clear that his first precept was ‘do no harm’, and clearly Sogyal (and many other lamas) harmed people. Those who found it hard to make that discernment in this religious setting had their moral sense distorted by dogma they subscribed to around the student teacher relationship.
What I’m talking about is knowing that a person caused both harm and benefit, not failing to discern the difference.
And Let’s Not Get the Absolute and Relative Mixed Up
Some will likely say, ‘Oh, but good and bad don’t really exist.’ And if I say, ‘Yes, they do,’ they will likely start spouting dzogchen teachings about going beyond good and bad.
Reality is non-dual, they’ll say. As if that solves everything, including absolving them from making a discernment as to what constitutes right and wrong action. (Remember: the wisdom of discernment is one of the five wisdoms of the nature of mind.)
But I’d ask, Which reality are you talking about, dude?
Yes, I know those teachings, and I know that they refer to absolute reality, not conventional reality. And I know that ultimately those two realities are not separate – the absolute is the true nature of the conventional, sure. But here, I’m talking about conventional reality, where harm and benefit are real experiences, real results of our actions, where cause and effect is in play. We exist – not inherently, sure – but we exist on this physical plain where our actions can cause both benefit and harm.
We live in a dualistic world. That its true nature is non-dual, doesn’t change the fact that our conventional experience is dualistic. There is night and day, a breath in and a breath out, good behaviour and bad behaviour – even if the line between them isn’t always clear and the delineation shifts depending on circumstances.
Watch out for nihilism; it’s more destructive in our material world than eternalism – making abuse acceptable by saying everything is ’empty’ is a prime example.
We exist, and yet we don’t inherently exist. Recognising this is the middle way, holding both at the same time, not using one to negate the other.
And this is the kind of understanding behind Tenzin’s comment: qualities and limitations, even profound ones, can coexist. The former do not cancel the latter, nor the latter, the former.
What I’ve Realised
Here are a few things I’ve come to understand from all this:
- Qualities and limitations can coexist. A person can have profound wisdom and profound flaws at the same time.
- Rejecting everything isn’t always the answer. It’s okay to keep the good while letting go of the bad.
- Holding contradictions is hard but necessary. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s also honest.
- The middle way applies to people too. Just as things both exist and don’t exist, the same person can do both good and terrible things.
- Awareness is key. Knowing the risks of Tibetan Buddhism doesn’t mean rejecting it entirely—it means approaching it with eyes wide open.
Does it Matter?
I think this matters because it’s not just about spiritual teachers or Tibetan Buddhism. It’s about how we deal with contradictions in life. How we make sense of situations that are both beautiful and painful, both inspiring and harmful.
It’s tempting to simplify, to pick a side, to say, “This was all good” or “This was all bad.” But life rarely works that way. And when we reject complexity, we risk losing something valuable – the truth of how things actually are.
For those of us who’ve been part of spiritual communities, this process of sifting through the good and the bad is deeply personal. It’s not about excusing harm or pretending it didn’t happen. It’s about being honest with ourselves about what we gained and what we lost—and finding a way to move forward.
An Important Acknowledgement
I acknowledge that for some people, there really was no good in their experience at all. They were taken advantage of from day one, abused and manipulated and left with CPTSD. I’m not suggesting that they see benefit where there was none. Everyone must be honest with their own experience and feelings.
However, they can still perhaps admit that some people in the sangha experienced benefit, just as those who experienced only benefit can still admit that some people also experienced harm.
And thanks Tenzin for the inspiration for this post. You gave me the kick in the bum I needed to finally say it out loud.
A Question
So I’ll leave you with this: What would it look like to hold both truths in your own life? To acknowledge the good without excusing the bad, and to face the bad without rejecting the good?
It’s not easy – especially if you were directly harmed by someone – but maybe it’s worth trying. what do you think?
This piece wonderfully captures the importance of finding a middle way after leaving the Rigpa sangha, acknowledging the power and authenticity of Sogyal’s teaching while at the same time clearly recognising the harm that he perpetrated. Yes, it is important to hold the contradictions as much as possible. I left when it became clear that the Rigpa organisation was never going to acknowledge the harm done by Sogyal, nor was it going to try to make amends. I miss the Rigpa sangha, but am fortunate to have found another Tibetan sangha – very small and on-line only.
Yes, Rigpa management added to the spiritual abuse by refusing to admit Sogyal’s behaviour crossed the line into abuse. And now the main enabler of the abuse is head teacher. When the person doing the teaching can’t see abuse as abuse, then the potential for further abuse remains regardless of their code of conduct.
Sigh. Nevertheless … my grandmother always used to say ‘There is good and bad in all.’
Thank you Tahlia for the time and deep thought you applied to the apparent paradox of the human condition. It comes at an appropriate moment for me. I have been debating relative and absolute values with a senior western Tibetan Buddhist teacher who recently led a retreat in Israel. Inevitably the focus of our exchanges was the current situation around Gaza, the West Bank and southern Lebanon. I condemn Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians unequivocally. He refuses to take sides. You have unpacked the dynamics of the. Middle Way skilfully and with insight.
Ah, that’s the using the teachings on the two-truths as a cop out, a way to avoid having to make a discernment about ethics. I think it’s possible for someone to say the right words, true to the texts and so on, and not understand the meaning or to distort it in service of their biases and passions and that’s why the emphasis when training lamas is on learning texts word for word and not sharing their personal thoughts on the teachings. That’s how the teachings have been passed down supposedly without losing their integrity- though I think some distortions have come in around the extreme devotion stuff simply because it doesn’t make sense of mesh with the rest of the teachings – but who knows. When a lama shows themselves to lack compassion and discernment in practical matters, you just hope they’re not sharing those ideas with their students. And if they do, I really hope the students are still able to think for themselves. But if they’re all busy trying to see the teacher as perfect … that’s the issue isn’t it. The view of the lama’s perfection is on the absolute level, not the relative – and it applies to everyone and everything, not just the teacher – but how many people actually understand what that means? Maybe he has rich Israeli backers!
It reminds me of my nephew who spent time in Tibetan settlements in India. He attended teachings at a monastery but was turned off Tibetan Buddhism because the monks threw their rubbish on the ground without any care. He said the place was a mess of flies and rats and no one cared. That kind of behaviour shows such a vast lack of awareness it’s staggering, and yet TB is full of this kind of disconnect between what the teachings say and how followers and lamas behave. That doesn’t mean the teachings are at fault, but it does mean the teacher is. How hard is it to tell your monks to pick up their rubbish? Oh, right, first you’d have to have some awareness that it indicates a lack of the kind of care that should be shown by someone following the Buddha’s teachings! But these days it’s just a job for many of them – an income – not a calling. It’s not as if the Tulkus even get a chance to choose if they want to be a teacher or not. The whole system is problematic.
Yup – rubbish on the ground – I’ve seen it there too. Disheartening – especially as I was at that stage of ‘everything Tibetan is wonderful’…
Are you talking about Lana Glenn Mullin here? I don’t correspond with him but I follow him and saw his post about Israel. I share your feelings about Israel and Gaza and I wondered how he was there. I know myself there are Jewish people – in Israel too – who oppose Israel’s actions – was the Lama amongst only those – or was he teaching a group whose personal opinions and/or actions he didn’t know? There in a nutshell we have this very situation Tahlia and Tenzin Paljor are concerned with. And as for me – yes I wrestled with it – I literally walked out in Sogyal yet will remain eternally grateful.
Sorry, but this teacher’s refusal to take sides is NOT an example of the Middle Way. The Middle Way, in its earliest context (the First Turning of the Wheel), refers to the path between extreme asceticism and sensual indulgence… a practical soteriological middle. In Madhyamaka philosophy, it refers to the ontological middle between the extremes of eternalism and nihilism. In ethical discourse, it sometimes refers to equanimity and non-reactive discernment.
None of these formulations means refusing to make moral discernments between perpetrators and victims of violence! That is not a Middle Way… it is a category error that conflates metaphysical non-duality with moral equivalence. What this teacher seems to have done is to treat ”not taking sides” as a morally elevated position, but this framing systematically advantages the more powerful party. “Refusing to condemn” is functionally an endorsement of the status quo of harm. Let’s not forget that HHDL has explicitly condemned Russian actions in Ukraine, the Chinese actions in Tibet, etc.
Moreover, as to the location of this retreat while Israel is presumably engaged in an active bombardment of Gaza, etc. is itself a political act! The decision to proceed, to collect dana, to lend one’s spiritual stature to an Israeli institution at that moment all carry meaning beyond any verbal disclaimers of neutrality.
I would suggest that invocations like the Middle Way, non-duality, or “transcending political views” all function similarly to how “crazy wisdom” functions: it converts what looks like a moral failure into apparent evidence of the teacher’s elevated realization.
I don’t think I suggested it is an example of the Middle Way. I wholeheartedly agree with your analysis, arcane academic language notwithstanding 😉
I am shocked at his support for Israel’s current campaign of violent ethnic cleansing and have lost respect for him as a dharma teacher aa result. I still love him as a friend though
Sorry, perhaps I should have been more specific. I was really addressing your friend’s refusal to take sides, one way or the other. It’s true, I don’t know how he would respond philosophically to his purported position of neutrality, a middle way between taking one side or the other, but however he rationalizes his neutrality, it’s a profoundly mistaken and unfortunate position to hold.
If by arcane, you mean understood by few, I suppose that’s true.
Did someone suggest that not taking a a stand was the middle way? Pretty sure I said the opposite, as you say.
That was definitely not me! My issue, as I stated in my reply to Mary, was with her friend’s “neutrality,” his refusal to take sides in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Hi Mary,
My intention was to reply directly to your post of 6/7 but it got posted as a stand-alone comment. Just wanted to make sure you saw it and that it was meant to address the debate you were having with this Western Tibetan Buddhist teacher.
Wow, thank you for your honest, deeply informed reflection (about the two truths), and your careful consideration that some might have experienced only harm so that there is no good in their experiences.
I was moved especially about this passage:
“For those of us who’ve been part of spiritual communities, this process of sifting through the good and the bad is deeply personal. It’s not about excusing harm or pretending it didn’t happen. It’s about being honest with ourselves about what we gained and what we lost—and finding a way to move forward. ”
Huge thanks 🙏🏻
And thank you for the inspiration.
‘deeply personal’ indeed
As are all our reactions.
I’m grateful for your posts and the replies that are posted. I want to say that Sogyal never had any formal éducation in the Tibetan sense of the word, and piggy backed and hijacked stuff from others. Channelling ? Nah. Grifting.
I would also like to discuss your view of the middle path further, evidently because I don’t agree with you 🤣
Yes, he picked up a lot from Tsoknyi Rinpoche, for instance, and passed it on, and we benefitted from that. He was taught very carefully by Nyushul Khen Rinpoche alongside Mingyur Rinpoche, and that is what he taught in the latter years of his life. Nyushul Khen even allowed him to record his teachings so that Sogyal could be very clear about passing these teachings on without distortion. Chandelling, grifting, or simply doing what lamas are supposed to do which is pass on the teachings without distortion. I’ve studied enough outside of Rigpa to know that what we got was true to the lineage. What was flawed was the man himself and his own lack of ability to actually live by the teachings.
Ouch. How do you think he could pass on authentic teachings that he never received himself and never practised ?
I think you are heading into the “Transmission ‘ zone?
The difference between hearing and experiencing?
Esoteric for sure but of course Vajrayana/Dzogchen is an esoteric tradition.
He never taught what he wasn’t qualified to teach. So he didn’t give empowerments and he didn’t teach sadhana practices. He got others in to do that. Nyushul Khen taught him and approved him to teach those dzogchen teachings, and he gave him the whole transmission.
I’m not interested in defending him. I’m merely stating facts. He was a terrible person and he did terrible, unforgivable things, and he wasn’t qualified to teach a lot of things, but he was qualified according to Nyushel Khen Rnpoche to teach the dzogchen cycle he’d taught him. And he did introduce people to the nature of mind. You can believe we’re all deluded if you want. But unless you were there, you really can’t comment on someone’s ability to transmit dzogchen teachings. As Mary says, it’s an esoteric tradition.
But the whole point of this post is to say that one can be both profoundly impaired and profoundly brilliant at the same time – Steven Hawkings for instance. Someone’s failings do not automatically mean that they are not capable of also having ‘good’ qualities.
But I figured I’d get some flack for saying that. That’s why it’s taken me nearly 10 years to do so.
Thank you, Tahlia for teasing out the dichotomy that was Sogyal – both impaired and brilliant. I followed him for 20 years and found his teachings beneficial and inspiring even though I did not make a lot of progress with dzogchen. It’s helpful to have your explanation that he only taught what he was qualified to teach as I often wondered why got others to give empowerments
Hello Alison
You are right. Sogyal was never trained as a lama. Have you read Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism? The first 2 chapters by my co author Rob Hogendoorn unpacks Sogyal’s trajectory from childhood to the point where he set himself up as a teacher. It is meticulously researched and demonstrates beyond doubt that apart from some conversations with Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro, Sogyal never spent time in authentic Tibetan dharma study and practice. I would describe him aa plagiarist rather than a grifter. Including with Nyoshal Khen Rinpoche. Oh and he never meditated and he didn’t do the tradional 3 year retreat. He did however learn a few evangelical tricks ….involuntary hypnosis for example.
Yes, I spent more than 30 years in Kalimpong, where his family relocated to after leaving Tibet with all their wealth. He attended the most exclusive school, and then went to Delhi before England, where I guess you got caught in his web . Anyway there is no récognition of this fellow in Kalimpong…no stupa, no mémorial, nothing.
I am replying to Mary Finnigans post with my post btw – the comment didn’t appear under her post.
Firstly, a disclosure: I am an ordained monk in the Kagyu lineage, I received initial ordination from my main teacher, Ringu Tulku Rinpoche, and full (gelong) ordination from Tai Situ Rinpoche in Delhi. I also practice Dzogchen under instruction from Tsoknyi Rinpoche.
Before all this, I attended many teachings from Sogyal at Rigpa London, having previously read ‘The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. I experienced a taste of both sides of Sogyal – some of his teachings were truly inspirational, and I have witnessed him showing great kindness. On the other hand, sometimes his ‘teaching’ sessions were a complete waste of time, he spent most of the time berating the sangha and publicly humiliating individuals.
For these reasons I never felt able to accept him as an authentic teacher and become a member of the Rigpa sangha, despite the sincerity and devotion of many of its members. This was an intuitive, almost visceral, reaction.
It is taught in many texts that we have to show the utmost discernment in choosing a Dharma teacher, true ‘due diligence’. After all, this is probably the most important decision we will make in this life.
I don’t think this could be stressed enough. We are all responsible for our decisions.
Yes, that’s the traditional answer, and it’s the main way that the religion abdicates any responsibility for ensuring teachers have morals. It puts the ‘problem’ onto the student. According to this way of thinking, the problem isn’t the abusive teacher, or the system that allows such behaviour. The problem according to the religion is that the student was dumb enough to choose the teacher. That, however, assumes that all the information is available to a potential student. But it isn’t. It’s hidden behind closed doors. Even today, for every story of abuse there are dedicated students bowing to the teacher swearing it’s untrue. What is a student to believe? Why can these lamas behave without integrity and no other lama will stand up and say that’s wrong? This is a flaw in the religion, not a flaw in the students for taking on a teacher they didn’t know what an abuser. Do you think any of us knew the extent of it at the start? No. We did not. Those still there, still watching Sogyal’s teachings on video, still thinking his abuse was a teaching method, why are they there? Because the teachings support it. The way bad behaviour is excused by the ‘çrazy wisdom’ idea that makes bad behaviour seem like some kind of advanced realisation. And the way devotion incudes seeing everything the teacher does as good.
This putting the onus on the student also does not take cult dynamics into account. The subtle ways one is sucked in and held there.
There are many reasons why a student joins a group. Where I lived in Australia at the time, no one else was offering a step by step dharma education and coming every year to teach at a place not too far from me. To attend was practical. There are many reasons why we don’t see what others see. We join and stay because we get something good from it. We leave when the bad outweighs the good – but only if we can shake off the teachings that hold us there. Many of us older student, like myself, joined before the internet existed. We had no way of knowing how he was behind the scenes. One could have gone to a public teaching and never seen that, then joined the courses and by the time you went to retreat, where we saw him being a dick, we were already under thought manipulation where we accepted the ‘crazy wisdom’ story, and if you weren’t, then it was reinforced at retreat. When we learned that it wasn’t just his grumbling they were excusing with the crazy wisdom story, many of us woke up. Many of us didn’t either. Many are still trapped in the dogma that keeps them paying out to keep the organisation running.
Anyway. The point is that despite that, as you say, he was also capable of inspiring teachings. Maybe it was all fake, but if the student is ready, their experience is real. The dog’s tooth story is the teaching that addresses that.
I think we heed to be very careful not to blame the student for their ‘poor’ choice or diminish the students very real learning and experiences just because the teacher was a terrible person. It only contributes to the spiritual abuse. Especially don’t blame the student for choosing an abusive teacher when they didn’t know he was abusive. If your first introduction to him was a whole teaching where he was bullying students, then your experience wasn’t the usual, and likely more recent when he became more public with that kind of behaviour. When abusive behaviour is out in the open and extreme, then its easy to reject the teacher, but mostly it’s hidden behind the scenes.