The Belief at the Root of Abuse in Tibetan Buddhism

I’m going to start writing some positive posts for those who are leaving Tibetan Buddhism behind, but before I do, I think it’s important to make the root cause of abuse in Tibetan Buddhism very clear. The purpose of this post is not to put people off Tibetan Buddhism, but to educate them so they can choose not to subscribe to the beliefs that are the root cause of the abuse and can avoid groups and teachers who teach such beliefs. For example, Rigpa, Shambala & NKT.

The root cause of the abuse in Tibetan Buddhism is usually hidden from view, particularly from beginners. By the time the beliefs that allow such teachers as Sogyal Rinpoche to physically, emotionally, psychologically, financially and sexually abuse students with impunity become stated overtly (if they ever are), the student is likely already indoctrinated to this view. By laying it out up front as I’m doing here – should any Tibetan Buddhist student bother to read this – students can be aware of when this kind of belief is being laid on them, and they can reject it.

Continue reading “The Belief at the Root of Abuse in Tibetan Buddhism”

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? groupApply 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’.

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’.

Dangerous Ideas that Support Abuse

Orgyen Tobgyal promotes violence

In Paris last year at the Rigpa Centre, Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche publicly said about spiritual teachers, “Such great beings, whether it coresponds to western ideas or not, if they kill someone, it’s fine.Whatever they do is for the benefit of sentient beings” and “Beating hard increases wisdom.” Click here to see notes on the full talk. The quotes above are are in question 3.
His talk fostered beliefs that support Sogyal Lakar/Rinpoche abusing his students and details examples of other such behaviour from spiritual teachers that he holds up as something to emulate. He doesn’t believe Sogyal did anything wrong. In saying that he saw “nothing extraordinary” in the back scratcher, he was referring specifically to regular beatings Sogyal Lakar/Rinpoche gave students using his back scratcher. These assualts were verified by the Lewis Silkin Independent report into the abuse.
Is this a teacher you should be supporting, following, inviting to your centre or listening to? Are these ideas ones you want to believe? Are they healthy for society and individuals or harmful? Should you be part of an organisation that invites such a person to their centre?

The Buddha taught people to use their intelligence and not follow anyone who preached ideas that caused harm.

And yet Rigpa takes the advice of this man

Orgyen Topgyal is one of Rigpa’s “spiritual” advisors and he is about to undertake a major visit to Australia (details here: https://www.rigpa.org.au/orgyen-tobgyal-rinpoche/).
But I suspect that many in Rigpa in Australia and elsewhere are not aware of what he said in Paris and that he is a man who publically supports Sogyal’s abuse of his students. I think they need to  know this, and they need to be encourged to really think about whether these are ideas they should be taking on board. So please share this information with your Rigpa friends and ask them if these are healthy ideas to be taking on board.
Of course his full talk to Rigpa Paris is indoctrination that supports the power structure that allowed Sogyal to abuse his students for decades, so by the time they read down to question 3 where he makes clear his view that abuse by teachers is perfectly acceptable, they may have lost their ability to see what he says clearly, so you’ll need to get them to read question 3 or quote it to them.
Dangerous beliefs are the core of the problem here and until we make it clear that such beliefs are not healthy and not acceptable in the West, abuse can still happen in Tibetan Buddhism.

 
 


Current and previous students of Rigpa can participate in private discussion on this and other abuse-related topics on our What Now? Facebook Group. If you’re interested in joining, please contact us via the contact page and ask for an invite.
People from any Vajrayana sangha can join the Survivors of Vajrayana Abuse and Allies Facebook group for support. Click the link to request to join.
Anyone who has left a Buddhist sangha that had an abusive teacher can join the  Beyond the Temple Facebook Group. The focus in this group is not on the abuse, but on ourselves and our spiritual life as we recover from our experience and look to the future. Click here and request to join.
The What Now? Reference Material page has 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.
Those of you who are interested in ‘keeping Buddhism clean’ could ‘Like’ the Dharma Protectors Facebook page, which posts links to related articles as they come to hand.

Recovering from an Abusive Group

Whether or not the French Legal system determines that Rigpa is a cult, if you personally accept that you were in a cult, you can then apply the wealth of support material for cult victims to your own situation, and that can be very helpful for moving on with your life in your post-Rigpa experience. Whether you can bring ourself to use that word or not, however, you likely cannot deny that, according to the experiences described in the July letter from 8 long term students and other publically available testimonies made by ex-Rigpa members, abuse did occur in Rigpa, and therefore Rigpa could be called an ‘abusive group’.
Though many of us did not experience or see physical or sexual abuse ourselves, most of us who went to a retreat with Sogyal Rinpoche would likely have seen some form of emotional abuse. What we were indoctrinated to see as ‘kindness’ or ‘personal teachings’ ticks all the boxes for meeting the definition of emotional abuse. And how many of those who worked on retreats, particularly in national teams experienced or saw some form of abuse? Unless they remain stuck in denial,  everyone who has seen or experienced any form of abuse in an abusive group will need to go through a process of recovery.
So I’ve gathered some free resources to assist with this:
If you’re not sure if you were in an abusive group or not, try these checklists:
SPIRITUALLY_ABUSIVE_SYSTEMS
Emotional_Abuse_Checklist 
 Group_Psych_Abuse_Scale
And the following two books can help with recovery, no matter what level of abuse you saw or experienced.
Ford, Wendy_ Recovery from Abusive Groups
Herman_Trauma-and-Recovery 
The following is an excerpt from Wendy Ford’s book Recovery from Abusive Groups. Just noting at what point in these phases of recovery you are presently in will be of assistance to you.
 

Phases in Recovery

The recovery process can span any length of time and, basically, breaks out into three main phases. These three phases are:
1. Awareness and Exit
2. Understanding and Feeling
3. Rebuilding and Dreaming

Phase One – Awareness and Exit

This first phase varies in length, and is often dependent on the method of exiting. This phase is marked by the experiences that alert members to the danger of the group and result in the member’s exiting permanently. The key to an effective exit is to “jump start” the critical thinking process of the mind. This process has been on hold for much too long because the group has told the followers that to question and doubt the group is to betray God (or whatever) [in this instance we would be betraying the lama and would show our lack pure perception and devotion and prove ourselves to be a samaya breaker].
The price for questioning and doubting, they are told, is eternal death [or breaking samaya and going to hell in this instance]. This is a very powerful fear to overcome. Awareness of the insidious nature of the cult and the decision to leave comes slowly for some and quickly for others. For example, someone forcibly deprogrammed becomes aware and leaves the cult very quickly as compared to someone who walks out after reflecting over several months or years on “devilinspired” doubts. Even after leaving, some ex-cultists are not sure if they made the right decision and “float” in between their old cult identity and their new liberated identity or pre-cult self. (See Floating, p. 36.) The more information and support cultists receives during this phase, the better equipped they are to handle the pain and loss of Phase Two.

Phase Two – Understanding and Feeling

The second phase is full of ups and downs, of feeling as if you just returned from Mars, of exciting new freedoms and discoveries, and it is also full of rage and pain. It involves coming to terms with being raped, emotionally and spiritually. And for many, it involves coming to terms with being physically raped as well.
I don’t know how to convey the extremes of pain possible in this phase. Perhaps it is how you would feel standing by helplessly as some crazy person slowly murdered someone you loved. It seems so incredible to many that because they wanted to serve God and their country, [in this instance to become enlightened] wanted to help people, and wanted to make the world a better place-for this idealism (or selflessness) they were cruelly used. This is a very difficult aspect of the experience to reconcile.
“What ever did I do to be treated like this?” is a question that rings deep in the heart of any ex-cultist. The answer to this question resides in understanding how mind control techniques work. It is no wonder, then, that the rage and anger the ex-cultist feels is often overwhelming and frightening. So much so, that many tend to repress or deny the full expression of their emotions. But understanding and feeling one’s emotions in a nondestructive way, I believe, is critical to recovery.
This second phase can be an extraordinary journey through pain and loss to learning and mastery. It varies in length and is dependent on how able the excultist is to experience loss and how disciplined the ex-cultist is to study, think, and work toward a thorough understanding of the experience.

Learning to Trust Again

One of the truly tough parts about working through the experience is the very fact that it’s a very big job. The ex-cultist must learn how to trust life again, and learning to trust requires learning how to test reality. Because the cult phobias and teachings often touched on many aspects of life, such as family, government, education, religion, relationships, and economics, the ex-cultist often finds it necessary to examine and reality test most, if not all, of the teachings received in the cult for subtle, residual ideas that continue to manipulate the ex-cultist. In addition, it is in this phase that individuals must learn again how to trust themselves and their ability to make decisions. Learning to trust after you have been used and hurt can be very scary, but trust in yourself and in others can be rebuilt with disciplined thinking and courage. For those who come from dysfunctional backgrounds, recovering from the cult experience often means acknowledging and recovering from the effects of earlier patterns (Black, 1982), such as:
• Abusive parents, relatives, siblings, spouse
• Behaving abusively toward others
• Alcoholism, rape, incest, eating disorders, drug abuse
• Difficulties with intimacy, careers, law enforcement
If ex-cultists are willing to “roll up their sleeves” and “dig their heels in,” and to work through and out of the past, then they can move onto Phase Three, that of rebuilding one’s life and building toward a dream.

Phase Three – Rebuilding and Dreaming

To someone in the middle of the pain of Phase Two, the idea of having a dream again and building toward it is merely a sad, frustrating, and painful laugh. Having spent many years in Phase Two, I understand that despondent feeling very well. It is possible to rebuild your life. You will not be able to make up for all the years the cult has stolen from you, but you can make up for some of those lost years. I’ve worked very hard to recover from an overprotective and domineering family, seven years in a cult, a rape while in the cult, two forced deprogrammings each with conservatorships, a lawsuit for trying to help someone out of a cult, too many job changes, and too many unfulfilling relationships after the cult. If you are willing to stick with it, to work at it, to work through and let go of myths that look like truths, not only in the cult but also in society, and if you are willing to acquire new skills and improve others, you can build a healthy and well-functioning life with a dream you can work toward.
Do you recognise these phases? Where do you think are you in this process?


 
Current and previous students of Rigpa wanting private support are welcome to join the What Now? Facebook group. Please contact us via the contact page and ask for an invite.
Ex-Rigpa students and their dharma friends who want to move on from the discussion of abuse in Rigpa can stay in touch through the Dharma Companions Facebook Group.  
The What Now? Reference Material page has 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.
Those of you who are interested in ‘keeping Buddhism clean’ could ‘Like’ the Dharma Protectors Facebook page. 
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Help for Students Processing the Attestations of Abuse in Rigpa

The attestations by 8 long term close students of Sogyal Rinpoche that he had emotionally, physically and sexually abused students over a period of many years rocked the Rigpa community.  Early posts in this blog gave an indication of the kinds of issues students faced and how some managed the shocking revelations of abuse in Rigpa, but though some have found a level of equanimity about the situation, others are still struggling to come to terms with it. At the core of their struggle are the teachings on devotion and pure perception that don’t sit comfortably with humanitarian ethics and the behaviour of their teacher. Though many found statements by Tibetan Lamas helpful, their understanding of their Western students and what they are going through is limited simply because they have never been a Western student.
Venerable Thubten Chodron the abbess of Sravasti Abbey in the USA, however, was a Western student (of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa), and she is now a teacher. She has given a series of talks in response to the attestations of abuse in Rigpa that many students have found really helpful in processing the revelations. It clear from her talks that she understands exactly what students are going through and the misunderstandings Westerners tend to have on certain aspects of the teachings.
The What Now? team highly recommend watching the following teachings


 

 

 

 
Here are the links to the videos on You Tube
When things fall apart. https://youtu.be/WxucVpOV2FY
How could it happen: https://youtu.be/njY9kwgOXpA
Confusion in Tantra: https://youtu.be/b88r4NdHZVU
What it means to see the teacher as a Buddha: https://youtu.be/H9UVSw-OnDU


Be sure to check out the What Now? References 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.
More personal and private support for current and previous students of Rigpa can be found in the What Now? Facebook group. Please contact us via the contact page and ask for an invite. Please use the email address you use on Facebook.