Re: "Indispensible to Tibetan Buddhism"

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MS says:
September 6, 2016 at 9:29 am
Sogyal Rinpoche is being advertised as one of the main speakers at this conference taking place at the University of Potsdam 16-18 September. Is there no interest in Sogyal Rinpoche’s background from the German press?

[www.leben-und-sterben-2016.de]

Events like this give him a big credibility. I think it is wrong that Sogyal Rinpoche can get away with using events like this to maintain his position as a respectable religious leader.

One of the other main speakers, Kirsten DeLeo, is described as having “under the guidance of Tibetan meditation master Sogyal Rinpoche, completed a three-year meditation retreat.”

Sogyal Rinpoche and Rigpa are positioning themselves as leaders in the care of the dying without properly answering questions about the widespread concerns in the Buddhist community and beyond about the behaviour of Sogyal Rinpoche and the way Rigpa operates. The press should not just report what the press releases tell them.

Thanks to Oliver Raurich, we now know how the press is manipulated by Rigpa. Olivier wrote, “Rigpa paid a very expensive professional agency in Paris, specialising in crisis communication, to train a few spokesmen, including myself, to respond to the allegations of sexual harassment and financial abuse. We were advised not to answer questions, but rather to endlessly repeat certain key phrases – and to quote the Dalai Lama as much as possible for moral support.”

Good journalists would look behind the professionally constructed sound bites to get to the truth.

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joanneclark7 says:
April 11, 2016 at 11:32 pm
Good grief, Dharmaanarchist, calm down. This is the sort of marginalization people with issues of mental illness experience all the time and it’s very sad. I actually have a valid point of view you know– and I am quite stable now, without ever needing a social worker or psychotherapist. How can you know what I need or what I experienced? In fact, the Dharma was all I needed. That was my point. If Rigpa had simply provided me with Dharma– and left out all the guru hype and the trauma of watching public humiliations, then I wouldn’t have run into trouble. I know that now, I know that Rigpa is not a particularly healthy Dharma environment. In fact, I watched other people in much worse shape than myself.

As a Dharma practitioner and as a counselor myself, I believe that it’s important to treat everyone with respect and to validate their points of view. The attitude that you just exhibited is precisely why I stay away from Dharma centers.

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MS says:
April 12, 2016 at 9:26 am
I agree with you Joanne. The Guru hype and public humiliations create a completely unhealthy environment. Then when the constant demands for complete guru devotion begin to collide with the allegations that Sogyal Rinpoche sexually abuses young women students, it get’s worse. I don’t know how I kept my sanity and I know other students and ex-students who describe themselves as going though hell. In my experience a year is plenty of time to lose your reference points and experience severe mental distress. I admire your recognition, Joanne, that part of you problems came from your “excessive need to be completely devoted and “born again.”” A healthy sangha and teacher would recognise this possibility, which many are susceptible to including me, and wouldn’t do things to exacerbate it.

There is a terrible tendency in Rigpa to blame others and take no responsibility themselves. From my experience I can say that this comes from the top, from Sogyal Rinpoche himself. So I am not surprised to see your experience being blamed on your so called “mental illness.” Going a “little mad” in an insane situation is not madness in my view, although the suffering is still terrible. I also think Sogyal Rinpoche has done good things, so you, me and dharmaanarchist can all agree on that, but I find the total refusal in Rigpa and apparently in the whole Tibetan Buddhist establishment to recognise that he has done harm scandalous.
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MS says:
April 11, 2016 at 7:39 am
One of the most disgusting aspects of the reaction I got when I asked questions in Rigpa about Sogyal Rinpoche’s alleged abuse of young women students was exactly this ad hominem approach. They won’t answer any questions, but they will tell you bad things about everyone who has said anything critical of Sogyal Rinpoche. They seem to know lots about everyone who has complained, but nothing about what actually happened. Sogyal Rinpoche himself seems to take no responsibility at all for the situation.

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MS says:
May 10, 2016 at 7:02 pm
There is a hospice project in Germany called Sukhavati which appears to be one of Sogyal Rinpoche and Rigpa’s projects, but this is not not made clear on the project’s web-site.

On this page [www.sukhavati.eu] there are the biographies of nine people who form the team running the project. Sogyal Rinpoche’s name does not appear anywhere on the page, but from researching the information that is there it appears that at least six of the nine are Sogyal Rinpoche’s students. There are references to a three year retreat at Lerab Ling, or in one case simply to a three year retreat in the South of France, which is certainly also Lerab Ling, as well as references to the Spiritual Care programme and to Dharma Mati. This retreat and these projects are all Sogyal Rinpoche led. Philip Philippou makes no mention of the fact that he is one of the main leaders in Rigpa and has been so for decades. None of these team members mention Sogyal Rinpoche and Rigpa. WHY NOT? I think the public should be clearly told who is behind the project

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Melodious says:
May 15, 2016 at 7:05 am
I only found out about the scandal involving Sogyal Rinpoche a few days ago. I’ve been transfixed because it explains a lot to me about my experience with Rigpa. My Buddhist path started with Rigpa around 2003 and I stayed until early 2005.

I actually left because I was disliked by the cliche of students who ran the centre. The first year was fine but in the second year there was a growing sense of animosity towards me. The main instructor had told a story about how Sogyal Rinpoche received letters from his students in various Dharma centres outlining the conflicts they were experiencing in the centres.

His remedy was to get the students to watch endless Laurel and Hardy shows as a way to demonstrate how we all have difficult behaviours that set each other off. People just had to not behave in a difficult way or react to difficult behaviour and that would calm the friction down.

I tried in vain to work out what I was doing ‘wrong’ to explain why one instructor rolled his eyes when I asked questions, I got screamed on a number of occasions by one student in the core group, got told to shut-up by a young lady who ended up being an instructor the next year, had an empty water bottle thrown at me in anger that hit me in the head. There was just a negative sentiment toward me by the core group.

Two years after I started at Rigpa I realised that I had a problem with binge drinking and it was getting worse. As a result I went to Alcoholics Anonymous and started with their 12 step program. I started to find it very difficult to do all the work set up by Rigpa and learn the AA program and do the 12 steps. At that point Rigpa had their students doing a modules of study each ‘semester’ and another study pack we did in our own time that consisted of listening to SR’s teachings many times over to absorb them, and the Nongdro practise (which included the tantric Vajrasattva practice).

Luckily for me I had also been doing workshops at the local FPMT centres and decided to stop going to Rigpa and go to the FPMT centres instead. That way I could pick and choose the topics that fitted into my AA program. I felt too intimidated to go to Rigpa anyway and the FPMT centres were so much more welcoming.

I found that the FPMT centres tend to do a lot of workshops on relationships, controlling emotions, making yourself a socially acceptable person to be around (my words not theirs), applying virtues to your everyday life etc., so while there still is friction in these centres it is a not like the animosity I experienced at Rigpa; meaning people may get cranky but not to the point they throw things at someone else.

When I look back at Rigpa there was not the same emphasis on how to develop healthy relationships with people in the Sangha. I was too green to question why Rigpa taught the tantric Vajrasattva practice (the one with the consort) and the FPMT only did the practise without the consort and forbids people to view the certain tantric images unless they are initiated into that practise.

At one point two of the core students asked me if I would like to learn the skills to volunteer in a hospice for the dying, they made a snarky comment about how it would teach me to ‘get out of myself a bit’ as in I thought of only myself. I was totally shocked at their suggestion and attitude because I wasn’t in a great place emotionally and would’ve been the type of person to sit beside a dying person and complain about all my problems. I had no mental stability to comfort a dying person or their family or to be in a hospice environment.

Looking back, the weirdest thing happened at the retreat at Myall Lakes (Australia). Every year SR holds retreat around January. The full retreat lasts for ten days but the short one only goes for four (at that time anyway); I went for the four day retreat. The last session I attended was a discussion group. I had planned to leave shortly after it ended because I had to catch a bus back to QLD.

After the discussion group I was approached by a lady who was part of Rigpa. She explained that concerns had been raised for my welfare due to some comments I made during the discussion group. I can’t remember how she expressed it but she was basically saying there were concerns that I was suicidal or going to ‘self-harm’. I became really confused because I couldn’t remember what I’d said during the discussion group and hadn’t felt any strong emotion.

When I asked her for clarification about what I said (because I was so confused) she was very vague but insisted that from what I said there were concerns about my welfare. Dumbfounded I pleaded ignorance and apologised if I’d made a throwaway comment that had caused concerned. At this point I had to collect my bags from the campsite office and get a cab to the town so I could get my bus so I managed to get away from this upsetting and confusing interaction.

Now after finding our SR is a sexual predator I am wondering if I had become a target at that event. I am counting my lucky stars that I could only afford to stay at the retreat for four days. I would’ve found it a distressing and overbearing situation to have been preyed on by SR’s enablers. That was the first and only time in my life I’ve had someone say that concerns were raised for my welfare that I was going to self-harm or was suicidal.

It would be interesting to find out if SR has his enablers procure young women for him. Hopefully more women will find the courage to speak out about how they were procured for SR because I believe he must’ve had enablers procuring women for him somehow.

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MS says:
May 18, 2016 at 9:50 am
I don’t think Sogyal Rinpoche only chooses girls/young women who are introduced to him by someone in his inner circle. There is an account on this blog [buddhism-controversy-blog.com] which describes how a new young women student without connections was singled out for sex.

This has been going on for a very long time. Before the Telegraph in the UK had a web-site there was a long article in 1995 about Sogyal Rinpoche’s sexual relationships with his students. I found a pdf of it here [dialogueireland.files.wordpress.com]. The woman known as Janice Doe was a new student. There are also accounts from two other women in that article.

I am sure you are right dharmaanarchist that Sogyal Rinpoche often finds young women to have sex with through their connections with people already in his inner circle, but it seems clear to me from the ‘ex-dakini’ account and those in the Telegraph that there are many other routes for new students without connections to be propositioned for sex with Sogyal Rinpoche if they attract his attention

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Adamo says:
July 19, 2016 at 4:59 am
I agree with Dharmaanarchist.

But I want to add: Part of the lifestyle of S is, to have permanently between 3-20 people available as personal “assistents” for whatssoever commands,24hours7daystheweekallyearlong, giving them a hard time, called “crazy wisdom teaching”.
As a example: the car in Lerab Ling he uses, has to washed 3Xdaily inside and outside, when enough staff is available.
Whereever he is, he want all people focusing only at him, watching carefully that he is the only number one around.
His wishes, as there might be countless wishes on a long day, has to be fulfilled on the spot, even 5 or 10 times, if he dislikes the attitude or manner of the person.
He acts like the star of all stars, what I believe, he really would like to be.

This is to be continued endless…….

So not particular the material lifestyle is exclusice, but the “psychological”livestyle.

As I feel, most people who underwent such a treating, has not changed much, but even remain more confused.

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tenpel says:
July 19, 2016 at 5:01 pm
The women who told to me their stories and observations said that SR is highly demanding and gets very angry if his demands are not fulfilled. His rude and uncontrolled behaviour creates an atmosphere of fear and insecurity and a high pressure to please him in any way. When I remember correctly, its well described also in this post: One Year With Rigpa – A Testimony.

[buddhism-controversy-blog.com]

I don’t think what you describe has anything to do with what’s called “crazy wisdom” as I have heard that very conservative Tibetan teachers can be very demanding and give their personal students a hard time. That appears to be more of a common vajra master style of educating students.

No, it has nothing to do with crazy wisdom, rather with craziness.

One of the women who told me her story cooked for him (for sure she gave her best). Sogyal being displease with the food took the whole plate together with the food and threw it violently with insulting words on her. The women was utterly shocked and could not find peace for a long time. She finally had to find another teacher who consoled her from the deep inner conflicts and shock that blocked her mind and inner peace.

Sorry, what you do is, that you try to whitewash such rude and inappropriate – violent – behaviour as normal. Can you tell me what is the education in that context? No Vajra-master has any permission to harm sentient beings, and Soogyal has harmed women. This fact is not even denied by Rigpa. So please stop to declare such rude, insulting and harming behaviour as “a common vajra master style of educating students.” BTW, I have different Vajra-masters and none of them acts like this in any way.

You also downplay the sexual harassment by Sogyal when you describe his actions as “quite humorous, playful, hilarious, anarchistically outlandish, destroying conceptual thinking…” To give a clean clear example: Sogyal has abused his power to manipulate women who did a retreat in Lerab Ling to have sex with him. What is “quite humorous, playful, hilarious, anarchistically outlandish, destroying conceptual thinking” in that context? Its not funny either.

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Adamo says:
July 17, 2016 at 4:02 pm
I can say from my experiences, that I do not consider the lifestyle of S as exclusive in terms of material matters.
I would not say he indulges in expensive material goods.

Compared with the Rinpoches I know a little bit, he lives a expensive style, but compared with western standards, the lifestyle (material) is not such big deal.

So far, I confirms dharmaanarchists statement, as S luxury lifestyle is discussed.

His way of treating his students, and teaching and so can be considered extremely wasteful.