By Joanne Clark In early November, a group of 134 students signed a letter to forty Tibetan Buddhist lamas, asking for their opinions regarding the abusive behaviours recently disclosed by ex-Rigpa students. A month later, […]
Controversies: New Kadampa Tradition, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso // Dorje Shugden // Rigpa, Sogyal Rinpoche // Tsem Tulku, Kechara // Ole Nydahl, Diamond Way // Sangharakshita, Triratna // Shambhala, Sakyong :: Tibet & Dalai Lama :: Dharmakaya, Zen & More
Tag: sexual abuse
Sangharakshita Obituary
By Mark Dunlop There was a short (5min 40s) obituary on Sangharakshita broadcast in the UK on BBC Radio 4. It starts 13:58, ends 19:38: Sangharakshita Born 26 August 1925; died 30 October 2018, aged 93. […]
Clergy Sexual Abuse & Buddhist Ways of Dealing With Abuse | Triratna’s Whitewashing Terminology
Introduction During a remarkable member congregation of the German Buddhist Union (DBU) in April 2018 at the Europe Centre of the Diamond Way movement in Immenstadt, Germany, representatives of four organisations involved in the misuse […]
Triratna: The Eye of the Storm
By Alan J.W. Last year (2017) many comments were posted online regarding the controversy surrounding former Order member K, understandably not identified by a full name. The first part of this post is a memoir-cum-appraisal: […]
Links Relevant To The Current Crisis In Shambhala International Regarding Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s Conduct With Women
GUEST POST Shambhala International is no stranger to controversies regarding relationships between its teachers and their students. The founder of the organization, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, was a well known womanizer and alcoholic. Many articles and books have been […]
Three Buddhists Walk into a Bar
By Kiera Van Gelder Three Buddhists walk into a bar. A Hinayana, a Mahayana, and a Vajrayana. The Vajrayana demands the highest stool, the Mahayana offers her body as a stool and the Hinayana sits […]
Testimony from an Ogyen Kunzang Choling (OKC) Survivor
The following comment was posted by a Buddhist as a comment after having shared Ben’s powerpoint presentation “40 Years of Abuse in the Name of Dharma by ex-OKC born-kids” on Facebook. Ben who stands behind […]
Mark Dunlop’s Response to Sangharakshita’s February 2017 Memoir
Guest Post By Mark Dunlop In February 2017, Triratna circulated within the Order a “memoir” by Sangharakshita (Dennis Lingwood), describing his time with me. It is a bit of a diatribe against me. I have […]
On Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche’s Statement From a Reader of the New York Times
Guest Post By Joanne Clark As a woman living in a Western country with laws, as a liberal with a subscription to The New York Times, and as a follower of HH Dalai Lama, I […]
HH Dalai Lama And Others Speak Out About Sogyal Rinpoche & His Behaviour
Guest Post By Joanne Clark There is no surer sign that this is not business as usual with Rigpa than the recent statements made by HH Dalai Lama, Mingyur Rinpoche and Matthieu Ricard. In the […]
Abuse: Letter To Sogyal Rinpoche From Long Term Rigpa Students
We now see clearly the many ways that you betrayed our trust, manipulated and abused us and our Dharma brothers and sisters. On July 14, 2017 eight long term disciples and Rigpa students – with […]
Ready to Mine: Zen’s Legitimating Mythology and Cultish Behavior
Stuart Lachs, New York City[1] ICSA Paper June/July 2017 Conference Bordeaux, France I will show in this talk that the legitimating story and mythic history of Zen Buddhism lays the groundwork for an authoritarian […]
Abuse in the Buddhist community: this victim tells her story for the first time
When those teachers—suppose they already practice the Buddhadharma—still do not behave properly, it indicates that they have a lack of shamefulness on their part. They do not care about the negative consequences for their own […]
Mark Dunlop’s involvement with the FWBO / Triratna
I, Mark Dunlop, am an only child, and I was born in N. Ireland in 1950. My father was in the Navy, and my family lived in different parts of the world, following my […]
A Letter To The College of Public Preceptors By The Aryaloka Spiritual Vitality Council
Preface by Buddhism Controversy Blog: Some weeks ago, the Aryaloka Spiritual Vitality Council sent the following letter to the Triratna Buddhist Community’s College of Public Preceptors. We would like to express our praise for these […]
Robert Spatz, guru of the OKC cult, gets 4 years’ suspended sentence
Dated: 15th Sept 2016 On Thursday, Brussels criminal court (“tribunal correctionnel”)¹ sentenced Robert Spatz, spiritual head of the Ogyen Kunzang Choling (OKC) Buddhist community, to a suspended sentence of 4 years in prison. The man, […]
Whitewashing, Dishonesty & Culture of Abuse in the Triratna Buddhist Order (TBO)
Guest Post The real beauty of a sexual relationship between an Order Member and a Mitra is that if the OM is sufficiently mature then the other person stands to gain considerably from the experience. […]
Submission, devotion and sexual abuse: my investigation of Buddhism in France
By Marion Dapsance Anthropologist In the minds of Westerners, Buddhism is “secular spirituality”, a “science of the spirit”, in short: something perfectly rational. A few years ago, I began reading books on meditation, before wanting […]
FWBO / Triratna – Sangharakshita – Cases of Sexual Abuse
…ultimately, the way a group reacts to allegations of misconduct may be a better indicator of its underlying dysfunction than the content of the allegations themselves. – Christopher Hamacher The BBC reported on September 26, […]
Use Common Sense: Khandro Rinpoche about Sexual Abuse by Buddhist Teachers in the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition
The book “Dakini Power – Twelve Extraordinary Women Shaping the Transmission of Tibetan Buddhism in the West” by Michaela Haas (PhD) offers advice by Her Eminence Jetsünma Khandro Rinpoche with respect to sexual abuse as […]
Buddhist Monks as Hate Preachers & Sexual Abuse
There are some negative developments in the Buddhist world for which Buddhists should be ashamed, and if possible take up responsibility to counter them. One of them is that the Rohingya – a Muslim minority […]
