Randy Sogyal Rinpoche, Best-Selling Lecher

The impulse to believe the absurd when presented with the unknowable is called religion. Whether this is wise or unwise is the domain of doctrine. Once you understand someone's doctrine, you understand their rationale for believing the absurd. At that point, it may no longer seem absurd. You can get to both sides of this conondrum from here.

Re: Randy Sogyal Rinpoche, Best-Selling Lecher

Postby admin » Sat May 21, 2016 7:26 am

January 12, 2004, No. 3
Oscar,

Please contact Interpol and speak with a detective there who specialses in crime connected to religion, corruption, fraud and con artists.

http://www.interpol.int/

What Sogyal is doing is setting himself up as a religious leader, using a religious book about death and dying, that he did not even write but takes credit for writing, to seduce women who are grieving, in critical distress, and then sexually abuse them. He is raking in MILLIONS of dollars committing these crimes. His bases are international.

You are a witness to these crimes. You KNOW the truth. Please help the police to stop creating more victims of this outrageous and disgusting abuse!

INTERPOL
General Secretariat
200, quai Charles de Gaulle
69006 Lyon
France
Fax: (33) 4 72 44 71 63
http://www.interpol.int/Public/Links/PolJust.asp#france


Or contact a head office in your local police organisation to speak with a detective who specialises in fraud or sexual assault". Or here, England:

Is someone crossing your line of what's right or wrong?

Crimestoppers is the independent charity operating the freephone 0800 555 111 helping to prevent and solve crimes. The scheme allows you to give information about crimes that affect you and your local community. Because we are anonymous, meaning we don't want your name or address, no one will ever know you made the call. Your calls are not traced and you will never have to give a statement or go to court.

With your help, Crimestoppers have been successfully helping to make communities safer for 15 years and our promise of anonymity has never been broken.

If you have information about crime that you want to share call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.


Or a sexual assault investigative team, such as the Sapphire section of Scotland Yard:

http://www.met.police.uk/sapphire/sapphire_contact.htm

You can contact the Project Sapphire Team in several ways:

Project Sapphire
Territorial Policing Headquarters
Victoria Embankment
London
SW1A 2JL
Tel.: 020 7321 7359 / 7179
Fax: 020 7321 9004
e-mail:
sapphire@met.police.uk


Please take immediate action Oscar.
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Re: Randy Sogyal Rinpoche, Best-Selling Lecher

Postby admin » Sat May 21, 2016 7:27 am

January 13, 2004

Dear Tiger Lily,

I just wanted to commend you on sharing what is obviously painful and nerve-wracking stuff coming up for you, while you are struggling with your dog's illness.

I just wrote to a couple of cult experts and a journalist about the Sogyal situation, hoping their experience and wisdom can offer practical, legal ideas about how to help people from becoming Sogyal's future victims.

If I can find the name of the lawyer who helped "Jane Doe" and me with the case a decade ago, I will post his details. Maybe Oscar can contact him and open another lawsuit. It could well be a class action lawsuit since there are so many victims. Actually, I do know another lawyer in NYC who deals with abuses by the Catholic Church, but I don't think any American lawyer would be of help in a case in England or France. I think Oscar needs to seek legal counsel in the country where the abuses occurred that he witnessed, and the legal jurisdiction of that country will be what decides the legal action that can be taken.

I believe that "Jane Doe" could sue Sogyal in the USA because the abuses he committed in her case occurred not just in England but also in America.

And Oscar is right about Sogyal's aggrandising himself with high-falootin' words of self-flattery. What used to be called simply, "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" is now a trumpet being blown by a Narcissist: "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: A New Spiritual Classic from One of the Foremost Interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism to the West," by Patrick Gaffney (Editor), Andrew Harvey (Editor), Sogyal Rinpoche (Author)

Oh puleeeez, what hogwash! It should be called, "The Tibetan Art of Lies and Lying."

As far as I know from "Jane Doe" and others who contacted me in 1993, and 1994, Andrew Harvey wrote most of the book and Sogyal put his name on it. Andrew is an ex-cult devotee of Sogyal's who opted OUT.

You said:

"We were told by Sogyal that when a Master meets a Dakini he has to rape her to gain her secrets, because she will never just give them away. (I've also heard that elsewhere). It was meant to be funny. What an aggressive male way to interpret a mystery of such unfathomable beauty."


Yes, it sounds like victims were being "groomed" for the abuse that he would then perpetrate.

Interpol talks about the "grooming" a pedophile does in preparing their victims. I think the same "grooming" is being done in cults where the 'leader' sets the victim up to be sexually abused:

http://www.interpol.com/Public/Children/SexualAbuse/Default.asp.

"The majority of sex offenders groom their victims, this can take many months, even years, and often begins with the process of grooming the parents of the child.

The pedophile may recognize that a family were having difficulty in managing the logistics and finances of the household and befriend them with offers of assistance, both financial and in kind. Eventually having gained the trust of the parent the offender then offers to baby sit or take the child on outings during which time he then moves on to begin the process of grooming the child victim.

This part of the grooming process is the most crucial. The pedophile knows that he has to be able to control the child to the extent that he can sexually abuse him or her with the knowledge that the child will not disclose to another adult the fact that they have been sexually abused.

This control is obtained in many different ways, fear, oppression, favours, threats against either the child or their parent, making the child feel guilty about what has happened or by using a combination of these methods.

A typical example of how a pedophile operates would be the initial identification of a vulnerable parent who has either one or a number of children. It may be a single mother who having gone through an acrimonious divorce has had to move to accommodation that is smaller or of a lesser standard than her and the children are used to residing in. Family finances are stretched and there is less money available in the household for food, clothing and leisure activities.

Once the new family unit is stable, the pedophile will then make his move, typically he may as part of his grooming process slowly introduced the family into accepting communal nudity within the home by, for example, leaving bathroom doors open whilst in use.

Eventually the pedophile will sexually abuse his victim, he will have perfected a strategy to ensure their silence utilizing one or a number of the methods previously outlined.

In this example it isn’t difficult to comprehend the dilemma that the child has been put in. Her mother has found a new partner in life, she is very happy, the pedophile will have told his victim that if she ‘tells’ then he will go to prison, there will be no extra money coming into the household, there will be no more nice holidays for her and her mother. Her mother won’t believe her and will not love her anymore as a result. In order to protect her mothers happiness and the new family the victim remains silent.

This example is typical of how a pedophile may identify and ultimately abuse a child anywhere in the world, however, there are many other scenarios which could be used to describe how pedophiles infiltrate families, communities or organizations with the sole intent of sexually abusing children."


You said:

"I'm not an accomplished yogini, nor anyone special, yet I have had about a handful of powerful nyams which I know in this day and age are very unusual. Bar one, they took place during sleep. I'm only mentioning this to make the point that they took place during times I was also capable of doing exceedingly stupid things. One of them, the first seems to have been a genuine encounter with Dakini activity. I was doing Vajrasattva ngondro at the time in retreat at my old home. I will speak of it here, (though with great reluctance) because as extraordinarily life changing as it was, I still went on to make hopelessly foolish decisions in seeking out Lamas to be my partners. It was a forceful dream that completely swept me up with a power of its own into a radically different form of non-dual blissful consciousness. The nature of the dream was Yab-Yum and clear light, and receiving a message. It finally ended with me pondering an unfamiliar script in the sky, at which point my intellect interfered and I fell down, down, down and woke up.

I know these things should not be talked about, especially plastered over the Internet for god's sake, but I sort of feel ok about it because I have not divulged the message, though I have done so to a handful of trusted friends, and I probably shouldn't have, and I won't in the future.

The point I am trying to make here is that one can (and if I can, anyone can) have powerful awakening experiences and still be pretty much fucked up in other areas of one's life."


I think it would be okay to not talk in detail about what is very privately meaningful to you, your awakening experiences, if you don't want to.

Yes, I agree with you I do think that that one can "have powerful awakening experiences and still be pretty much fucked up in other areas of ones life".

However, I do not think that is the case with Sogyal. I do NOT think he has had or ever had any awakening experiences. I think he's just a mess; a conniving, abuser, who takes advantage of people when they are not really even there emotionally, but grieving terrible loss, and very fragile. I mean, imagine you grieving for your dog, or Tara grieving for her father, reaching out to Sogyal for spiritual comfort, and being faced with either sexual assault, being sexually molested, seduced, raped, battered, or 'just' verbally abused.

I think lots of people in the world throughout history have had experiences that feel spiritually powerful in one way or another. And they went on to have regular lives. I don't think these experiences necessarily make a person emotionally or practically healthy in any way. I think they are just that, experiences, that need to be incorporated in sane, healthy ways into ordinary life.

You said:

"So, is this what is happening with the Lamas?"


Who knows? There are lots of kinds of "lamas". The word means 'teacher'. Some are professors of Buddhist logic, some are administrators of monasteries, some are doctors. If a person sits through a 3 year, 3 month, 3 day retreat, anybody can be called a lama, "fucked up" or not.

Often in Tibetan culture a CHILD is called a lama, for very political reasons, when they are pronounced a reincarnation by another so-called reincarnation. Is that child capable of teaching? I don't think so.

When this child 'lama' grows up in a monastery, being brainwashed for 20 years, is that a person who has had a CHOICE to be a teacher? I don't think so.

Just because somebody calls himself a lama, a 'teacher', does that mean they ARE? I don't think so.

Even if they are a teacher and had some "awakening", does that necessarily mean they are well people? I don't think so.

You said:

"Though I am asking myself whether such experiences do not belong to the Eastern Tradition alone, but are within the capacity of every human being. It is a function of the human mind."


Throughout history there have been many, many people who said they had mystical experiences. So much of what was not understood about the mind before, about life, was treated like it was soooo strange, when now it's routine because people have worked on problem solving, learning science, and practical-reality-based knowledge about how things work. Now people don't think they will fall off the edge of the world, or that a bout of indigestion is demonic possession as they once did.

Scientists, like in the book about belief systems and the brain, see that there is a part of the brain that can literally be pressed with an electrode and automatically the person whose brain is being touched there has a cosmic bliss, cosmic union, non-dual awakening experience. It's described differently by the person's belief system, but the experience of that blissful state can be replicated with the touch of an electrode. Check out the book, "Why God Wont Go Away : Brain Science and the Biology of Belief," by Authors Eugene G. DAquili , Vince Rause , M.D. Andrew Newberg Released: 26 March, 2002

You said:

"However the Tibetan Lamas and yogins seem to have monopolized it and have somehow managed to steal power over women. So we are being raped."


Well they do not have the monopoly on this raping of the desire to connect with the Divine or non-dual awakening, whatever you want to call it. Have a look at Steven Hassan's cult recovery site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freedomofmind/

There are many people there who were raked over the coals by cult leaders of all kinds, all shapes, all traditions. I think they all feel, and were, very ripped off. Some were raped, literally.

At the moment, the Tibetan lamas are in fashion in the West, and so students of TB are more likely at this time to be hurt. There needs to be a heads up, and clear warnings to people about this, such as the discussion on this board by people who have had first-hand experience with abusive lamas.

May I ask you Tiger Lily about the abuses you experienced with lamas? What were they and what was it that you were trying to tell others all these years and were not heard?

all the best,
AmLearning
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Re: Randy Sogyal Rinpoche, Best-Selling Lecher

Postby admin » Sat May 21, 2016 7:28 am

January 14, 2004
Dear Oscar, Tiger Lily, Tara and Charles,

Wow, all I can think of is wow. What an amazing and freeing conversation this has been for me this last week! Thank you all so much for sharing your true selves valiantly.

Tara, I felt very similar feelings about Oscar's posts that you expressed. Really, I felt so enraged by what seemed to be his sanctimonious, finger-wagging, moralising cowardice, when he, a trained therapist, saw what he saw and did nothing, for the 7 years he was in his little official role as part of the abuse support network, then for 12 years after that. And his arrogance for not understanding your expression of anger as natural, sane, appropriate in light of the betrayal of the lamas setting themselves up to be PROSTRATED to as LIVING BUDDHAS teaching THE TRUTH ... I was almost apoplectic with anger at Oscar, physically sickened.

He seemed to be more concerned about appearing like Mr. Pompous Rational Analyzer than he is about seeing that the abuses Sogyal has been perpetrating have DEVASTATING effects on people's lives. The combination of his vanity and cowardice felt really toxic to me. I want to DO something practical to STOP the abuses.

But ... as the week went by and my own feelings came up, it has been a profound experience to remain in the dialogue here. I feel for the first time in many years a deeper peace.

Tiger Lily, thank you for sharing your vulnerability. I think you are a very brave person.

Charles, I feel very comforted by your company here.

Oscar, wow, your last post blew my mind. Congratulations for coming here, sharing your thoughts. That took cojones. If you would stop being so worried about the feeling-ful use of expressions of anger that Tara uses, I think you would see her moral intentions in being here and sharing her painful feelings. What happens when your clients use obscenities in expressing their anger? Is there a censor in your office that says anger should be only expressed in 'nice' ways?

You are right Oscar, I was angry with myself for playing a part in the abuse I survived. But I was 22 to 28 years old, not a professional therapist. Still, I can very much relate to your post today and what you said. And I imagine that Tara, Tiger Lily and Charles also can relate.

My anger is really that you would not come into the OPEN and SHARE with OTHERS here. Now that you are here and sharing your true self, I'm glad and proud of you that you did. I hope you stay and talk about this with us all, not to be part of an anti-sect sect but to genuinely talk about this and think about it and let feelings come up genuinely. I do think this subject needs healing for all of us.

When one is ALONE in feeling these feelings about spiritual betrayal, especially when others want there to be SILENCE and SECRECY, the anger comes up a lot about hiding the truth, feeling invalidated. Yes, it feels to me like being a kid and yelling and nobody believing what I'm saying. It hurts not to be believed about something true and be told to hide the truth.

The truth you told in your post needs to be out there Oscar, not hidden. Like Charles says, people are so scared of telling the truth that people are forced by the use of subpoenas to get them into court to tell the truth. I genuinely felt very badly posting your post without your permission. I apologise to you. I also believe that what you wrote to me was very powerful and WILL help others a LOT. I wanted to share the truth you wrote and I did. In time I believe you will see the good that came from that. Even so, I'm sorry I hurt you by forcing your post into the public. Please forgive me.

Now you are here and we are all here, please stay and talk. I know you will read our posts because this IS an important topic to you, to who you are. And what we have to say here will, I do believe, have a good and healthy impact on others as well as ourselves.

all the best,
AmLearning
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Re: Randy Sogyal Rinpoche, Best-Selling Lecher

Postby admin » Sat May 21, 2016 7:29 am

January 19, 2004

Tiger Lily said:

"I'm just starting to realise how terribly painful and confusing that must have been to receive such gross sexual advances from men you were wanting to see in a pure fatherly light.

I understand your anger at coming to a forum where you felt people weren't listening or not caring about your pain. Not caring about you. I think if you give us time, we are all here for you.

How you must loathe the very word Dakini that has been so misunderstood by western practitioners and the Lamas who played around with their sex, projecting a deluded Dakini vision onto a woman and so invalidating her as a woman in her own right."


Hi dear Tiger Lily,

Hmm, it's nice to be challenged to think about things in new ways I think, when the intentions behind the challenge feel well-wishing and if genuine consideration has gone into the challenge. I appreciate what you said to me in that light and have been mulling over what you said.

Human beings live in a continuum of time. Who we were as children, what culture was our background, our language, family history ... it and our individual response to what we were born into, our reactions and actions, all go into who we become as adults and what we are attracted to, what we choose to do or feel compelled to do with our lives.

I was attracted to the 4 Noble Truths because as a 10-year-old I sensed the hypocrisy in the pill-box hatted, white-gloved, Stepford wife, Jackie-Onassis-as-a-role-model that was being dished out to females in 1963. The pill-box-hat reality did not feel sane, safe or good to me at the core. I don't know why but it didn't. Maybe it was because I grew up in a privileged environment and at the same time suffered serious abuse in that arena. Rich and white became something to hate for me but I had no ideas about any other life that could possibly be a Good Way To Live And Think.

The 4 Noble Truths leapt off the page of my history book and burned into my child's mind as a possible way out of my suffering that came with fancy trappings. I was being badly abused at home. I'm lucky to be alive, it was that bad. It was my biological mother who was the abuser. My dear father, who was a scientist, had abandoned us kids and left, after he’d tried to handle his violent, psychopathically-traited wife, who I learned about 7 years ago has Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Here was somebody, the Buddha, in this 4th grade history book, talking about suffering, and a path out of that suffering, not just trying to white-glove it away. So I went to the local museum and looked at the stone heads and statues of the Buddha, with their serene expressions, simple, dignified postures, and yearned for what seemed to me like wise composure in the face of openly knowing about suffering.

But at that time I had NO idea how to learn about Buddhism. I went to book stores and read koans, but what could I get from the idea of one hand clapping? Zip. Where was the understanding there? It made no sense at all! And I sensed in those books some sort of smug ridiculing knowing about anything or valuing the mind or life. It felt nihilistic to me. Nope, Zen was not for me.

Then Evans-Wentz' book on the bardo ... that made a different kind of NO sense to me, some anthropological fascination with views on death? What good was that to me? None that I could see.

Years later I read Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism in the winter of 1974, just after I turned 21 and went to live in Rome, in a room in an apartment with an elderly woman landlady. Reading that book affected me so profoundly, I went into a sort of fevered delirium I'd never experienced in my life. Maybe I got some sort of bizarre illness that lasted 3 days with no other symptoms than a raging fever ... whatever it was, I spent 3 days in bed, with my landlady bringing me soup in the afternoon after I spent 23 out of the 24 hours in some nightmare dream state. The dream was about the realms of suffering, the earth covered with misery in a Boschian purgatory. What could be the way out of that endless suffering?! That book gave me no answers. I had no idea that Trungpa was Buddhist or that there were living teachers. I thought Buddhist teachers had all died out. I really did. I thought there was no way out of all this suffering and I just didn't want to live any more.

It cast me into suicidal depression. After packing my belongings and saying goodbye to my kind landlady, I rented a hotel room in Albergo Paradiso, fully enjoying the irony in the name of this squalid flea pit of a hotel, that looked out over the statue of Giordano Bruno, the alchemist who had been burned at the stake in that plaza, Campo Dei Fiori, in Trastevere.

I didn't die; I couldn't razor blade deeply enough. My squeamishness kept me alive, and I left Rome in a depressed daze to live on a tiny island in Greece, by myself, to work on being a writer there in the olive orchards. I realised that I knew nothing about life really, wasn't capable of being a writer, and never wrote anything but letters again. It was from there, half a year later, that I mostly hitched to India over 2 months, arriving in MCloud Ganj in October 1975, just after seeing the Taj Mahal in the Dusshera full moon, floating there in the mist, at the hour of the cow dust, in the twilight. I fell deeply in love with India.

It was while in that dreamy ecstasy that I think can be experienced by people who are attracted to India's multi-layered, kaleidoscopic chaos, that I stayed at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, managing to live in India for 5 months on 70 dollars. Here, I thought, I would be living near and around genuine Buddhist monks who would teach me something I'd wanted to know about for a decade, how to work on the cessation of suffering. I was willing, able and interested.

In my first 5 months in India, there was a Bhutanese 'monk' who attempted to rape me as I walked back to my lodgings in Bodhgaya, where I went on pilgrimage to see the Bodhi tree, and where Sakyamuni was said to have attained enlightenment. As a result, I blamed my long blonde hair as to why this 'monk' was induced to try and rape me. So, after smacking this 'monk' in the face with a resounding crack that left me feeling guilty for years, I escaped from his muscled grip and ran back to the tourist bungalow and cut off most of my hair, and later wore clothes that would be best described as tent-like. Back in the USA, it was with my cut-off hair and in my almost floor length, made in Calcutta, dark brown tent dress that I went to see Sogyal. That was when he assaulted me.

After the 4 or so months I knew Sogyal in the USA, anything that smelled like an excuse to abuse people sexually, like so-called Tantric sex and so-called using 'dakinis to get 'energy', and most of the ritual elements of TB, repelled me.

Yes, my having been sexually abused as a child and turning to lamas as loving parent figures, who took advantage of that sexually, was very traumatizing. When Geshela asked to see my breasts I tried to write it off as just curiosity, a monk who hadn't seen a white woman's breasts before. I was trying to accept that maybe what I needed was to talk with a teacher who was MARRIED and had a family, a more worldly-wise lama, which prompted me to think in 1980 that Sakya Trizin would be a man to talk with about my feelings of existential aloneness. He had lost his parents when he was a tiny child, and been brought up by an aunt who had recently died. I thought maybe he could understand my own sense of loss, not having a family.

Since he had been giving me private teachings on the Dzogchen meditation part of my yidam practice, seeing the unawakened states as the flip side of the same awakened states, I asked him about how it was that lust and compassion were related. He said like water and ice. That water and ice are the same substance in different forms.

That seemed so wise to me! Like water and ice! Compassion is the free-flowing aspect of love and lust is its arrested, 'frozen' mode. Ah, how beautiful that seemed. Back I went to the meditation cushion with delight! This added a new dimension to ‘going with the flow’.

A week later he said he had a vision of him yab-yum with me as Dorje Phurba. Immediately I felt suspicious, but at the same time somewhat shocked and also flattered that this His Holiness person included me unconsciously or consciously as part of his 'path'. But moments later, as I got up to leave our hourly lesson in meditation, he said he had this vision and wanted me 'do it' with him. I said "You must be joking". He became visibly, audibly angry with me and scowlingly said, "No, I want to come to your room tomorrow morning when I go for my walk and do this."

My blood went cold. This lama I had come to trust over the months I'd spent studying with him, thinking I could respectfully share my doubts, worries, meditation questions, needs to understand certain texts. It all seemed to be finally happening, a quiet, simple rapport with a Buddhist teacher. No rituals, no bs, just working on meditation practice.

Then, bam, it was in that instant shattered. I didn't listen to my inner voice that wanted to say no. I didn't say no. I said alright but my heart was cold and my stomach sick. What if maybe this was it, the actual transformation of a worldly activity into a yogic practice? Like the Tibetan lamas said in the books and everything! What if I were passing up this possible chance with my teacher because of my fears stemming from being sexually abused in childhood? Maybe this was a chance to transcend that, to let go of the attachment-revulsion pendulum, to alchemize the worldly into the gold of awakened activity?

So I said ok.

The next morning he came up the steps to my rented apartment across the street from the Sakya property on Rajpur Road. He quickly snuck in, closing the door behind him and came to my bedroom. He sat on the bed, mumbled something in Tibetan, and told me to think that what we were about to do was for the benefit of all sentient beings I folded my hands in prayer and prayed, and then he lifted his skirt. Below his large belly, he put on a condom which hung off his acorn like a windsock on a windless day. Wondering what was going to happen next, and if anything could actually take place, I offered him oral sex. I sincerely didn’t think he could actually function sexually. That was when he said he was afraid that oral sex would make me pregnant. He also said that he thought that was unclean. He asked me to lie down, he lay on top of me, grunted in about 5 seconds and then ran for the door, carrying the condom with him, and really I hardly felt anything at all except somewhat numb with remorse.

So maybe he wasn't endowed enough to actually have sex except maybe for himself? Maybe this was something that was supposed to be my disciple's gift to him and I should just lump it, get over it with detachment. Maybe I should just laugh at the cosmic ridiculousness and keep on doing my meditation!

So I took a deep breath and thought, I'm just not going to think about this, and whatever it is, well that's what it is. But the next time I went for my class, ALL Sakya Trizin could talk about was the sex act. That's it. He seemed highly lascivious, amused, and wanted to do it all again. So I let him do it again. Was this a test? I was attached to feeling remorse? Was this going to cure me of thinking about sex as something important, and help me see the transparent folly of being hurt by sex?

Sakya Trizin had told me at the beginning of our meditation classes some weeks prior, to see everything as sacred, that he was to be seen as the yidam, the world as pure, all sounds as mantras, so I focused on that, that this was an 'enlightened' experience.

It was my trying to make lemonade out of lemons.

Then when I went to study with him, all he could talk about was sex, wanting me to swear that I would always tell him where I was in the world, and be available to him for sex. When his dignified, beautiful wife walked into the room that day, he went into a sort of cold-shouldering me that seemed like he was worried he might have been talking too loudly, and might have gotten caught by her talking about this with me. From then on he whispered to me.

It is widely known he married for political reasons: "In order to maintain the tradition of the Khon family lineage, in 1974, H. H. Sakya Trizin married Dagmo Kusho Tashi Lhakyet, the daughter of the Minister of the King of Derge." So I thought maybe his life was compartmentalized: political marriage here, “sang-yum” there, mother over there, and maybe he needed a person with whom to 'do' his yab-yum yidam practice and I was just a handy orifice who was also a dedicated disciple. I was to be used but not somehow included in this process???? I could see I got nothing out of these 2 encounters except confusion, remorse, some shame. But I had faith that he must know what he was doing because after all, he was a Holiness, and everybody held him in high esteem. My doubts must be out of ignorance, selfishness, kleshas.

He made me promise not to talk about 'it' with anybody; it would be our secret.

When I tried to discuss meditation with him over the next 2 years after I left Rajpur and returned occasionally, he didn't have time. All he DID have time for was wanting to talk about sex. When I went out to the Sakya center once for a wang given by the Dalai Lama there, and another time hoping to continue the actual meditation classes we used to have, he cold-shouldered me. One time he stood holding his wife's hand, which is highly unusual for any Tibetan, and I felt like I was somehow a pariah, had done something wrong, simply by doubting him in the privacy of my mind, my wanting to study meditation instead of just giving into being an orifice for him. I knew over time that our meditation class relationship had vanished and would never return.

I went into a 5 month retreat. When I came out of that retreat I house-sat for my old friend when she and her husband were away for a few days. When I returned from the bazaar they had returned, and the woman, who had found my diary, read it, burned it full of holes with a stick of incense without telling me. I discovered the burned pages a day later, asked her why, and her venom was really painful to me, blaming me for endangering His Holiness Sakya Trizin's reputation by writing what I did in my diary! I had told nobody! I had written it in MY diary!!!

So now she knew. I felt ashamed, reviled by my old, dear friend, who blamed me for "smiling too much," and THAT was why the married Sakya Trizin had used me like he did; I'd broken the code of secrecy by accident, leaving my diary around for her to pry into, and so I decided to leave Rajpur.

When Sakya Trizin came to New Delhi a few months later, he asked to see me, nudge nudge, wink wink, make sure I'm alone so he can do the yab-yum thing again privately in his room. I just couldn't go again.

That was the end of my connection with TB, of any trust, any faith. I stopped my practice with fear, regret, sadness, shame, loss, grieving the loss of my sense of community.

In the next 4 years I tried to discuss what happened with both a Gelug nun and a Kargyu nun who I'd known well for years. They both told me to not discuss it but keep it all secret, and if I saw/thought something wrong it was my fault. During that time I had a large apartment in New Delhi, where many guests, old Buddhist friends of mine, stayed when they came to town. We would be having breakfast or dinner on the verandah and out would come their own stories of bad experiences with various Tibetan lamas, which they begged me to keep secret, to "protect the lamas and the dharma".

Somehow the revelations of the truth never budged from the level of gossip. There was no clarity about what was going on or any sense of what direction to take, how to sort this mess out. The code of secrecy had us all paralysed. There was no talking openly, so no clarity of purpose, intention or feeling.

Whoever I discussed this Tibetan lack of morality with would invariably say that "THEIR" lama (Kalu Rinpoche, Karmapa, Khamtrul Rinpoche) would NEVER do "such a thing". Then how come these lamas were SURROUNDED by sexual abuse and nothing was done, or it emerged that really their lama DID do such a thing!???

My polite disinterest in the Tibetan culture ended for me when I heard my old 'dharma sister' friend from the Library days had committed suicide by burning herself alive as an offering in a retreat. Then that disinterest turned into outright disgust mixed with horror.

This was after it became public knowledge that Geshela had masturbated for years between the legs (common monastic practice as a way of not breaking the FULL vow of celibacy but only committing a 'misdemeanor' by not committing the monk's vow felony of full penetration) of a South American nun he'd ordained. She had stood up in his class at the Library and told the open-jawed room full of 30+ students what Geshela had been doing to her for 2 years.

My dear Geshela did THAT!!! And his old disciple had suicided after that???!!!

It was too much pain, too sad, too wrong!!! And then Geshela went to New Zealand with that randy twerp of a zhebzhi, Khedrup Tharchin, who always used to feel me up while I did korwa around the Library if I didn't run fast enough away from him???!!! No responsibility? No punishment for this breaking of vows? WHAT hypocrisy all this was AND THE DALAI LAMA KNEW ABOUT ALL THIS AND DID NOTHING?????!!!!

My faith shattered. The sense of samaya anything snapped.

I went to Delhi and got a job in the fashion clothing business because of my facility with Hindi/Punjabi/Urdu, which are all linguistically intertwined in colloquial Hindustani.

Yes, after that, any adoration of tormas, dakni anything, yab-yum anything ... it made me feel sick. I got to know the Tibetans in New Delhi over the next 4 years, the more worldly ones, and understood their deep contempt for all the foreign 'injis' who came East to worship the lamas. The young, non-monk, non-Dalai Lama Administration Tibetans really know almost nothing about their culture, history, and philosophy. All this bowing and scraping to lamas for anything other than "blessings", or in a medical emergency, or to appear traditional, is nuts to them.

The Tibetans who were born in India, or who came over as little kids from Tibet in 1959, they grew to love India as an expression of Bollywood. Their cultural frame of reference is the amazingly kitch, bizarre, New Indian culture, with Amitabh Bachan (India's answer to Arnold) as a culture hero. These Tibetans never got to know under-the-surface India, like an Indian kid would. All the New Tibetans know about India is the thin veneer of the commercial pop drek.

It would be like somebody coming to America from Tibet and thinking that Dallas and Dynasty TV shows from the 1980's are documentaries, really ARE the REAL America and dressing like that, talking like that. So the New Tibetans have this strange culture that came out of Bollywood, which came out of Hollywood. The lamas to this new generation are about as real and meaningful as Santa Claus.

There is incredible contempt for Westerners among the Tibetans. They don't like anybody who isn't Tibetan, although with the New Tibetan kids, I did see admiration for New Taiwanese kids because there was a sense of similar features and similar materialism.

Before leaving Clement Town and going to live in Rajpur, I went sweater vending several times with my neighbors in Clement Town just for fun. Because I speak both Tibetan and Hindi I sat with them observing their business transactions. The Tibetans would say in Hindi as they held up the wool sweaters that were sent by Americans to India as part of the charity to Bangladesh, "This is the best, most pure," and in Tibetan they would say "shit" or "straw". The Indians thought the Tibetans were saying "wool" in Tibetan because almost no Indians speak any Tibetan, but almost all Tibetans living in India speak some Hindi.

The Tibetan business traders were all making fun of their Indian customers in this devious, nasty, contemptuous way. All done with a smiling face! There was this mask of friendliness and warmth and then the reality of ridicule and seething anger underneath. That was shocking to me. This was not a one off experience, this was one in a thousand such experiences with Tibetans over a ten year period.

The next 4 years, from 1981 to the end of 1985, I lived and worked in Delhi and knew many working Tibetans there from all over the subcontinent: from the South, from Darjeeling, from Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Dharamsala, Manali ... and there was this ongoing contempt for Westerners' adoration of the lamas, of Westerners period, who were denigrated as hippies if they didn't look like John Travolta and his dancing partner in Saturday Night Fever, which is what the young Tibetan kids aspired to, and if a Westerner did dress well they were spoken about as whores or somebody to try and get as a "sponsor". This contempt for Westerners and no curiosity about Western culture in any way, was echoed by many lamas I spoke with, like the administrator ‘rinpoches’ at the New Delhi Tibet Center.

At the same time, young Tibetans who lusted after polyester pants a la Travolta, were somewhat horrified when Westerners were interested in wearing yak herder boots! LOL!

So ... all this mess over a decade added up to a deep distaste for Tibetan anything, thankas, cultural symbols. How could I feel comfortable around people who have so much contempt for everybody else, while they kept their hand out for everybody else's money and real estate, and adoration? These people EXPECTED to be worshipped, pitied, pampered, cared about, paid for, idolized, when they were just greedy takers, who sneered at those who gave to them!

So, if you talk about "Dakini Day" with some sort of reverence, and think it's just because the lamas betrayed my trust due to having been sexually abused as a kid, and that's why it isn't something I like or value, no, I learned on MANY levels over 30 years not to like Tibetan culture.

To me, you had a feminist get-together in a kind of New Age ceremony. That kind of thing's not my cup of tea really. I really don't like anything spiritual in any kind of group. Something catalytically happens in a group which just doesn’t feel healthy to me as part of my sense of the 'spiritual', whatever that is.

If a bunch of women want to get together to grok the cosmic nature of the universe, or have a sort of ceremony, okay, I wish you enjoyment. But to call it "Dakini Day" isn't something I like. It makes me feel uncomfortable to talk with you about it because it is something that IS meaningful to you. That's your thing.

What pleases me is privately connecting with what I think of as a "truth path", which has been formed in part from my studies of Buddhist teachings I received in person and studied further in private, as well as 17 years studying Western psychology. That truth path also means for me enjoying conversation, art, walking, being in nature quietly, studying science, reading, occasional meditation, resting my mind in a loving awareness that is democratic, non-theistic, part American, part Buddhist, and when I can remember to do so, being in the moment, feeling deeply connected with the universe.

Phew. All this came pouring out this afternoon. I didn't expect to go on such a long ramble. It feels healing to get all the gory details out, to speak about this really and also start to think about what I think is the baby not to be thrown out with the bath water. For me the whole Dakini thing was flushed down the toilet. It’s not even in the bathwater, LOL! What is the bathwater to me is Tibetan culture.

If I've bored the daylights out of you Tiger Lily or anybody else here with my verbosity, my apologies, this has been a sort of purging, getting it out in words, healing for me.

all the best,
AmLearning
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Re: Randy Sogyal Rinpoche, Best-Selling Lecher

Postby admin » Wed Dec 20, 2017 1:40 am

Letter to Sogyal Rinpoche
by Abused Students
July 14, 2017

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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Sogyal Lakar,

The Rigpa Sangha is in crisis. Long-simmering issues with your behavior can no longer be ignored or denied. As long-time committed and devoted students we feel compelled to share our deep concern regarding your violent and abusive behavior. Your actions have hurt us individually, harmed our fellow sisters and brothers within Rigpa the organization, and by extension Buddhism in the West. We write to you following the advice of the Dalai Lama, in which he has said that students of Tibetan Buddhist lamas are obliged to communicate their concerns about their teacher:

If one presents the teachings clearly, others benefit. But if someone is supposed to propagate the Dharma and their behavior is harmful, it is our responsibility to criticize this with a good motivation. This is constructive criticism, and you do not need to feel uncomfortable doing it. In “The Twenty Verses on the Bodhisattvas’ Vows,” it says that there is no fault in whatever action you engage in with pure motivation. Buddhist teachers who abuse sex, power, money, alcohol, or drugs, and who, when faced with legitimate complaints from their own students, do not correct their behavior, should be criticized openly and by name. This may embarrass them and cause them to regret and stop their abusive behavior. Exposing the negative allows space for the positive side to increase. When publicizing such misconduct, it should be made clear that such teachers have disregarded the Buddha’s advice. However, when making public the ethical misconduct of a Buddhist teacher, it is only fair to mention their good qualities as well.

-- The Dalai Lama, Dharamsala, India March 1993


This letter is our request to you to stop your unethical and immoral behavior. Your public face is one of wisdom, kindness, humor, warmth and compassion, but your private behavior, the way you conduct yourself behind the scenes, is deeply disturbing and unsettling. A number of us have raised with you privately, our concerns about your behavior in recent years, but you have not changed.

Those of us who write to you today have firsthand experience of your abusive behaviors, as well as the massive efforts not to allow others to know about them. Our concerns are deepened with the organizational culture you have created around you that maintains absolute secrecy of your actions, which is in sharp contrast with your stated directive of openness and transparency within the Sangha. Our wish is to break this veil of secrecy, deception, and deceit. We can no longer remain silent.

Our deep and heartfelt hope is that this collective note might yield a more tangible result than any of our individual discussions with you have. We hope that long lasting and sincere changes may come about rather than short-lived pledges.

Our primary concerns are:

1. Your physical, emotional and psychological abuse of students.

2. Your sexual abuse of students.

3. Your lavish, gluttonous, and sybaritic lifestyle.

4. Your actions have tainted our appreciation for the practice of the Dharma.

1. Physical, emotional and psychological abuse

We have received directly from you, and witnessed others receiving, many different forms of physical abuse. You have punched and kicked us, pulled hair, torn ears, as well as hit us and others with various objects such as your back-scratcher, wooden hangers, phones, cups, and any other objects that happened to be close at hand. We trusted for many years that this physical and emotional treatment of students – what you assert to be your “skillful means” of “wrathful compassion” in the tradition of “crazy wisdom”– was done with our best interest at heart in order to free us from our “habitual patterns”. We no longer believe this to be so. We feel that we and others have been harmed because your actions were not compassionate; rather they demonstrated your lack of discipline and your own frustration. Your physical abuse – which constitutes a crime under the laws of the lands where you have done these acts – have left monks, nuns, and lay students of yours with bloody injuries and permanent scars. This is not second hand information; we have experienced and witnessed your behavior for years.

Why did you inflict violence upon us and our fellow Dharma brothers and sisters? Why did you punch, slap, kick, and pull our hair? Your food was not hot enough; you were awakened from your nap a half hour late; the phone list was missing a name or the font was the wrong size; the internet connection was slow; the television movie guide was confusing; technology failed to work; your assistant wasn’t attentive enough; [1] we failed to “tune into your mind” and predict what you wanted; or you were moody because you were upset with one of your girlfriends. There are hundreds of examples of trivial incidents that have set you off and your response has been to strike us violently.

Your emotional and psychological abuse has been perhaps more damaging than the physical scars you have left on us. When we have worked for you while organizing and setting up the infrastructure for you to teach at different places around the world (Europe, North America, Australia, and India and Nepal), your shaming and threatening have led some of your closest students and attendants to emotional breakdowns. You have always told us to be appreciative of the personal attention that you give, that you were “pointing out our hidden faults” in our character, and freeing us from “our self-cherishing ego.” We no longer believe this to be so. It was done in such a way that was harmful to us rather than helpful, a method of control, a blatant means of subjugation and undue influence that removed our liberty. You have threatened us and others saying, if we do not follow you absolutely, we will die “spitting up blood like Ian Maxwell.” [2] You have told us that our loved ones are at risk of ill-health, or have died, because we displeased you in some way.” [3] At public teachings, you have regularly criticized, manipulated and shamed us and those working to run your retreats. You have told us for years that this is part of your unique style of “training” students and that this shaming is part of the guru-disciple relationship. We no longer believe this to be so.

As more students verged close to emotional breakdowns because of your “trainings”, you introduced “Rigpa Therapy” for your closest students. Trained, practising therapists (who are also your students) were given the task of dealing with the pain that was being stirred up in the minds of those who you were abusing physically, emotionally and psychologically. During oneto- one sessions, the therapist heard from the student of your “crazy wisdom” methods and the trauma that it caused the individual. One such “Rigpa Therapy” method for processing the trauma was to negate the validity of seeing you, the teacher and instigator, as the source of the trauma. Instead, we were instructed to see old family relationship histories as the issue. In effect, our very tangible and clear discernment of seeing you as an abuser was blocked and instead we were blamed and made to feel inadequate. On the occasions when the “therapy” did not result in a student changing their view of you, you shamed the therapist into feeling that they weren’t doing their job properly and were not skilled.

2. Sexual Abuse

You use your role as a teacher to gain access to young women, and to coerce, intimidate and manipulate them into giving you sexual favors. [4] The ongoing controversies of your sexual abuse that we can read and watch on the Internet are only a small window into your decades of this behavior. Some of us have been subjected to sexual harassment in the form of being told to strip, to show you our genitals (both men and women), to give you oral sex, being groped, asked to give you photos of our genitals, to have sex in your bed with our partners, and to describe to you our sexual relations with our partners. You’ve ordered your students to photograph your attendants and girlfriends naked, and then forced other students to make photographic collages for you, which you have shown to others. You have offered one of your female attendants to another lama (who is well known in Rigpa) for sex. You have had for decades, and continue to have, sexual relationships with a number of your student attendants, some who are married. You have told us to lie on your behalf, to hide your sexual relationships from your other girlfriends. Publically you claim that your relationships are ordinary, consensual, and proper because you are not a monk. You deny any wrongdoing and have even claimed on occasion that you were seduced. [5] You and others in your organization claim this is how a Buddhist master of “crazy wisdom” behaves, just like the tantric adepts of the past. We do not believe this to be so and see such claims as attempts to explain away egregious behaviors.

3. Gluttonous lifestyle

Your lavish lifestyle is kept hidden from your thousands of students. It is one thing for you to accept an offering of the best of everything (that we may have) as an acknowledgement of our gratitude for spiritual teachings. It is quite another to demand it from us. Much of the money that is used to fund your luxurious appetites comes from the donations of your students who believe their offering is being used to further wisdom and compassion in the world.

As attendants, drivers, and organizers for you, most of our time and energy is taken up providing a steady supply of sensual pleasures. You demand all kinds of food be prepared for you—at all hours of the night and day—by your personal chefs and attendants (who Rigpa pays for) who travel the world with you. You demand all forms of entertainment; this includes having detailed TV guide schedules for the shows that you often watch for hours on end each day; elaborate movie lists so you know what’s playing in theaters near you at all times; continual supply of take-out restaurant food; drivers and masseuses on call 24-hours a day to serve you and deliver you and your companions to theaters, expensive restaurants, venues to shop and secretive places where you can smoke your expensive cigars.

With impatience, you have made demands for this entertainment and decadent sensory indulgences. When these are not made available at the snap of a finger, or exactly as you wished, we were insulted, humiliated, made to feel worthless, stupid and incompetent, and often hit or slapped. Your behavior did not cultivate our mindfulness or awareness, but rather it made us terrified of making a mistake. You tell your students that you spend most of your time engaging in Buddhist study and practice, but those of us who have attended you in private for years know this is not the reality.

We feel it is unethical that ours and others’ financial contributions to you—believed to be furthering the Dharma—are used to support this lavish lifestyle. Please stop living a duplicitous life. If you have no shame about your behavior then let it see the light of day. Allow the rest of your students to see who you really are, and let them make their own informed decision about whether you are the teacher for them.

4. Tainted our appreciation for the practice of the Dharma.

Please understand the harm that you have inflicted on us has also tainted our appreciation for and practice of the Dharma. In our decades of study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism with you, we trained our minds to view you as the “all embodied jewel” and the “source of all the teachings and blessings” of the Buddha-Dharma. We trusted you completely. Yet, we struggled for years because your actions did not square with the teachings. Today, for many of us who have left you, the Lerab Ling community, and Rigpa the organization, our ground of confidence in the Buddha- Dharma has been compromised. Some of us, who chose to depart abruptly Lerab Ling, left all of our possessions, because we were desperate to break away from your abuse and the community that supported it. Whether we departed abruptly or have faded away from you and Rigpa, we struggle to rekindle an appreciation for the transformative teachings and teachers we encountered. Often when we sit down to meditate and practice, we feel polluted with trauma from our experience with you; some of us relate to the Vajrayana with deep suspicion; and some of us are at work rebuilding from scratch the foundations of our study and practice recognising that your manipulation was intermingled with all that we were taught. Others of us seek conventional therapy as a means for processing. So quite contrary to your aspiration to bring the true Dharma to beings, the effect of your methods is that our relationship to the Dharma has been tainted. We now see clearly the many ways that you betrayed our trust, manipulated and abused us and our Dharma brothers and sisters.

We are not showing a lack of trust and respect, being a “trouble-maker” with “negative talk” as you often assert when anyone has dared to object to your methods. In fact, we have trusted you too long, given you the benefit of the doubt over and over again. When we’ve attempted to raise these concerns you’ve shamed us, and threatened to withhold the teachings from all the students because we had “doubts.” You have encouraged us to defame others, in particular in France, who have spoken out against you in recent years. We have seen how you hold the teachings “hostage” and demand that students show their devotion through continuous “offerings” in the form of money and free labor. You tell us this is how to become an authentic Dharma practitioner. We do not believe this to be the path of the Dharma.

With regards to your abusive behavior, your sexual misconduct, and your lavish lifestyle, we see no clear or identifiable ethical standards or guidelines to which you are held. There is a vacuum of accountability. We hope that sending you this letter, sharing it with your peers, and the Rigpa Dzogchen mandala students, will serve to fill that vacuum.

What you have taught in the last thirty years, and in particular The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, has brought immense benefit to so many people including those who write to you today. If we are wrong in what we write, please correct our mistaken view. If your striking and punching us and others, and having sex with your students and married women, and funding your sybaritic lifestyle with students’ donations, is actually the ethical and compassionate behavior of a Buddhist teacher, please explain to us how it is. If, however, we are correct in our assessment, please stop your behaviors that we believe to be harmful to others.

What used to be called simply, "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" is now a trumpet being blown by a Narcissist: "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: A New Spiritual Classic from One of the Foremost Interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism to the West," by Patrick Gaffney (Editor), Andrew Harvey (Editor), Sogyal Rinpoche (Author)

Oh puleeeez, what hogwash! It should be called, "The Tibetan Art of Lies and Lying."

As far as I know from "Jane Doe" and others who contacted me in 1993, and 1994, Andrew Harvey wrote most of the book and Sogyal put his name on it. Andrew is an ex-cult devotee of Sogyal's who opted OUT.

-- Letter to Tiger Lily by AmLearning [Victoria Barlow], January 13, 2004


In closing we want to acknowledge that most of the public critique of you that is found on the Internet is factual. Some of us, who have held positions of responsibility within Rigpa, struggle with our own part in having covered for you and “explained” away your behavior, while not caring for those with traumatic experiences. Our past motivation to see all the actions of our tantric teacher as pure obscured us from seeing the very real harm that you are inflicting. We are each taking a long and serious look at our own behaviors, trying to learn from them, and supporting each other on our journey. We can no longer stay silent while you harm others in the name of Buddhism. Our deepest wish is to see Buddhism flourish in the West. We no longer want to indulge in the stupidity of seeing the Guru as perfect at any cost. The path does not require us to sacrifice our wisdom to discern, our ethics and morality, or our integrity, on the altar of “Guru Yoga.”

Our heartfelt wish is that you seek guidance from the Dalai Lama, other reputable lamas of good heart, or anyone who can help to bring you back onto the true path of the Dharma.

With deep respect for the Dharma,

● Mark Standlee, student for 33 years, Three Year Retreatant, former Director of the International Rigpa Online Courses & Rigpa US Teaching Services for 5 years, International Senior Instructor

● Sangye, student for 16 years, Three Year Retreatant, Buddhist monk for 14 years, Codirector of technology for Rigpa International

● Damcho, student for 15 years, Three Year Retreatant, Buddhist nun for 10 years, personal assistant to Sogyal Lakar

● Matteo Pistono, student for 19 years, former Rigpa US Board Member, author of Fearless In Tibet: The Life of the Mystic of Tertön Sogyal

● Joanne Standlee, student for 18 years, Head of Sogyal Lakar’s household in US for 15 years, National Director for Rigpa US for 7 years, Director of Zam America for 5 years, Rigpa Instructor

● Graham Price, student for 20 years, Sogyal Lakar’s personal attendant and driver,

● Michael Condon, student for 21 years, Rigpa Instructor, Sogyal Lakar’s personal attendant and driver in the US

● Gary Goldman, student for 23 years

______________

Notes:

1. Sogyal Lakar gut-punched a nun in front of an assembly of more than 1,000 students at Lerab Ling in France, August 2016.

2. In December 2005, in a live streamed teachings from the unfinished temple, Sogyal Lakar said that Ian Maxwell, one of his oldest students, was “an asshole”, as Ian lay dying in the hospital in Paris. After Ian’s death Sogyal Lakar said that Ian, “died spitting up blood” because he had defied him in the past. Sogyal Lakar regularly used this incident, saying, “Do you want to end up dying spitting up blood like Ian for defying me?” as an example to other students when he threatened them with dire consequences if they did not obey his commands.

3. Sogyal Lakar told Graham Price that his beloved partner, Elena, got sick (and died a year later) because Graham had shouted at him. In reality Graham didn’t even raise his voice.

https://behindthethangkas.wordpress.com ... ni-janine/ is just one example
https://behindthethangkas.wordpress.com ... r-retreat/

“Gerard demanded an interview with Sogyal, who was initially wary, but then admitted he had had sex with Janine. He tried to shift the blame onto her – claiming that she had seduced him and that he was at first resistant, but later gave in to her demands.”

Lerab Ling residential monastics Ani Damcho Drolma and Ngawang Sangye struggled for many years to fulfill Sogyal Lakar’s ever increasing demands while receiving physical and emotional abuse. They asked for help from the community but were victim-blamed, and viewed as being unappreciative of the blessing of working close to the lama. There was extreme pressure to stay and conform. They both felt as though they had to “escape” the predicament as there was no arena in which to negotiate their position, or find resolution in how to tolerate their working relationship with Sogyal Lakar.

As a gesture for support and with an understanding for the many emotions and issues that could arise for individuals as a result of reading this letter we are sharing some resources and helpful links - https://sanghacare8.wixsite.com/sanghacareresources

As well as a blog where concerned students can connect with each other https://whatnow727.wordpress.com/ [not the writers of this article, but former and present students of Soygal Rinpoche; no real dissent allowed]
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Re: Randy Sogyal Rinpoche, Best-Selling Lecher

Postby admin » Wed Dec 20, 2017 1:43 am

Dakini Janine
by behindthethagkas.wordpress.com
November 20, 2011

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


The person who was probably most affected by Gerard’s obsession with Rigpa is his daughter Janine. Aged 22 in 2000 and outstandingly beautiful, she was already feeling parentally deprived because of Gerard’s professional absences. Determined to take every opportunity to be close to him, Janine started attending Sogyal’s teachings with her father – usually falling asleep against his back. Inevitably Sogyal’s lasciviously roving eye alighted on Janine and in due course she was lured into the brainwashing process that leads to his bedroom.

In 2009 Janine spoke at length about her experiences with Sogyal in a series of recorded interviews. The way she was treated is identical in most respects to what happened to Dierdre Smith.

“We were at a retreat in Germany. He sent for me during his rest period and asked me to massage his hands and feet,” she says.” Afterwards he gave me his schedule and his phone numbers – and almost immediately I was invited to join him for a holiday in Australia. This seemed like a nice thing to do so I said yes.

“I was met in Sydney by a wealthy family who were obviously under orders to look after me – and I was treated like a princess. They have a fabulous house where I was given a room and they arranged everything I wanted – yoga classes, shopping etc”.

Did Janine query this – and wonder why it was happening?

“Not really”, she says, “ I assumed Sogyal was being paternal in an Asian way. But I still hadn’t seen him. Then suddenly, in the middle of the night, he decided it was time to go to the beach.”

A convoy of cars set off. Janine found herself crammed into one of them with five other people, including Sogyal:

“I didn’t get a good impression” she says, “he virtually ignored me, which was not at all the Asian papa way – I think this was the moment when he started to manipulate my feelings.”

The time at the beach coincided with Valentine’s day. Janine was ordered to wear a best dress and turn up at Sogyal’s house for dinner. At this moment she realised the whole set up was somewhat bizarre:

“There was Sogyal surrounded by five or six young pretty girls and there were no other men,” she says. “it was quite fun actually, we had nice drinks and we danced for him. Then at a certain point he asked me to go upstairs with him and massage his head.

I made some sort of smart reply and he became angry. He said I was too proud and he would have to break my pride.

A few months later Janine got a phone call asking her if she would like to take part in a special training.

“I accepted because it seemed to clarify my relationship with him. It turned out that the people involved were all women. We were put to work in the “lama kitchen.” We called it hell, because it was an underground bunker – a horrible place. A Swiss woman (Renata) was in charge of us and the first three weeks were pure slavery – we worked non-stop doing the cleaning.

“We never saw Sogyal, but they gave us documents listing all the instructions he has given about caring for him around the world. There was nothing about Buddhism, but we were told the whole process was a teaching.

“They made us work so hard we didn’t have time for proper meals. We had to grab food and eat standing up. We were constantly being told to run here or fetch this in a haphazard way – because basically Sogyal is not very organised.

He says he wants something and you have 50 people panicking to get it in five minutes.”

As Janine’s induction into the inner circle unfolded, she was assigned work inside Sogyal’s compound at Lerab Ling – two chalets and a garden surrounded by a high fence. The next stage involved being Sogyal’s personal servant – bringing his food and looking after him in minute detail – in the same manner described by Dierdre Smith.

“He made me the only person to interact with the other people. By this time I was sleeping on the floor in his room…every time he had a thought, I would write it down and communicate it. I had control of the phones and the walkie talkies.”

Sogyal is pampered like a medieval monarch – with a clique of women trained to respond to his slightest whim – day and night, 24/7. He is never alone and never lifts a finger to do anything for himself. After grooming her at record speed (other girls complained she had been fast tracked out of ‘hell’s kitchen’), Sogyal pounced on Janine for the first time at a high stress moment:

“We had arranged to go to dinner at a restaurant to celebrate one of the other girls’ (Minou) birthday. Whenever Sogyal does something like this it is a major operation, involving anything up to 20 people. We have to send an advance party to the restaurant to make sure everything is exactly how he wants it, we have to polish up the big cars, pack his bags, wash him, dress him, collect his pillows, tissues and so on.

I was at the centre of the storm, co-ordinating the various strands and at that time I had had only about three hours sleep a night for the past month.”

When everything was ready and the people were waiting to leave, Sogyal and Janine were alone in his chalet:

“He ordered me to take my clothes off. I thought it was another test, so I did as I was told. He told me to get onto the bed and we had sex. As this was happening he said ‘look into my eyes, this is the moment you connect with your master.’ There were no preliminaries, he did not use a condom, my pleasure was not in the picture and it was all over in about three minutes. Afterwards he made me swear to keep it a secret, even from the other girls, and said if I did not keep the samaya it would be very bad for my karma and for the karma of my family.

“It happened again of course, especially at times of stress – before a teaching for example he has to have his fix. Sometimes it was every day, sometimes less often depending on how many girls he was into, or what was happening.

He is very selfish — he never asks what you would like, it’s always him giving orders. Sometimes there is some petting afterwards and he reminds you how lucky you are. Its not comfortable being in the same bed with Sogyal because he’s an anxious character and he doesn’t sleep well. He keeps waking up and wanting things, medicines or food and so on.

“I blanked out my feelings for a while, but then I became very troubled, which was extremely difficult because I’d been sworn to secrecy and couldn’t talk about it with anyone. Things started to go wrong with my body. My periods stopped. I was in shock. I had to sneak out of Lerab Ling to do the test because I was scared I was pregnant.

“A young lama married to an American woman came to teach at Lerab Ling. He was by himself in the courtyard and I really needed to talk to someone because I knew something was really wrong. So I decided to talk to this lama, hoping he would explain it for me. I asked him ‘what’s a consort?’ He looked at me and he knew exactly what I was talking about. I burst into tears and that bastard said ‘if you are the consort of a master you are very lucky’ and that was it. That’s all he said.”

Dakinis who were in the harem (Alison, Anna, Minou, Nee, Lillie, Jackie, Renata, Lorraine) before Janine’s arrival gradually came to accept her as a team member. Eventually they announced that she should join them in an orgy. Janine was not keen. The other women pressurised her, insisting that they had to do whatever ‘Rinpoche’ wanted:

“They were terrified of being beaten” says Janine. “During the time I was with him continuously, one of us would be beaten every day – because you forgot something or did something wrong. For one girl it was because the way she walked was too proud. I got a little less than the others – some would get a serious, really bad beating.

He got irritated with me because when I did something wrong I would hand him something to hit me with and that would spoil the fun.”
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Re: Randy Sogyal Rinpoche, Best-Selling Lecher

Postby admin » Wed Dec 20, 2017 2:09 am

The three year retreat
behindthethangkas.wordpress.com
November 20, 2011

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While the Sogyal-Janine saga played out, Gerard was participating in Rigpa’s first three years, three months and three days retreat.

This is a traditional Tibetan Buddhist training programme, designed to bring about deep contemplative realisation and yogic insight. The retreat, involving intensive practice and seclusion from the outside world, began on August 9, 2006 and ended on 21 November 2009.

However, true to form, Sogyal adapted the retreat to dovetail with his version of Tibetan Buddhism as a marketable commodity.
One of Rigpa’s web sites described it thus:

“…the purpose of such a break is to re-emerge into the world refreshed and re-inspired, having further developed the mind’s innate qualities of peacefulness and clarity, and deepened the heart’s innate capacity for empathy and compassion.”

It does not mention any of the profound aspects of Buddhist meditation– ‘primordial emptiness’ for example, or ‘integration beyond duality’. In comparison with the way other lamas present Tibetan Buddhism, Sogyal’s programme could be equated with studying for primary school exams.

Gerard Dubois – retired from flight duty and free from family obligations – sorted his external affairs and settled into Lerab Ling with every intention of staying the retreat distance, in the expectation that it would move his spiritual practice into a fresh dimension. Instead he found himself in a situation where the emphasis on group rather than solitary practice was wholly unproductive:
 “I had no experiences” he says, “at the start I went along with what was happening, but eventually I gave up and instead of doing Tibetan meditation, I concealed a Zen text in my prayer books and read that when I was supposed to be meditating.”

The coup de grace on Gerard’s involvement with Rigpa came when he read a letter from Janine – three weeks after it had arrived. In it she confessed to her father that she had been in a sexual relationship with Sogyal.

“I was very angry” he says.

Gerard demanded an interview with Sogyal, who was initially wary, but then admitted he had had sex with Janine. He tried to shift the blame onto her – claiming that she had seduced him and that he was at first resistant, but later gave in to her demands.

Gerard was inclined to believe his daughter’s version of what happened and this, coupled with his disillusionment with Tibetan spiritual practice, made him decide to leave the retreat – but not before he had shared his feelings with other retreatants:

“We were not allowed to talk” he says, “ but we found ways to communicate.”

As a result some of the 200 people present also left the retreat – some shocked at the revelation, others realising that their pre-existing doubts were well founded.
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Re: Randy Sogyal Rinpoche, Best-Selling Lecher

Postby admin » Wed Dec 20, 2017 2:28 am

Sogyal Rinpoche Has Resigned from Rigpa: The resignation follows accusations of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse from longtime students.
by Wendy Joan Biddlecombe
Tricycle
August 14, 2017

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Sogyal Rinpoche Has Resigned from Rigpa
Sogyal Rinpoche in 2013 | Photo by Olivier Riché


The Tibetan Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche has resigned from Rigpa, the international network of practice centers he founded.

The resignation letter, sent to Tricycle by an undisclosed source, is addressed to the sangha and dated August 11, a month after several of the lama’s longtime students publicly accused their teacher of decades of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse. After the allegations came to light, Sogyal Rinpoche entered a “period of retreat and reflection.” He nonetheless made an appearance at the World Youth Buddhist Society in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand.

Today, in a separate letter addressed to the sangha, Rigpa’s board stated, “Rinpoche has made it clear that this decision has only been made after deep personal reflection, seeking the advice of many of his masters, and with the best intention for the future of our community.”

UPDATE: Rigpa has confirmed that Sogyal Rinpoche has stepped down, effective immediately, in this press release. Rigpa organizers wrote that the abuse accusations will be investigated by a third party. A new code of conduct and spiritual advisory group will be established for the sangha.
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Re: Randy Sogyal Rinpoche, Best-Selling Lecher

Postby admin » Wed Dec 20, 2017 2:31 am

New Allegations of Sexual Abuse Raise Old Questions: Students of Tibetan Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche have accused him of improper conduct.
by The Editors
Tricycle
July 25, 2017

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In a July 14 detailed letter to Tibetan teacher Sogyal Rinpoche, eight of the famed lama’s longtime students accused their teacher of a decades-long pattern of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse. According to a July 21 press release issued by his community in response to the charges, Sogyal Rinpoche, the 70-year-old author of the bestselling Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and founder of Rigpa, an international network of practice centers, has made a decision “to step back and to enter a period of retreat and reflection.”

What used to be called simply, "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" is now a trumpet being blown by a Narcissist: "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: A New Spiritual Classic from One of the Foremost Interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism to the West," by Patrick Gaffney (Editor), Andrew Harvey (Editor), Sogyal Rinpoche (Author)

Oh puleeeez, what hogwash! It should be called, "The Tibetan Art of Lies and Lying."

As far as I know from "Jane Doe" and others who contacted me in 1993, and 1994, Andrew Harvey wrote most of the book and Sogyal put his name on it. Andrew is an ex-cult devotee of Sogyal's who opted OUT.

-- Letter to Tiger Lily by AmLearning [Victoria Barlow], January 13, 2004


“We respect Sogyal Rinpoche’s decision to enter a period of retreat and reflection,” Ringpa said in a statement. “During this time Sogyal Rinpoche and Rigpa will seek professional and spiritual advice and look into whatever steps might be necessary. We have already initiated open discussion within our community about the letter and the issues it raises.”

The accusations are not new. They have been known for years not only to many of Sogyal Rinpoche’s students but also to ranking lamas in the Tibetan community. (One Tibetan lama has suggested that the students have violated their samaya vows.) Similar reports about Sogyal Rinpoche have appeared in the press, particularly with regard to the Lerab Ling practice center in France.

How does abuse in a community continue unchecked for so long? And what makes it possible in the first place?

In the fall of 2013 we made an attempt to address these questions in “Sex in the Sangha . . . Again.” In the introduction to the roundtable discussion on patterns of sexual abuse in Buddhist communities, features editor Andrew Cooper wrote:

Scandalous activities seem to thrive when individual communities isolate themselves—socially, ideologically, or in other ways—from the bonds of broader communities, both religious and secular. In such an atmosphere, assumptions tend to go unchallenged not because they are seen as valid but because they are not seen at all. They are just taken for granted. Scandals feed off isolation in another way too: when individuals within a community who try to raise questions about how things are done and what gets done are isolated—marginalized, discredited, even banned—the concerns they raise are readily dismissed. Sooner or later, this way of doing things proves detrimental to all concerned.


The roundtable included Lama Palden, founder of the Sukhasiddhi Foundation, who shed light on why, in her own tradition, abuse is so difficult to combat: “In the Tibetan Buddhist world,” she said back then, “even when the head of a lineage does hear about a problem and comes to talk to their lamas about it, they’re ignored. Because each center is like its own little kingdom.”

Jack Kornfield, cofounder of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, pointed out that “[t]here have been a number of instances in the last 25 years where senior teachers in the Buddhist world, even the Dalai Lama, have spoken out against certain teachers, and it hasn’t made a lot of difference, because there haven’t been any consequences. Since the community where it is happening is usually isolated, that teacher is still seen as the great authority.”

As in the case of Rigpa, it usually takes a number of brave students who are willing, at the risk of alienating themselves from communities they have worked and lived in often for decades, to come forward publicly.

We’re making “Sex in the Sangha . . . Again” available with the hope that it will add some context to events that otherwise are so disheartening, particularly to those in communities most affected. The discussion is by no means complete, and issues as complex as this are dealt with fully only in open dialogue over time.

—The Editors
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Re: Randy Sogyal Rinpoche, Best-Selling Lecher

Postby admin » Wed Dec 20, 2017 3:02 am

"Lamas, in their role as ecclesiastic or political administrators, were disliked. Their position seemed dictatorial, almost totalitarian, in its fusion of blatant power with absolute ideological and spiritual control. The situation was described as 'despotic', as 'spiritual terrorism' and 'unlimited tyranny'. Landon was severe in his criticism.

'No priestly caste in the history of religion has ever fostered and preyed upon the terror and ignorance of its flock with the systematic brigandage of the lamas. It may be that, hidden away in some quiet lamasery ... Kim's lama may still be found. Once or twice in the quiet unworldly abbots ... one saw an attractive and almost impressive type of man; but the heads of the hierarchy are very different men, and by them the country is ruled with a rod of iron.'

Tibet seemed a country of slavery, severe punishments, torture, political assassinations, mutual distrust. Grenard reported: 'The lower orders, in general, display towards the magistrates and the agents of authority a crawling servility which I have never seen equaled in either Turkestan or China.' Lamaism was believed to be both the agent for this terror and its cause. That scrupulous ethnographer Rockhill, for example, vividly described the action of some police-monks at a market gathering:

'Suddenly the crowds scattered to the right and left, the lamas running for places of hiding, with cries of Gekor lama, Gekor lama! and we saw striding towards us six or eight lamas with a black stripe painted across their foreheads and another around their right arms -- black lamas ... the people call them -- armed with heavy whips with which they belaboured anyone who came within reach. Behind them walked a stately lama in robes of finest cloth, with head clean-shaved. He had come to enforce ecclesiastical law by knocking down a Punch and Judy show and other prohibited amusements, the owners of which were whipped.'

With some understatement, Grenard mused: 'the Lhasa government is not a tender one'. Indeed, the focal point of this totalitarianism seemed to be Lhasa, and even the Potala itself. Whilst on the one hand Lhasa was the sacred city, the Rome of Asia, it was also seen as the dictatorial centre of a police state. William Carey, as usual, painted a vivid picture: 'The holy city is more than the home of metaphysical mysteries and the mummery of idol-worship; it is a secret chamber of crime; its rocks and its roads, its silken flags and its scented altars, are all stained with blood.'

-- The Myth of Shangri-La, by Peter Bishop
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