Buddhist Project Sunshine Final Report [PHASE 1] [EXCERPT]A Firebird Year Initiative To Bring Light And Healing To Sexualized Violence Embedded Within The Shambhala Community
February 27, 2017 – February 15, 2018
Respectfully offered by Andrea M. Winn, MEd, MCS
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WelcomeWelcome to this pioneering journey of charting a new land: a land where we hope to unite the enlightened wisdom of Shambhala vision with a process of compassionate and very human healing. For Shambhala to flourish, we must heal the intergenerational trauma of sexualized violence that is active within the Shambhala community.
The aim of this report is to raise our community lungta to take on the frightening shadow of sexualized violence lying across the heart of our community. Ultimately, the aim of this work is to inspire healing throughout the Shambhala community, in a fully embodied, fully engaged, comprehensive and collaborative way.
Project Sunshine began with a clear mandate of bringing abused women leaders together to heal and then form an activist group. When this mandate failed, I turned to progressive Shambhala leaders to fulfill the original mandate of gathering leaders, creating a vision, and taking action on sexualized violence within the community. After several productive meetings, these leading edge leaders were not prepared to move forward with creating a vision of an abuse-free Shambhala. In the end, a group of caring people formed together organically within the heated time of the past few weeks. This group will help facilitate an on-line dialog about this report for a period of three weeks.Through the course of this project there has been a wealth of learning gained. In addition, related conversations have sprung up during the span of this project around the violence and trauma in Sogyal Rinpoche's community and the #MeToo upwelling. This report will share (1) an overview of the project, (2) reflective learning from Project Sunshine, and (3) recommendations and possible next steps.
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Developing A Contemplative Spiritual FrameworkI recognized early on in the project the necessity for a contemplative approach to
dealing with this societal problem. Through dialog with my friend and spiritual companion, Grace Brubaker, we developed what we call a “contemplative spiritual framework” for the work of Project Sunshine.
This framework is a stance or an approach. The analogies we came up with for this approach were mid-wife and gardener. A mid-wife has the role of facilitating a healthy birth. She doesn’t do the birth herself. Instead, her focus is on preparing herself in every way to be as faithful and as connected with the divine to facilitate the birth. The mid-wife does not get attached to the outcome, because it is beyond her control. Similarly, a gardener plants and tends the garden. The actual growth is a mystery.
This approach is freeing. It frees us because there is no ultimate responsibility. We are not “gods” who can control. Instead, we can seek to be in sync with and responsive to the goodness that is being born, in its own way and in its own right timing.
Operating in this way provides a framework and influences how we think, how we act, and how we are together.
Many of us have taken samaya, and this is a serious and deep vow to all of our vajra brothers and sisters. Many of us also feel a tremendous loyalty and dedication to fulfilling Trungpa Rinpoche’s vision, and now also the vision of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. Underlying all of this is a deep sense of commitment that we wish to live out. Part of this commitment is to be concerned about our community. Developing a contemplative spiritual framework is a way to live into this sense of commitment and explore what changes are needed.
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What is Project Sunshine?Work on abuse has been done under "Shambhala Care and Conduct." This work has, however, not gone far enough since women are currently being abused without recourse, and past harm has not been attended to. Known child abusers are freely active within the Shambhala community, some are even senior teachers. Meanwhile, many who have been abused have been left with no recourse but to leave the community to heal and move forward as best they can, often with diminished resources of lungta and money.
Project Sunshine is a one-year project that was launched on Shambhala Day 2017 [February 27, 2017] to (1) establish a working body of concerned citizens to address the situation of sexual and social abuse in the Shambhala community, and (2) create a promotional campaign to start a productive conversation about this situation on a community-wide level.***
Why I Started Project SunshineI started this project out of compassion. Something has gone tragically wrong in the Shambhala community. We have allowed abuse within our community for nearly four decades, and it is time to take practical steps to end it. I experienced profound abuse in this community, and I don't want to see it continue to happen to others like me. I saw a way to help through creating Project Sunshine to establish a strong foundation for change.
A year ago I came to a point in my life where I was ready to come out from under the rock of oppressive silence and bring change that has been long needed in the Shambhala community.
I was sexually abused as a child by multiple perpetrators in our community. When I was a young adult, I spoke up about the community’s sexual abuse problem and was demonized by my local Shambhala center, ostracized and forced to leave. The shocking truth is that almost all of the young people in my age group were sexually harassed and/or sexually abused. I don't know the statistics on the generations of children after mine. What I do know is that many of us have left the community, and for those who have stayed, their voices have been unheard. Beyond child sexual abuse, women continue to be abused in relationships with community leaders and by their sanghas.I have been doing intensive healing for the last 15 years. After the first couple of years of my own healing, I trained in ways to help others. I’ve completed an MEd Counselling Psychology at the University of Toronto specializing in treating relational trauma, and I completed a six-month certificate in dispute resolution at York University.
One thing that is clear to me is that a single woman can be silenced. However, a group of organized concerned citizens will be a completely different ball game. Creating such a group is a way to create sanity for ourselves in the midst of this crazy situation, and then we can look at how to share that sanity with others.
Through my work as a therapist, a mediator, and as a Heroic Leadership Coach,
I have lead this 1-year initiative. I put a number of supports in place so I could serve as a steady leader for Project Sunshine. Perhaps the most important of these was regularly meeting with Karlene, a strategic counsellor at the Toronto Rape Crisis Center. Karlene has accompanied a number of grass roots groups who successfully influenced their communities to open up dialog about abuse, deal effectively with abusers, and make positive change. One such group confronted a group of Catholic Priests, giving Karlene experience with activist work in a religious community.
Karlene strongly suggests the power of writing our stories, both as survivors of the abuse and as leaders who have witnessed abusive situations happening within the community. She suggests sharing these stories widely in the community as a tool for invoking conversation and change.VisionThis one-year vision was to gather a powerful group of concerned citizens to protect the integrity of the Shambhala lineage. We will do this through influencing the Shambhala community to acknowledge and repair past abuse of women and children in the community, and integrate new values that honour tenderness, vulnerability and other strengths typically associated with the feminine.MissionTo accomplish this vision I worked to organize a powerful activist group engaging a 5-stage process: (1) Build emotional safety, skills and resiliency; (2) Document abuse stories; (3) Form a strong activist group; (4) Envision the change we want; and (5) Launch a Shambhala abuse-awareness campaign in 2018. ValuesThe values I worked to inspire both in myself and those who engaged the project were:
• We are fiercely loyal to the vision of the Shambhala Teachings• We look to the Great Eastern Sun to lead us
• We work to create safety and stability in our own minds and in community through practicing Shamatha daily• We fearlessly and compassionately acknowledge the impact of violation**(See appendices on impact)
• We practice boundaries as defined by Dr. David Gruder: "A boundary is any limit I need to honour in order to love or work with you without resentment and with integrity. A boundary is not a line drawn in the sand, a position, posture, ideology, ultimatum or other tool for manipulation or control."
• We work with our own projections and act powerfully from the wisdom of our deep self-knowing: In moments of rage, we take a sacred pause to have mercy for our self and unpack what has happened before acting.
• We have decided to reclaim the power of our heart and voice for our own benefit and the benefit of all sentient beings.
Goals1. Create a wise and empowered Shambhala right-relations activist group
2. Create the space to have emotionally safe and clear dialogs about abuse that has been suffered in our community
3. Collect impact stories from people who have experienced abuse and from leaders who have witnessed abusive situations in the Shambhala community
4. Create a promotion campaign to launch in 2018 so that Shambhala citizens across the globe are able to hear the truth of what has happened to women, children and other vulnerable people, and participate in creating healthy relational changes in the community.Project Sunshine had five phases over the time span of one year
1. Build emotional safety, skills and resiliencyWe are building skills for dealing with triggers, processing experiences with a greater sense of inner safety, and growing a deeper understanding of our boundaries. We are working specifically to deal with fears around making these community changes by contemplating the following:
• See your personal resilience: (1) You know your needs, (2) You are responsive to your own needs, (3) Know you will take care of yourself no matter what happens
• Think strategically about systems that protect abusers: (1) Attacking people who speak up perpetuates systemic abuse of women and children, (2) Know at times people will attack you, (3) Since you know it is coming, you can be strong in yourself, know what you need and want, and know that ultimately not much harm can be done to you because you will take care of yourself
• Working with projections: Create a strong sense of self-awareness to be able to identify when you are projecting and when others are projecting on you.
• Understanding the nature of doing disruptive work: This activism is about shifting a community's mindset toward right relationship around sexual relations and emotional boundaries. Attacks will come, so a key skill is to develop space to anticipate the unknown and the ability to know how to tend yourself in the midst of doing disruptive work.
• Understanding the nature of "Lateral violence" or "micro aggressions" among the activist group: Differences can lead us astray and pull us apart. We can suddenly find ourselves having a really awful moment together. We can remind ourselves that we are not enemies. We have had a weird moment that felt hurtful, but it is yet to be determined if it was destructive. It is wise to take a pause, remember our goals, and have dialog to come to greater clarity.
2. Document abuse storiesWe originally aimed to collect four anonymous one-page stories from people who experienced abuse in the Shambhala community. We wanted to publish these stories in two major Shambhala publications in 2018 to raise awareness and get the conversation towards change going. Since the stories are anonymous, there will be no back and forth between the survivors, perpetrators and the community; if names were used, this could turn into combative relationships. Also by not using names, the authors and the publishers are not at risk for being sued. The tool I created for this is available in Appendix 5 of this report.We are interested in providing a context in which these stories will be received in a productive, rather than reactive, way. Therefore, we are also collecting statements from Shambhala leaders who can help to frame our activism in a workable and committed manner. This will instil greater confidence in community members to receive and reflect constructively upon the stories.
3. Form a strong activist groupThis is not one single person's problem. This is a serious community-wide problem that will continue to suck the lungta from our community until it is addressed. There are people who have insight, skill and passion who know in their heart that they must come forward and contribute their part in this. Andrea Winn arose as the initial instigator, and others are now exploring their role in being part of the movement to end sexualized violence within Shambhala, which includes healing what has happened in the past.
4. Envision the change we wantWe are developing a contemplative spiritual framework for creating community change that is in alignment with Shambhala values. In the future we would like to engage fun activities to envision a Shambhala community that deals effectively with abuse, and even a Shambhala community free of abuse! What could that look like? The session I designed for this is shared in Appendix 6.
5. Launch a Shambhala abuse-awareness campaign in 2018We would like to reach out to a couple of community-wide Shambhala publications to organize a 4-month series to publish the documented abuse stories and accompanying pieces from Shambhala leaders. We'd like to plan this in a way that fosters emotional safety for community members to engage and personally reflect. We also want to provide places for members to engage in dialog when they are ready, such as a moderated social media discussion forum.The work of Project Sunshine has become known world-wide at this point. This final report is serving as the community-wide publication.
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Statements From Community Leaders
Sangyum Agness Au [NOT INCLUDED]
Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown [NOT INCLUDED]
Community Elder, Judy LiefI am very impressed with all the work and heart you have put into this project. It is very timely—long overdue. Although I myself have not been abused, in my various roles, I have been repeatedly frustrated by the lack of response and even understanding of this problem from the leadership.
As you say, it is a deeply entrenched pattern of power, chauvinism, and denial that mirrors the patterns of the larger society. I fully support this work and will be happy to help in any way I can. In any case, I’d like to keep in touch as this healing work takes root.
I know too many fine young people who have left the sangha based on experiences such as yours, or who have stayed connected but with their voices unheard.It is so good that you have created a forum for women to connect and support one another. It seems to me that there are two tough issues. One, of course, is the initial bad behavior and its harmful results and how to facilitate healing. The second is
the institutional avoidance of this shadow side of things and the pattern of ignoring these incidents, making light of them, or even retaliating on or shutting down the people who speak up. I’m pretty sure this combination is a familiar pattern in the larger world, as well.
On the individual level,
my concern is not only to help women heal from such trauma, but to regain their power and not fall prey to the trap of identifying as a “victim.” Being a victim is one thing, taking that as an identity is another. I see you as a role model for women in speaking up and taking action, being
able to feel and release the pain, and not letting your frustration with the blindness and indifference control you. Personally, I find it is so painful that women genuinely interested in the dharma and in the path of meditation feel there is no safe place for them to study and practice together.
At the institutional level,
we are a culture (Shambhala), within a culture (Buddhism), within a culture (USA),within a culture (Tibet), all very patriarchal. Yet in spite of this, personally I am so grateful and rather than being held back in any way, I only felt pushed by the Vidyadhara in a good way to come into my own potential and confidence.
There is a broader context that it might be good to ask some folks to work on, which is
the source tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and its entrenched patriarchal hierarchy. I think that Trungpa Rinpoche did make a break with this to some degree, but I still feel it as another shadow hanging over the broader community and at some level influencing the discussion as well.
This patriarchal hierarchy is very evident if you travel to Asia. There is a deep patriarchal view in many Asian cultures, at a level beyond Western culture. There are a lot of joyful wonderful women in Tibet. However, at the same time women are viewed very poorly, as second class citizens. Women seem to be viewed as inferior to men and are not well treated. Theoretically, in Tibetan Buddhist texts, women are revered as an embodiment of prajna, but in reality they are not treated well. In the vinaya, it is taught that the highest ranking nun needs to defer to lowest ranking monk. Monastic resources go to monks, and very few go to nuns. Nuns lack the educational opportunities that monks have. The good news is that this is changing. There are currently male Tibetan Buddhist teachers that are trying to offer more to nuns. And there are exceptional Tibetan woman teachers who are revered.
In terms of Project Sunshine, it’s important that you are taking this pain and making something positive out of it, in a way that can change things for others.
This is about dealing with a lot of emotional energies, and not burying them, but rather it is about dealing with them and then letting them go.
Doing the things you are doing in Project Sunshine is bringing healing.
You are looking beyond yourself, engaging and not hiding from the difficult and painful situations that exist, and not solidifying them. This is about helping others.
It means the world to me that you are brave enough to take something like this on. You are helping make progress in people’s understanding of these kind of things, and hopefully we can begin to put some mechanisms in place to prevent this happening as much as it does now.
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Anonymous Stories and Impact Statements from Survivors
Story & Impact Statement #1I grew up in the Shambhala community. I was sexually abused by several men. The greatest impact came from one, who I will call John. When I was a teenager, I did my first serving shift with a primary teacher in the teacher’s residence. John was close with the family and living in the same house. I had to pass by his room every time I did something for the principle I was serving. John kept stopping me at his door to talk with him. Then, one time he asked me to come in the room and shut the door. He was sitting under the covers of his bed and removed the covers and I saw he was naked on the bottom half. He had me sit by him on the bed and told me to kiss his penis. I was young, a girl, and I wanted to respect him and “be nice”. I was profoundly confused. A friend of mine years later was physically attacked by John, and five of us dharma brats came to my friend saying we had been abused by John. This is when I learned his child abuse was wide spread. The rape counsellor I was seeing said that if five of us came forward, there were likely many more who had been abused by him since it is rare for anyone to speak about child abuse. I spoke about my experience of child abuse in my local community. The leadership held secret meetings and sent me a threatening email telling me to stop speaking about the abuse.
My experience of abuse in the Shambhala community has impacted my life over the decades. Every intimate relationship I’ve been in has been a high intensity nightmare. I want to be close with someone, but I am terrified. It’s like I don’t have the ground within me to build healthy trust. Having been both sexually abused and demonized by my community when I spoke about it, I have had no community connection for over 15 years. I’ve resorted to living very alone. For instance, recently I had a bad pneumonia and nearly died. I had no one in my life to visit me in the hospital, except for one Christian man who saw it as his Christian duty to visit me twice. It’s hard to admit this, but my intense loneliness hits me at night. I stuff myself with food and watch TV until late. I am quite sad about this. My rape counsellor says this profound loneliness is part of the cost. I love the Vidyadhara and I am deeply committed to Shambhala. At the same time, having been abused by many leaders in the community tears at the fabric of my being. The psychological pressure has been overwhelming. It has been hard to establish a life and also hard to have a meaningful or safe relationship with meditation.
Story & Impact Statement #2I was married to an emotionally and verbally abusive husband who was a senior teacher in the Shambhala community. It was very hard to finally realize I had no choice but to end the marriage. I tried every way I could to keep it private and not upset the community or expose my husband, because that somehow seemed the right thing to do. It became necessary for me to seek help from Shambhala when the next Scorpion Seal retreat was approaching (year 6 for me), because I needed to do the program so that I could continue on my spiritual path. I asked for help from a number of people: first my husband himself, who declined to step aside, then the local centre Health & Wellbeing officers, then the Desung, then the President of Shambhala, who finally referred me to the acharyas. I was asking to be able to attend the Scorpion Seal retreat, and I was asking my husband, as a senior teacher, to graciously staff it elsewhere, without blame. (I had program credit at this particular centre and couldn’t afford to pay tuition and travel somewhere else, while my exhusband was paid to attend wherever he went.) A person in the Office of Social Wellbeing was assigned to facilitate this situation. She wanted me to attend the program with my husband present, and she said arrangements would be made so I would never see my husband and that they would 'protect' me from him. I knew that it would be impossible for me to feel safe in such a small and intense group retreat setting, and I made it clear that I could not do the retreat in an atmosphere like this. Shambhala at all levels, including the acharya group, labeled me as the problem when I couldn’t consent to do the retreat with him with their ‘protection,’ and they declined to assist me at that point. In short, the wellbeing of my ex-husband, the perpetrator, was given a greater value than mine. So, adding to the trauma I was experiencing from the years of abuse and upending my life by leaving the marriage, I was unable to continue on my practice path and stay with my closest sangha who had been going through the retreat together. I felt that I was not believed, not valued, not cared for, and simply thrown away to allow the status quo to continue.
Furthermore, this official met with my husband (we were in the process of a divorce through all of this) and she told him that I had filed a complaint against him, which was untrue and threatened to derail our delicate divorce negotiations. I felt deeply betrayed by this official's actions.
The atmosphere resulting from all of this was toxic, with all but my close friends either ignoring the issue when they saw me or actually avoiding me. The silence from every level of the organization spoke volumes about the “culture of blindness” pervading and poisoning the societal aspect of Shambhala. I eventually decided to leave my home and community in Canada, which was triggering and painful for me, and I now live in the city where I am originally from in the United States. No one from any level of the Shambhala hierarchy has ever contacted me since then to offer any kindness or guidance about my spiritual path or to inquire about my well-being. After being a highly contributing member of this community for over forty years, fulfilling roles at various levels, including secretary to the Sakyong at one time, this has been a profoundly devastating experience that has broken my heart and completely changed my life.
Story & Impact Statement #3I was staffing a Shambhala Level 5 around 15 years ago. The visiting teacher was particularly exciting, and I was caught off guard in her Saturday evening talk. She said people in therapy just moan and groan, and she said it several times. She said it yet again in the question and answer period, and I raised my hand. When she called on me I said, “I find your statements about people in therapy insensitive. I was sexually abused throughout my childhood in the Shambhala community, as were most of the children, and I got a lot from therapy that the Shambhala teachings never helped me with. I wonder if this kind of insensitivity is why the adults allowed so much sexual abuse to happen to us kids.” The teacher sat fully upright as a warrior, and there was a pregnant silence. Then she replied, “Maybe you will teach us that sensitivity.”
Despite her response, the local leadership was terrified. I had been a dedicated leader for years in this community, and the council chose to meet secretly about me. Of note, three of my best friends and my Meditation Instructor were part of these meetings. The council then sent me an email telling me to: (1) stop doing any teaching, (2) step down as leader of the small Shambhala LGBT sub-community I had started, and (3) stop talking about inappropriate things.
Over the next 6 months I met with two visiting teachers - an Acharya and a senior ranking Kasung officer - explaining what was happening and asking for their help. Both refused to help. I felt at that point that I had no choice but to leave the Shambhala community.
Years later I bumped into one of the participants of that Level 5. He said he missed seeing me around. I said that the leadership had gotten upset about my talking about the childhood sex abuse problem because it could negatively affect newer students. He replied that his experience was quite the opposite; when he heard us talking openly and respectfully about the abuse, it heartened him and made him see us as a healthy community.
It is hard to succinctly describe the impact these abuses have had on me. The original sexual abuse has made it very hard to feel safe in my body. As an adult, I felt profoundly betrayed by my good friends and Meditation Instructor, people who I trusted. I believed they felt connected with me and loyal to me in a way that could weather an upheaval. I stopped trusting people through this and have socially isolated myself for over 15 years. Although I am intensely lonely, I seem unable to form intimate connections because I am terrified of experiencing a betrayal like this again. Even with no sangha, I am a diehard practitioner and have continued my Vajrayogini and werma practices on my own all these years. I’ve been limping along at a snail’s pace, lacking the vibrancy that comes from participating in programs, having an MI, and being part of a sangha. Inside, I feel like a very long, cold winter with no hope of the warmth of the spring.
Story & Impact Statement #4I am a gender queer person, who uses the pronouns “they” and “he”; I was socialized as a male. I'm a survivor of clergy victimization from my experiences in the Catholic Church where I was groomed and raped as a young teen by 2 different priests over a period of years. After years of recovery and therapy, I entered Shambhala as an adult thinking that was all “behind me”. I became a dedicated Scorpion Seal practitioner. I had heard stories about sexual misconduct in Shambhala. I had heard that a senior teacher had raped men. I felt concerned. For over a decade I experienced a few incidences of sexual violence from both men and women in Shambhala. The greatest impact came from a male sangha member who sexually violated me on retreats and trainings. He exposed his entire naked body to me and asked me “Do you like what you see” he told me that I would have to use his “dick” to unlock the community computer, He would make regular references to his “balls” and “ass”, and made homophobic comments to me by calling me a “Sissy”. He had a pattern of acting out on retreats and trainings. Complaints had been made against him. I had even mentioned his behaviors to my therapist, who was a sangha member, but nothing seemed to change and it all got really confusing. I eventually wrote a letter to the community leaders that included an Acharya, Shastris and Kasung. The accused was finally suspended from leadership. He tried to justify and defend his behaviors. He was then immediately allowed to be a Kasung at Children’s Day, and I realized I needed support outside the community. I obtained an outside sexual assault advocate and non-sangha - therapist to support me in the process. I spoke to a lawyer who wanted to “sue the socks off" of Karuna Training and Shambhala. I was not interested in pursuing a lawsuit. The community leadership seemed confused on how to address the issue skillfully. They put together a panel to work with the accused. I felt concerned about a spiritual organization like Shambhala trying to assess and treat someone with issues of sexual pathology. It seemed outside the scope of our local center to do this. I think the accused needed a professional psychosexual evaluation and outside treatment program. My outside advocate helped me in obtaining a temporary sexual assault protection order and filing a police report.
The impact has been painful on many different levels. I have experienced a reoccurrence of PTSD symptoms from past abuse. I have wanted to leave the sangha. Even though he did not touch me, his assaults felt like a rape. I have experienced anxiety, mistrust of sangha, fear, guilt and isolation. Due to the stress of speaking out about the sexual violence, I got in a bike wreck and broke my arm. The treatment is expensive. I have felt overwhelmed at times and also enraged at the denial of certain community members. I also have felt supported by some of the sangha and empowered by my outside advocate, and new therapist.
Story & Impact Statement #5What happened to me is that I was sexually assaulted during a gathering at the home of a friend and fellow sangha member, who I will call Mary. For reason(s) never revealed to me she refused to give me the name of the man who assaulted me. She also indicated that perhaps I was fabricating being assaulted. Mary is a Meditation Instructor, Kasung, Programme Coordinator, and gives out information regarding end of life planning at my local Shambhala Centre.
I made a number of attempts to obtain the name of the man who assaulted me. After a mediation session with the local Desung, Mary threatened me that if she gave me the man’s name and I went to the police, she and I would likely no longer be friends.
Eventually I went to the police without the identity of the man and made a statement. Only after Mary was questioned and the man charged did I learn his identity. After the inhumane way Mary has treated me, I ended our friendship.
Care and Conduct have said that there was no disciplinary action they would take toward Mary since she was not in an official Shambhala role (At an event or at the centre) during the assault, or when she denied me the name and indicated that I was lying about the sexual assault. My husband has been a great support to me through this ordeal, and points out that we are in our Shambhala role 100% of the time. I do wonder what will happen if someone else reveals to Mary they were assaulted. As a representative for Shambhala, how will she treat them?
Now I seek an apology from Mary for not telling me the name of the man who sexually assaulted me, and for indicating I was lying about being assaulted (let alone her comment, if I was to go to the police she would end our friendship ). I spoke with the Regional Commander in Halifax today by phone. He said Mary feels she has nothing to apologize for.
Presently, I do not feel comfortable to attend programmes and practise sessions at the Halifax Centre. I wonder about continuing my role as a Kasung/Shabchi. I have in the past attended programmes, but when Mary is attending or coordinating, it takes too large of a toll on me being fake and pretending everything is OK. I feel heartbroken.
Reflective Learning From Project Sunshine
General reflectionsMy first reflection is on what happened when I reached out to women leaders in the beginning of the project. Six of them came to be part of a private discussion forum to explore questions about Project Sunshine. Once they became members, they did not engage – they simply watched. A couple of months into the project, when I began to approach and meet with Acharyas, half of the women left the group.
What I have learned is there is a break down in trust between abused women and the Shambhala leadership. This is an area that needs attention, and I would suggest Shambhala leaders could benefit from trauma-informed education so they can take their seat more confidently as leaders around issues of sexualized violence.
Secondly, it is very, very hard for abused women to rouse the energy to engage. I know this from my own experience of many years of feeling completely beaten down with no sense of hope.
Some of the women told me that they found my social activism terrifying – they were sincerely afraid for my safety in engaging the Shambhala leadership.When I met with the Shambhala leaders, most expressed denial of the problem. At first they would tell me that this problem was taken care of years ago. I had to be persistent in stating that women are still being abused and women are still being forced to leave the community. These leaders were open to my persistence and began to acknowledge there is a problem and in fact starting telling me about new cases of abuse that I was unaware of. All of the leaders I met with were generous with their time and attention to this important work. I would like to highlight the contribution of one of these leaders, Acharya Adam Lobel, as he made work on Project Sunshine a priority, specifically seeking out useful connections for integrating the work of Project Sunshine with existing Shambhala initiatives.
Another reflection on working with the Shambhala leaders is their reluctance to dedicate resource to this issue and their reluctance to take the step of envisioning what Shambhala could look like as a community that deals well with abuse. Through my work I have found that creating a vision for where you want to go is key to creating inspired change.
I designed a simple vision session and proposed it to the Shambhala leaders who were engaged with Project Sunshine. Their responses were, "This is not a priority for me", "There is no juice here for me", and "I am not interested". One leader said she would be willing to do the vision session if it happened at a time that was convenient for her. Of note, towards the completion of Project Sunshine, I was told that the leaders of Shambhala, including the Sakyong, now see this work as a priority for the community.
Despite the inability to move forward with both the abused women leaders and the Shambhala leaders, I must highlight the courage and good will I experienced from both groups.
Although the women would not engage with me, they made a point of encouraging me in this important work. Although the Shambhala leaders were not ready to act on shifting the pattern of violence in Shambhala, they made it clear that they care and they want this healing to happen, they just don't know how to engage.
There is fear in the hearts of everyone who I talked with, and this is easily expected. Sexual violence is frightening. It is powerful. It has a great impact on the lives of those who are abused and everyone who is touched by the incident of abuse.
In my discussions with Shambhala leaders there was also a desire expressed for finding a way of working with the perpetrators that encourages their development on their path. We do not see the solution being to lock them up in prison. There are existing community-based processes, such as restorative justice processes that can involve everyone who is touched by a violation, and as a community, find a way for the perpetrator to make right what he or she has done. Ideally these are well-facilitated, organic processes that we could modify to include values intrinsic to the Shambhala community.
A further reflection is the timing of this project and events that happened outside the community that relate to violence. First, the situation with Sogyal Rinpoche and his extreme abuse of his students came into the light, and he stepped down as the leader of his community. This situation spurred much dialog and analysis of what is happening in Tibetan Buddhist communities in the West. I read a somewhat concerning essay [1] from a well-respected teacher, and I can see that he is struggling to provide leadership to the world-wide Tibetan Buddhist community. It is my hope that leaders like him will see that no one person has the solution or answer to this problem. This is a situation where we need to intelligently bring people together, including women of wisdom, to discern the appropriate way forward in planting Tibetan Buddhism more strongly in the West.
Then the #MeToo movement sprang up, where women are speaking out and naming men who have abused them. There has been great support for this empowerment of women, some of whom remained silent for decades about the abuse they suffered.
As my final general reflection, I myself went through the initial phases of the project. I threw myself into building emotional safety, skill and resiliency for doing this work. I learned a great deal about strategies from Karlene, the Rape Crisis Center counsellor, and I met with my friend, Grace, every week in a support call that allowed for a deeply reflective and compassionate connection for developing insight and understanding through each step of the project. By doing this work myself, I feel some foundation for others to do the same has been established.
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Notes:1
https://www.buddhistdoor.net/news/dzong ... l-rinpoche (note, you will have to copy and paste this link to make it work in your browser)
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Raising questions about the Conduct and Care ProcessIn my conversations with people over the past year, I learned of many situations of Conduct and Care Processes that resulted in further harm done by the process itself. Rather than resolving conflict, those facilitating the process created greater harm. I have no doubt that they had the best of intentions. However, we need to look more deeply into what is working in this process and what is not, and make changes.
I was asked to review the process when it was first being created by Richard Reoch (then President of Shambhala) and Simone LeHaye (then Desung General). In fact, the original process had my name and the name of a man who sexually abused me used throughout the process! My response to the draft sent to me was first, they should not be using my name in it.
Second, I saw clear problems in the process. I pleaded with Mr. LeHaye to consult his local rape crisis center for help with the process, as he was located in France and I understood at that time that the French feminist movement was strong. He and Mr. Reoch refused to do any such outside consultation.
It is clear to me that both Mr. Reoch and Mr. LeHaye were white men in positions of power, and I can’t help but wonder if some bias may have inadvertently entered the process, perhaps to protect white men in power.
I have learned in the past week that the Care and Conduct Process is confidential to the point that men have gone through the process, were found to have caused harm, and the community never knows of this. This doesn’t feel right to me and does not resonate with my sense of justice or care for community harmony.
I also understand that the result of some Care and Conduct Processes has led to a handful of male teachers being removed from their position and told they can never again teach in Shambhala. There is a basic Shambhala value around working with people and never giving up on them. I feel that value may not be fully met with our existing Care and Conduct Process and the options available for addressing harm. Can we find truly responsive ways of stopping their harm AND helping them? I feel that as a community, we MUST explore ways for addressing harm that resonate with the values we hold dear within Shambhala.Furthermore, given the failures of our in-house Care and Conduct process, we clearly need to consult with organizations outside of Shambhala with expertise in restorative practices, gendered violence and abuse, and are feminist.
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Attending to those who have been abusedI have been part of many conversations over the past year with women who have been abused in the Shambhala community. The stories of abuse are nothing short of horrific. Quite simply,
the violence that has happened and the lack of response from the Shambhala organization has resulted in a profound corruption in the heart of our community over the lifespan of this community - since the early 1970’s.
There is a pattern that I personally experienced, and many women experienced, of being fiercely loyal to this community and taking every step imaginable to get support from community leaders. With the lack of responsiveness, for many of us, the only sane response was to make the heart breaking decision to leave the community. It is not only the worst imaginable decision to have to make, but it is confounded by deep questions about breaking samaya for those of us who entered the Vajrayana path in Shambhala. One teacher and survivor of abuse in Shambhala responded to things I wrote about samaya in this report, and I feel it is important to bring her words forward, with her permission:
I never ever feel that any of us have broken our samaya by leaving, speaking up, etc. I think that is a misunderstanding that is used to keep people quiet and afraid. I'm glad I saw that and I am so, so, so sorry you have that thought, and I hope we can either talk about that or just somehow that you can let that one dissolve into space. Your heart and mind are so luminous. Samaya isn't just keeping to outer things, or even practices. The violation is when someone abuses someone, turns someone away from the dharma, etc., all those things on the list, and the secret level is if you shut down the love in your own mind and make it an enemy, which obviously you haven't. So that's all off the top of my head, but for me it's a very sore point that is another form of abuse, to make people think they're breaking their samaya if they speak out, have to leave, etc.
Other abuse survivors have chosen to stay in the community, and it has been a challenging and confusing experience.
There is a deep psychological challenge to stay in emotional connection with a community in which you were abused and the community either responded with lack of care, or worse, further abuse. You can read the impact statements a little further along in this report. Writing these initial impact statements was a huge first step for these people. I do not believe, however, that they communicate the profound trauma these people have experienced.
In some of the community discussions now happening,
some are advocating for a trauma-informed healing model that integrates Shambhala values and wisdom. I believe this is absolutely necessary.
Furthermore, some women have been so devastated and have lost every last shred of hope that the Shambhala community could ever become a healthy place for them. For these women, we will need to offer a space for healing that is outside the community.
For these women to ever return, the community needs to become an emotionally safe place. This can be done, but it will take time and continuous effort to create this community taming. The community will need to embrace change and turn and face this demon of abuse. This effort will be worth it, for all of us. It is about creating a sane and healthy community for us and for the greater world that we serve.
Of note, I had no communication with any other second-generation members of this community. This remains a deeply hidden wound. I would like to see this community rouse the resource to have a dedicated person to seek out the lost generation, to see how they are, and to offer healing and support. I am haunted by the line in one of Trungpa Rinpoche’s songs, “Confident that our children see the Great Eastern Sun.” It haunts me because so many of our children are suffering in profound darkness. This is unacceptable, and it is time for us to bring healing and light to our lost second generation.
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Identify the needs of various groups connected with this issueWe need to explore how to support the greater resilience and confidence of our Shambhala leaders. It is important that they have the supports needed as they step more fully into their role of providing leadership, collaboration and support for this process.
We need to support the work of the sangha abuse survivors. The survivors need to be heard. For those who have been forced to leave the community, when and if they want a pathway back into a respecting relationship within the sangha, then we need to find ways to facilitate a process for this.
And what about the children of Shambhala? In my view it is unacceptable that so many of the second generation of this community have been forced to leave the community due to being abused, scapegoated and shamed. This happened to me, and it has happened to unknown numbers of other young people. We need to set up a discovery process to find the lost children of this community and tend to their needs for healing and reconnection.
We need to stop protecting the abusers, and instead empower them to step into reconciliation processes where they can make rightful amends for their abuses. One senior Shambhala teacher suggested that since it has been many years since one of the primary child molesters was active that we should just move on. This teacher does not understand that the harm still lives: in those he abused, those who were impacted by his abuse, and he himself cannot act in full integrity as a Shambhala leader carrying the burden of unreconciled harm he has done within our community. Things do not magically disappear over time. And abuses continue to happen to this present day. What is called for is for us to dig in deeper, create resource, embody this lineage of confidence, and clean up these situations for the overall health and well-being of our community.
Oppression through sexual violence has clear relationships with other forms of oppression, such as racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. Dialog needs to happen around the intersection of all forms of social violence happening within the Shambhala community.
Next steps for Project SunshineIt is time to bring the light of the Great Eastern Sun to a widespread societal problem that exists also within our community. It is a matter of deciding to make a difference and then taking one small step after another. That is what I have done with Project Sunshine, and it has had measurable success in just one year. This project shows that it is possible to investigate, be curious, dialog, form alliances with those who were abused and with Shambhala leaders, and create inroads towards peace. Genuine peace. Peace that comes with pain and stepping through fears to create a space of greater and greater integrity.
I took this 1-year project on as one lone person who cares about the health of the Shambhala community. It was more work than I ever could have imagined! This has been done with my full heart, and I am grateful that I gave myself this gift, and that it will hopefully be received as a gift to the community.
My volunteer position radically scales down today. I will continue giving 5 hours of time a week to follow ups from the project, including fielding questions and contributing to the discussion in the Facebook forum that will be offered soon. If the community gathers energy to take further action needing a project manager, we will need to raise funds for that. But for now, let's just talk!Let's talk – New buds & beginnings: A forum to discuss Project SunshineThe most important next steps are to see who has the ability to step in to this conversation about healing sexualized violence, and has the staying power to stay with that conversation. So far I have seen a lot of people dip their toe in and then drop back into a place of denial and/or paralysis, or worse yet, condemning this work and trying to silence it. This is certainly an area that can be remedied partially by taking better care of ourselves (please see the section on self-care).
If you are interested in some of the ideas and approaches discussed in this report and want to be part of the solution, please join us in a moderated social media discussion forum.
First, we respectfully ask you to take one week for personal reflection, and we hope you will give the Horizon Analysis method a try. Then bring what you learned from your Horizon Analysis to our moderated Project Sunshine discussion forum opening on Thursday February 22nd. Watch the Project Sunshine webpage for the access link on February 22nd!***
Appendix 5: Project Sunshine Shambhala Abuse Awareness CampaignNote: This is the document sent out to people in 2017.Project Sunshine is a one-year project that was launched on Shambhala Day 2017 to (1) establish a working body of concerned citizens to address the situation of sexual and social abuse in the Shambhala community, and (2) create a promotional campaign to start a productive conversation about this situation on a community-wide level.
We are actively seeking written submissions from survivors of abuse within the Shambhala community to be part of this abuse awareness campaign in 2018. As a survivor myself, I know this is a big thing to ask. This is about getting the community together to talk. We are gathering these stories because we want people to be emotionally affected by this.
The goal of this awareness campaign is to get the community thinking about this situation and for them to care.
This phase of the work is about raising awareness. This is not about accusing an individual. Creating structures for justice will follow, and that will be the right time to name the abusers.
Submissions are:
• Anonymous: no names and no historical features that reveal identities • 1 page – 250 words - with two sections:
• Your Story – written with love and self-respect• Impact – how has experiencing this abuse impacted your quality of life, including sense of well-being, relationships, finances, etc.
You can see two abuse story examples in the pages that follow. I am willing to assist with editing your story, if that will be helpful.
KI KI SO SO!