Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexually as

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: Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexuall

Postby admin » Thu Jul 25, 2019 8:41 am

Lex Hixon, 53, Dies; A Mysticism Scholar
by New York Times
Nov. 9, 1995

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Lex Hixon, a scholar on the mystic traditions of the world's religions and formerly a host of a radio show on WBAI-FM, died on Nov. 1 at his home in Riverdale in the Bronx. He was 53.

The cause was cancer, said Cassia Berman, an associate.

From 1971 to 1984, Dr. Hixon was host of the weekly radio program "In the Spirit," in which he interviewed representatives of the world's religions, among them the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa.

Dr. Hixon was born in southern California. He graduated from Yale University, where his studies in comparative religion included the teachings of the Hindu mystic Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, which influenced Dr. Hixon for the rest of his life.

He received a Ph.D. in comparative religion at Columbia University in 1976 and lectured at the New School of Social Research.

Dr. Hixon is survived by his wife of 30 years, Sheila King Hixon; three daughters, Alexandra Ballard of Rye, N.Y., and India and Shanti Hixon, both of Riverdale; a son, Dylan, of Los Angeles; his parents, Alexander and Adelaide Hixon of Pasadena, Calif.; two brothers, Andrew, of Ketchum, Idaho, and Anthony, of Cambridge, Mass., and two grandchildren.
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Re: Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexuall

Postby admin » Thu Jul 25, 2019 8:50 am

Bernie Glassman
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 7/25/19

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Image
Bernie Glassman
Title Roshi
Other names Bernie Glassman
Personal
Born Bernard Glassman
January 18, 1939
Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died November 4, 2018 (aged 79)
Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.
Religion Buddhist
Nationality American
Spouse Eve Marko
School Zen Peacemaker Order
Lineage White Plum Asanga
Education Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute
University of California, Los Angeles
Other names Bernie Glassman
Senior posting
Predecessor Taizan Maezumi
Successor Joan Halifax
Father Robert Kennedy
Wendy Egyoku Nakao
Pat Enkyo O'Hara
Lou Nordstrom
Don Singer
Grover Genro Gauntt
Anne Seisen Saunders
Francisco "Paco" Lugoviña
Barbara Salaam Wegmueller
Roland Yakushi Wegmueller
Website http://www.zenpeacemakers.org

Bernie Glassman (January 18, 1939 – November 4, 2018) was an American Zen Buddhist roshi and founder of the Zen Peacemakers (previously the Zen Community of New York), an organization established in 1980. In 1996, he co-founded the Zen Peacemaker Order with his late wife Sandra Jishu Holmes. Glassman was a Dharma successor of the late Taizan Maezumi-roshi, and gave inka and Dharma transmission to several people.

Glassman was known as a pioneer of social enterprise, socially engaged Buddhism and "Bearing Witness Retreats" at Auschwitz and on the streets.[1]

According to author James Ishmael Ford, in 2006 he

...transferred his leadership of the White Plum Asanga to his Dharma brother Merzel Roshi and has formally "disrobed," renouncing priesthood in favor of serving as a lay teacher.

Biography

Bernie Glassman was born to Jewish immigrants in Brighton Beach,[1] Brooklyn, New York in 1939.[2] He attended university at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and received a degree in engineering. Following graduation he moved to California to work as an aeronautical engineer at McDonnell-Douglas. He then received his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles.[3]

Glassman first encountered Zen when he was assigned Huston Smith's The Religions of Man for an English class in 1958.[4] From there, he continued reading including books by Alan Watts, Christmas Humphreys, and D.T. Suzuki.[4] In the early 1960s, Glassman began meditating[4] and soon after sought a local Zen teacher.[4] He found Taizan Maezumi in Los Angeles, California[4] and Glassman became one of the original founding members of the Zen Center of Los Angeles. He received Dharma transmission in 1976 from Maezumi and then inka in 1995 shortly before Maezumi's death.[2]

In 1980, he founded the Zen Community of New York. In 1982[5] Glassman opened Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, New York, which initially provided jobs for the Zen students and evolved into an effort to help alleviate the widespread homelessness in the area.[6] The bakery provided jobs for inner city residents who lacked education and skills.[6] Greyston employed low-skilled workers from the neighborhood, many of whom were homeless themselves, and sold baked goods to shops and restaurants in Manhattan. In 1989 Glassman entered an agreement with Ben & Jerry's, and Greyston Bakery has become the supplier of brownies for several lines of ice cream.[7]

Through the success of his bakery–which in 2016 was earning $12 million in revenues–Glassman founded the Greyston Foundation (sometimes called Greyston Mandala) with his wife Sandra Jishu Holmes in 1989. He retired from the Greyston Foundation in 1996 to pursue socially engaged Buddhist projects through the Zen Peacemakers.[8] As of 2004 the Foundation had developed $35 million worth in real estate development projects in Westchester County, New York. The Foundation offers HIV/AIDS programs, provides job training and housing, child care services, educational opportunities, and other endeavors.[6] In 2003 the bakery moved to a new building, which allows for higher output and more employment opportunities.[7][9]

In 1996 Glassman, with his wife Sandra Jishu Holmes, founded the Zen Peacemaker Order. According to professor Christopher S. Queen, "The order is based on three principles: plunging into the unknown, bearing witness to the pain and joy of the world, and a commitment to heal oneself and the world."[1] Richard Hughes Seager writes, "The Zen Peacemaker Order...has the potential to rival Thich Nhat Hanh's groups and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship as a force in American activism."[10]

Glassman died on November 4, 2018 from complications of a stroke in Springfield, Massachusetts at the age of 79.[11]

Teachings

Image
Bernie Glassman with Elihu Genmyo Smith

Glassman taught about what his teacher, the late Taizan Maezumi, called the "unknowing." Not-knowing is the first tenet of the Zen Peacemakers, and Glassman said of it, "In Zen the words source and essence are the equivalent of Unknowing, and they come up again and again. We have the absolute and the relative perspectives about life, and Unknowing is the one source of both of these."[1] Also, Glassman was known for his many "street retreats." Author James Ishmael Ford writes, "...'street retreats,' for instance, moves sesshin into the streets: participants eat in soup kitchens, and, if they know they're not displacing homeless people, sleep in homeless shelters or, otherwise, sleep in public places. Zazen takes place in parks."[2] In the 2000s, Glassman developed an experiment in sociocratic consensus-based zen training and interfaith facilitation, known initially as Peacemaker Circle International[12], and later Zen Peacemaker Circles. Interconnected projects were established globally[13], replacing the role of 'Zen teacher' with participants learning from each other and sharing ideas between Circles.[14] In his last years, having disrobed from the priesthood, Glassman together with his wife Eve Marko continued the work of his teacher Koryu Osaka Roshi[15] in developing lay forms of Zen practice.

Lineage

Image
Zen Center of Los Angeles

Bernie Glassman appointed several "senseis"[16] and "roshis" in traditional zen, and established the non-hierarchical roles of 'Steward' and 'Circle Dharmaholder' as coordinators and visionholders to continue the Zen Peacemaker Circles model. A number of his successors have also given dharma transmission to some of their own students:[16][17]

1. Ancheta, Alfred Jitsudo Roshi
1. Arbiter, Eric Kishin Sensei[18]
2. Bruce-Fritz, Carol Myoshin Sensei[19]
3. Elkin, Rick Issan Sensei
4. Fritz, Ralph Kendo Sensei[20]
5. Helzer, Douglas Red Heart Sensei
6. Whalen, Thomas Zenho Sensei
7. Walter, Sydney Musai Roshi

2. Baker, Nancy Mujo
3. Barragato, Stefano Mui (b. 1930)
1. Barragato, Margaret Ne-Eka
1. Wohl, Peter Seishin Sensei

2. Paquin, Linda-Lee Abhaya

4. Byalin, Kenneth (Ken) Tetsuji Sensei
5. Gauntt, Grover Genro Sensei
6. Halifax, Joan Jiko Roshi
1. Kazniak, Al Genkai Sensei
2. Beate Stolte Sensei[21]
3. Kaigetsu Irene Bakker Sensei[22]
4. José Shinzan Palma Sensei [23]
5. Joshin Brian Byrnes Sensei[24]
6. Genzan Quennell Sensei[25]

7. Krajewski, Andrzej Getsugen Roshi
8. Harkaspi, Helen Kobai Yuho
9. Hixon, Lex Jikai (1941-1995)
10. Hixon, Sheila Jinen Sensei
11. Holmes, Sandra Jishu Angyo (1941-1998)
12. Kahn, Paul Kuzan Genki Roshi
13. Kennedy, Robert E. Jinsen S.J. Roshi (b. 1933-)[26]
1. Abels, Gregory Hosho Sensei
2. Abels, Janet Jiryu Roshi[27]
3. Bachman, Carl Genjo Sensei
4. Birx, Charles Shinkai Sensei (b. 1944)
1. Thompson, Scott H. (b. 1948) Dharma Holder (Assistant teacher)

5. Birx, Ellen Jikai Sensei (b. 1950)
6. Cicetti, Raymond Ryuzan Sensei (b. 1950)
7. Eastman, Patrick Kundo Roshi[28]
1. Averbeck, Marcus Hozan Sensei
2. Woodcock, Jeremy Ryokan Sensei

8. Hunt, Kevin Jiun (b. 1933-), O.C.S.O (Order of Cistercians of the Strict Order)
9. Richardson, Janet Jinne, csjp Roshi
1. Blackman, Bruce Seiryu Sensei (b. 1942)[29]
2. Craig, Barbara Shoshin, RSM Sensei [Religious Sisters of Mercy] (b. 1932)
3. Dougherty, Rose Mary Myoan Sensei[30][29]
4. McQuaide, Rosalie Jishin, csjp Sensei

14. Lee, Robert Sokan Sensei
15. Lugovina, Francisco Genkoji "Paco" Sensei
1. williams, angel Kyodo Sensei
2. Nelson, Craig Daiken Sensei
3. Salazar, Joaquin Ryusho Sensei

16. Matthiessen, Peter Muryo Roshi (May 22, 1927 – April 5, 2014)
1. Bastis, Madeline Ko-i Sensei
1. Cantor, Mitchell Doshin Sensei
1. May, Wilbur Mushin Sensei

2. Dobbs, Michel Engu Sensei
3. Friedman, Dorothy Dai-en (Daien) Sensei

17. Marko, Eve Myonen
18. Maull, Fleet Shinryu Sensei
19. Nakao, Wendy Lou Egyoku Roshi
1. Berge, Raul Ensho, Dharma Holder (2006)
2. Boyd, Merle Kodo Plum Dragon Sensei
3. Hawley, Kipp Ryodo Sensei
4. Janka, Gary Myogen Koan Sensei

20. Nordstrom, Louis Mitsunen Roshi (b. 1943)
1. Denton, Timothy Issai Sensei
2. Hawkins, Roger Sensei
3. Thompson, Phil Zenkai Sensei

21. O'Hara, Pat Enkyo Roshi
1. Eiger, Randall Ryotan
2. Harris, Jules Shuzen
1. Rapaport, Al Tendo Fusho[31]
1. Linda Myoki Lehrhaupt[32]

3. Hondorp, Catherine Anraku Eishun
4. O'Hara, Barbara Joshin Sensei
5. Terestman, Julie Myoko Kirin Sensei
6. Thomson, Sinclair Shinryu

22. Saunders, Seisen[33]
1. Deer, Herb Eko[33]
2. Wild, Sara Kokyo[34]

23. Wegmueller, Barbara Salaam Roshi
24. Wegmueller, Roland Yakushi Roshi

Circle Zen Dharmaholders:

1. Margueritte Gregory
1. Jeana Moore

2. Barbara Wegmueller
1. Gabriele Blankertz
2. Chris Starbuck
1. Geoff Taylor and the Western Massachusetts Circle
2. Frances Collins

3. Steve Hart
4. Franziska Schneider
5. Kathleen Battke

3. Roland Wegmueller

Bibliography

• Bridges, Jeff; Glassman, Bernie (2013). The Dude and the Zen Master. Blue Rider Press. ISBN 978-0399161643.
• Maezumi, Taizan; Glassman, Bernie (2007). The Hazy Moon of Enlightenment: Part of the On Zen Practice Series. Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0-86171-314-1.
• Glassman, Bernie (2002). Infinite Circle: Teachings in Zen. Shambhala Publications. ISBN 1-57062-591-3.
• Maezumi, Taizan; Glassman, Bernie (2002). On Zen Practice: Body, Breath, Mind. Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0-86171-315-X.
• Glassman, Bernie (1998). Bearing Witness: A Zen Master's Lessons in Making Peace. Bell Tower. ISBN 0-609-80391-3.
• Glassman, Bernard; Fields, Rick (1996). Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life That Matters. Bell Tower. ISBN 0-517-88829-7.

Other media

Audio


Glassman, Bernard; Fields, Rick (1996). Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life That Matters. Shambhala Lion Editions. ISBN 1-57062-260-4.

Video

• Wegmüller, Roland (documentarian). Japan Tour of Temples, Monasteries and Tradition.
• Wold, Christof (director) (2006). Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life That Matters. Loyola Productions Munich GmbH. ISBN 3-939926-00-0.
• Gregory, Peter (director) (2004). Gate of Sweet Nectar: Feeding Hungry Spirits in an American Zen Community. Zen Center of Los Angeles. OCLC 56132158.
• O'Keefe, Michael (director) (2001). Raising the Ashes. Polonia Films. OCLC 51062604.
• Eich, George (director) (1999). Zen on the Street. Project Ananda Productions. OCLC 51062219. Archived from the original on 2005-12-26. Retrieved 2008-03-04.

Selected honors

• 1991 Best of America Award for Social Action, U.S. News & World Report
• Ethics in Action Award, Ethical Culture Society of Westchester
• E-chievement Award, E-Town, Tom’s of Maine
• Man of the Year, Westchester Coalition of Food Pantries
• 2016 Babson College Lewis Institute Social Innovator Award

Selected board participation

• The Temple of Understanding
• White Plum Asanga
• AIDS Interfaith National Network
• Social Venture Network
• Westchester Interfaith Housing Corp.

References

1. Christopher S. Queen. "Buddhism, activism, and Unknowing: a day with Bernie Glassman (interview with Zen Peacemaker Order founder)". Tikkun. 13 (1): 64–66. Retrieved 2010-12-14.
2. James Ishmael Ford (2006). Zen master who? : a guide to the people and stories of Zen. Wisdom Publications. pp. 167–168. ISBN 0-86171-509-8.
3. Christopher S. Queen (2000). Engaged Buddhism in the west. Wisdom publications. ISBN 0-86171-159-9.
4. "Sweeping Zen Interview with Bernie Glassman". Sweeping Zen.
5. Ari L. Goldman (December 23, 1991). "Cookies, Civic Pride And Zen". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-12-14.
6. Perry Garfinkel (2006). Buddha or Bust. Harmony Books. pp. 33–34. ISBN 978-1-4000-8217-9.
7. Robert Egger; Howard Yoon (2004). Begging for change : the dollars and sense of making nonprofits responsive, efficient, and rewarding for all. HarperBusiness. pp. 136–137. ISBN 0-06-054171-7.
8. Chris Lazarus. "Recipes for Empowering Community Greyston, Mandala, Yonkers". New Village Journal (1). Retrieved 2010-12-14.
9. Mark Roseland (2005). Toward sustainable communities : resources for citizens and their governments. New Society Publishers. p. 173. ISBN 0-86571-535-1.
10. Richard Hughes Seager (1999). Buddhism in America. Columbia University Press. p. 209. ISBN 0-231-10868-0.
11. Bernie Glassman Passes Away
12. Eve Marko, in Women Practicing Buddhism: American Experiences by Peter Gregory and Susanne Mrozik (1998, Wisdom Books US), p114
13. http://ukzenpeacemakers.blogspot.com
14. https://michaelstoneteaching.com/2014/1 ... es-are-us/
15. https://cdn.reference-zenhub.org/koryu_osaka.html
16. Sanbo Kyodan: Harada-Yasutani School of Zen Buddhism and its Teachers
17. White Plum Asanga teachers (Maezumi lineage)
18. "Houston Zen Center".
19. "Forest Wind Zendo".
20. "Forest Wind Zendo".
21. "Stolte, Beate Genko | Sweeping Zen". sweepingzen.com. Retrieved 2018-03-04.
22. "Sensei Irene Kaigetsu Bakker @ Upaya Zen Center". Upaya Zen Center. Retrieved 2018-03-04.
23. "About me..." Shinzan. Retrieved 2018-03-04.
24. "Sensei Joshin Byrnes (Vice Abbot) @ Upaya Zen Center". Upaya Zen Center. Retrieved 2018-03-04.
25. "Sensei Genzan Quennell (Guiding Teacher and Temple Coordinator) @ Upaya Zen Center". Upaya Zen Center. Retrieved 2018-03-04.
26. "Morning Star Zendo". Retrieved 3 May 2015.
27. Still Mind Zendo
28. "Wild Goose Zen Sangha". Archived from the original on 2014-07-22. Retrieved 2015-05-03.
29. "Zen Peacemaker biographies". Archived from the original on 16 July 2013. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
30. One Heart Sangha
31. SweepingZen, Rapaport, Al Tendo Fusho
32. SweepingZen, Lehrhaupt, Linda Myoki
33. Jump up to:a b "Teachers". Sweetwater Zen Center.
34. "Sara Kokyo Wildi, Yogalehrerin und Leiterin von sarva". http://www.sarva.ch. Archived from the original on 2016-01-25. Retrieved 2016-01-09.

External links

• Zen Peacemakers
http://www.greyston.org/
http://www.greystonbakery.com/
• Peacemaker Circles International
• Shambhala Sun interview with Roshi Bernie
• Zen Center of Los Angeles
• White Plum Asanga
• Videos about Zen Peacemakers and Bernie Glassman
• Audio Interview Series on Buddhist Geeks
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Re: Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexuall

Postby admin » Thu Jul 25, 2019 8:57 am

Drinking dads can harm babies just as much as mums who drink alcohol
by Tanveer Mann
Sunday 15 May 2016 5:10 pm

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Future dads, you may have to put away the booze for good if you’re looking to have a baby with your partner.

Because it turns out drinking dads can harm babies just as much as drinking mums during pregnancy.

According to new research, a man’s sperm could be responsible for ‘foetal alcohol spectrum disorder’ (FASD), which affects every 100 infants.

It refers to children born with mental retardation, developmental problems and abnormal facial features.

People normally assume that it only affects children whose mothers downed large amounts during pregnancy.

If you wanted to prevent it, a woman would just not drink alcohol for nine months.

But scientists now say there’s a link between birth defects and a father’s alcohol consumption around the time of conception.

The study, published in the American Journal of Stem Cells, suggests both parents contribute to the health of their children.

Exposure to alcohol before birth is one of the most significant causes of childhood brain damage, learning disability, poor behaviour and even criminality.

Biochemist Professor Joanna Kitlinska, from Georgetown University, said: ‘We know the nutritional, hormonal and psychological environment provided by the mother permanently alters organ structure, cellular response and gene expression in her offspring.

‘But our study shows the same thing to be true with fathers – his lifestyle, and how old he is, can be reflected in molecules that control gene function. In this way, a father can affect not only his immediate offspring, but future generations as well.’

For example, a newborn can be diagnosed with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), even though the mother has never consumed alcohol.

Prof Kitlinska said: ‘Up to 75 percent of children with FASD have biological fathers who are alcoholics, suggesting pre conceptual paternal alcohol consumption negatively impacts their offspring.’

Their research, based on studies carried out on both humans and animals, also revealed that the older a father gets, the higher the chance of schizophrenia, autism and birth defects in his children.

These defects result from ‘epigenetics’, the altering of DNA by environmental factors such as eating and drinking, and can happen in the womb and be handed down many generations.

Prof Kitlinska added: ‘To really understand the epigenetic influences of a child, we need to study the interplay between maternal and paternal effects, as opposed to considering each in isolation.’
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Re: Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexuall

Postby admin » Sat Jul 27, 2019 4:32 am

The Ongoing Blossoming of Tagtrug Mukpo
by Cara Thornley
photos by Laura Greer
shambhalatimes.org
December 28, 2013 – 12:25 am

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

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Image
Taggie Mukpo

Mukpo Family Update: Celebrating Tagtrug Mukpo from a recent celebratory dinner at Karme Choling

“Amazing” was the operative word that Acharya Michael Greenleaf used to describe the celebratory evening held on December 10th at Karme Choling Meditation Center, culminating the 2013 Fund Raising for the Tagtrug Mukpo Trust. Taggie (as he is affectionately known) was the guest of honor at the dinner attended by his supporters, both old and new.

The joy pervading the atmosphere, and the gentle humor punctuating conversations felt like it arose out of the delight the dinner guests had in Taggie’s ongoing blossoming.

If you don’t know about Taggie, hopefully this article can serve as an introduction, and for those who do know him, serve as an update on his inspiring life journey.

Image
Acharya Suzann Duquette and Jeanine Greenleaf at the dinner

Taggie is the eldest son of the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Lady Diana Mukpo. While still a toddler he began having complex seizures, and was diagnosed as having a type of autism necessitating round-the-clock care. His history, presented here on this web site, recounts the journey he is making, particularly focusing on the time since 1991.

Now 42 Taggie sat at dinner with us relaxing in the social world surrounding him and obviously delighting in the evening’s events. He was light years away from the angry withdrawn person he’d been.

For the first 20 years of his life, Taggie lived in a variety of different care situations. The last of which was a group home for the developmentally disabled in Vermont. Taggie’s social worker there observed that while Taggie’s self-sufficiency increased, i.e. he learned to dress himself, brush his teeth, and make his bed -– his medications were ineffective; he experienced frequent seizures, was upset by the emotional upheavals of the other residents and became increasingly violent.

His situation began to stabilize in 1991 when a sangha member living at Karme Choling, Herb Elsky, moved Taggie into the farmhouse near KCL called Bhumi Pali Bhavan (BPB) where Taggie’s father use to stay when he came to KCL. Herb lived there with Taggie alternating caregiving duties with other sangha members.

From this beginning a series of dedicated and skilled community caregivers devoted themselves to developing a care plan, which slowly enabled Taggie to increase his stability and calmness.

Image
Ashoka Mukpo via skype

Ashoka Mukpo, “Live from Liberia” via Skype spoke about the growth he’d seen in his brother, especially in the last couple of years. “It’s been nice to see him flourish as much as he has. In the time I’ve spent with him, it’s been pretty remarkable to experience his emotional openness and strength coming out more and more.”

Acharya Suzann Duquette has written about this growth in an illustrated Shambhala Times article: A New Era For Tagtrug Mugpo

Ashoka continued saying, “It might be a little corny to talk about “the Africa thing,” but living here, I’ve seen that compared to Liberia, our own culture might be losing ‘the community idea.’ In Liberia’s towns and villages, children are really cared for by everybody… Different people have different responsibilities. And, it’s a little bit like that with Tag’s care. Everybody here at this dinner is bringing some piece of themselves to his care.”

Image
Randie Fox

The front line of the group, bringing a piece of themselves to Taggie’s care has always been the caregivers. Ashoka referred to his current caregiver, Randie Fox as an “absolute hero.”

Technically, Randie is called a Shared Living Provider. Because of a Medicaid Waiver granted by the state for Taggie’s care, he receives services through the Vermont Shared Living Providers (SLP) program. Literally this means that a developmentally disabled person moves into a private home. At the time the Medicaid waiver was first granted in 2003 Taggie was still living at BPB and his sangha/community caregivers lived there with him. The state began paying his caregivers that were already in place as SLP’s.

In 2006 the last sangha caregiver resigned and eventually because of the deferred maintenance problems at BPB, Taggie moved into the home of a shared living provider. Because of the skill and care of the SLP, the transition was seamless.
Reports and photos from this time can be seen online by clicking here.

Taggie now lives in Randie’s home with her husband and children. Pictures of Taggie with her children are posted online here. Randie, in talking to us, said how lucky her children were to have Taggie in their life because of his capacity to trust and love people.

SLP’s are supported by the Tagtrug Mukpo Support Team, created in 2003 simultaneously with the receipt of the Medicaid Waiver. A group of five unpaid volunteers, they are dedicated to raising the money to supplement the gap between the government funding and the actual costs of supporting Taggie’s care – specifically to supporting the Shared Living Providers by providing enrichment materials and paying for respite caregivers which allow SLP’s time away from their duties. Ashoka, who has been Chairperson of the Support Team since 2008, talked about the importance of providing respite help.

Image
Susan Taney

“We can’t continue giving the kind of care we give without having funds in the bank to enable Randie to have some well deserved time off.” Ashoka joked, “Even though Taggie’s a wonderful person, just like anybody else in my family – spend enough time around us and you need a couple of days off.”

To which, Randie Fox wisely replied, “Well, him from me, too! Taggi needs a break from me too.” Randie, herself, came to know Taggie, almost 9 years ago when she began serving as a respite provider for another SLP. When that person resigned after several years, Randi, with the full support of her husband and children applied for the job.

Private donations for respite care are received through The Tagtrug Muko Trust, the legal entity created for this purpose in 2003. Acharya Michael Greenleaf is its current trustee and a member of the Support Team. The Trust was the official host for our dinner.

Image
Gerry and Nancy Haase

Other members of the Support Team at the dinner were Susan Taney, Nurse Practitioner and Taggie’s legal guardian, a founding member who was instrumental in obtaining the Medicaid Waiver which allows Taggie to receive the maximum amount of support offered in VT to developmentally disabled persons.

Gerry Haase, seen above with his wife, Nancy, is a founding member of that group. Michael Taney manages the web site.

Of the approximately $16,000 a year needed to supplement government funding, 25% is given by the Mukpo family and the rest is covered by other donors.

Ashoka concluded by saying, “As time goes on we’re hoping to make things as stable as possible so we always know where funds are coming from. You are all a big part of that. I know you love Taggie. Thank you from the bottom of my heart…on behalf of my family: mother, father, brothers and sister, thank you for caring about him. He’s really lucky to have such wonderful people in his life.”

Image
“The Amazing” Michael Greenleaf

After Ashoka signed off, raffle tickets were drawn for prizes, three of which were copies of the book “Why I Jump”, written by an autistic youth and inscribed by Taggie for the occasion. Even after all the prizes were gone, Taggie wanted to keep drawing names and Michael kept announcing the names as “auspicious winners,” and the rest of us kept applauding every time. So much joyful energy.

After applauding Karme Choling, the coordinator Suzanne Trahey and the kitchen staff for hosting this “amazing” evening, Michael made an aspiration that this “first annual dinner” would grow, and more people could learn about and support Taggie.

Learn more about Tagtrug Mukpo, support his care, and see photos at his website here: http://www.taggiemukpo.org
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Re: Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexuall

Postby admin » Sat Jul 27, 2019 8:21 am

New arrest for child sex abuse at the embattled Buddhist group Shambhala: The arrest follows a year of multiple allegations against current and former members of Shambhala International.
by Joshua Eaton
Think Progress
June 28, 2019, 3:17 PM
UPDATED: JUN 28, 2019, 5:39 PM

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MICHAEL SMITH. CREDIT: BOULDER COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE

A Boulder, Colorado, man is under arrest on charges he sexually assaulted a young girl he met through Shambhala International, the Buddhist organization that has been embroiled in a widening sex abuse scandal since last year.

Michael Smith, 54, turned himself in to the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office early Friday after the Boulder Police Department issued a warrant for his arrest on one charge of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, according to the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.

At a bail hearing Friday afternoon, Smith’s bond was set at $1,000 cash or $10,000 surety. He is expected back in court on July 2 at 1:30 p.m. for filing of charges.

“The victim was sexually assaulted by Smith multiple times beginning in 1997, when she was 13 years old,” Boulder city police said in a press release. “Smith was introduced to the girl through his membership in the Boulder Shambhala [Center].”

Boulder police said they also have been contacted by another woman, who alleged Smith sexually assaulted her when she was 11 years old at Karme Choling, a meditation center that Shambhala International operates in rural Caledonia County, Vermont. Authorities in Vermont are investigating that allegation.

Reached at the Boulder County jail after his bail hearing Friday, Smith declined to comment.

Melanie Klein, executive director of the Boulder Shambhala Center, said that her group does have a member named Michael Smith, but that he is not the person who was arrested Friday.

“There may have been another Michael Smith who was a member of the Boulder Shambhala community twenty-two years ago, but we have no information about that,” Klein told ThinkProgress in an email. “His alleged crimes should be prosecuted vigorously.”

Shambhala International and Karme Choling did not return emails requesting comment Friday.

Police said the two survivors do not know each other. They said the women came forward after police in Boulder arrested former Shambhala teacher William L. Karelis, 71, in February for allegedly assaulting a 13-year-old girl he met through the Buddhist group.

Karelis has denied the charges, and he pleaded not guilty. His case is pending trial.

Police in Larimer County, Colorado, also announced an investigation last December into “possible criminal activity” at Shambhala’s retreat center in Red Feather Lake, Colorado, a two-hour drive north of Boulder. ThinkProgress first reported that investigation.

The investigation into Karelis was first reported by ThinkProgress. Smith’s arrest was first reported by The Denver Post.

Shambhala has been in crisis since at least February 2018, when the advocacy group Buddhist Project Sunshine began publishing a series of four reports detailing allegations of sexual assault by Shambhala’s head, Sakyong Mipham, and other senior members. Mipham and Shambhala have denied parts of those reports.

Shambhala’s board announced its “phased departure” on July 6, 2018. Mipham temporarily stepped aside from his teaching role the same day pending an investigation Shambhala commissioned from the Halifax law firm Wickwire Holm. Mipham remains the head of the organization.

That investigation found that Mipham drunkenly kissed and groped at least one of his female students “in a manner to which she did not consent.” After the report’s release, Mipham admitted to acting in ways that “hurt others,” but he has denied any criminal behavior.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

Do you have information about sexual misconduct in Shambhala or another religious organization? Contact reporter Joshua Eaton by email at jeaton@thinkprogress.org or by Signal at 202–684–1030.
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Re: Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexuall

Postby admin » Sat Jul 27, 2019 11:55 pm

Interviews: Bob Halpern cuke page
Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki
by David Chadwick
June 11, _____

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ROBERT HALPERN - Green Gulch Farm, June 11, 3:05 -later more at my house in San Rafael and more on the phone. Robert now lives in Halifax.--DC
See photos of Bob below

I went up to the Bay Area in 65 to a Yasutani sesshin and my friend wanted to stop at Bush street and meet Suzuki Roshi who I hadn't heard of - so I went there with him. Katagiri had just arrived [in 64] and he took us upstairs at Sokoji and Suzuki Roshi took us into his office and he sat there with the three monkey statue near him - see no evil etc. - with his hands behind his head - that theme was a favorite of his - he liked to collect them. A number of people gave him those because they knew he liked them. I heard him say more than once that was one of his favorite themes. He entertained us and told us Dick was trying to find a practice center in the countryside. Dick had been talking about it - founding a practice center to have more strict practice and he said he was perfectly content on Bush street but if they wanted to do it, his students, if they insisted, he would do it - but he himself didn't see any problem with the way things were going.

DC - Interesting - Dick always said that Suzuki Roshi did it because he felt that people just weren't getting it, that only Dick could practice in the city and that he needed it for others. But whatever he said to you at that time might have been intended more to encourage you to accept city practice which was all there was then - to say it's okay here now.

As a matter of fact he specified that Dick was insisting.

He'd flip back and forth from Dick to they.

He was less magnificent, so much more ordinary and frail, not sickly but small and didn't have a gruff voice like Toshiro Mifune in the samurai movies. I'd only met Yasutani Roshi who screamed and ranted and raved and bounced up and down - he was more vital then - when we saw him at Tassajara a couple of years later he'd aged a bit. Suzuki Roshi was 20 years younger than him and I expected him to be a lot more vibrant - but he was so gentle and soft-spoken. He didn't sit in lotus, in a samadhi pose, he sat in a chair western style with his legs crossed like men do here. he wore tabi - obviously afraid to get his feet dirty and he didn't have enough hair on his legs - seemed unmanly to me.

Then I went back to LA and invited Yasutani's translator, Maezumi sensei, to leave Zenshuji to start a Zen Center to teach Americans - so then I went to live with him - at the newly started LA Zen Center and shortly after Suzuki Roshi was visiting Zenshuji for a conference of Japanese Soto priests in America and Maezumi invite Suzuki Roshi to dinner and made niku (meat) donburi or some such thing - and I fed myself vegetarialy at the table and Roshi said "don't you eat meat? and I said well, sometimes, and Roshi said, "oh, sometimes I eat rice." And he said it so smoothly that it didn't stop me. It shocked me only later when I replayed it. I wasn't embarrassed a the time. But later I realized what had happened - he had made fun of my small minded approach.

DC: You mean like not wanting to break the precept against eating meat?

And that he'd used English masterfully. Sometimes I eat rice was a masterful ironic way of making fun of what I had said.

It gave me pause for thought. By the time that the impact of having had dinner with him sunk in, I was starting to resolve to become his student. Even though we'd had very little conversation. At dinner it seemed that Maezumi was trying to impress him and to get him politically on side and all that.

DC - It certainly didn't work.

That's right.

So then I decided to go up to Suzuki Roshi and closed up the Satori Book Shop and Gallery on Sunset strip [Robert was one of the first people to sell the psychedelic posters for the rock concerts of the day - he sold that part of the business to Bill Grahame.] and go up to do a sesshin later that year - about a month later. I went in Friday night during the movies and just lay down on the tatami in the zendo so I'd be there in the morning but he got up early to go to the kitchen and came over and woke me up and he said you're not supposed to be here and I bounced up into some sort of correct posture and bowed to him, my new master and double-talked some gibberish and so he took me in and gave me tea and then the sesshin started and I had a Japanese type brown half-skirt, my sitting uniform, my way-seeking mind uniform, and he looked at that ridiculous thing my girlfriend had made for me and so I sat there - later on when he told me not to study with Maezumi, when Maezumi came to the opening of Tassajara and he asked me to come help him with sesshin, cook or administrate or something and Suzuki Roshi refused permission for me to go and told me that if I didn't think there'd already been a change I should try to reflect on how incredibly arrogant I was when I first showed up. I'd be wasting my time to go back to that place where nothing had been accomplished but a lot of arrogance. I hadn't been there very long but in any case so what happened and then I didn't move immediately but started to commute on weekends and things like that - stayed in the flat where Jeanie Campbell lived. It was the first communal living space. She talked to Suzuki Roshi about developing it that way.

DC: So did Claude.

I thought of myself as a macho sitter so I applied to be in the first crew of Tassajara - you were already there - in spring of 67. I lived on Bush street for a while with out a job and hung out and sat for a while.

DC: The first I remember of you, you were on the deck by the kitchen at Tassajara - I think you had hiked in - did you?

I don't know.

[Bob Watkins says he did]

When I went to Tassajara I felt I was already a member of the sangha, that I already had Dick Baker as an enemy - you have to be a member to be on his demerit list. [He tells about how Dick gave him some posters to put up in LA for the Zenefit and how Robert had not put any up when he was there.] -

Seems to me that before the first training period started that I finagled and pushed my way to be on the rock crew with Suzuki Roshi - no matter what I was assigned to - I ended up on the rock crew. I'd help him pick out rocks in the creek I tried to stick to him like a glove. Until Phillip Wilson showed up I'd get the job. And then I'd even usually get that job with Phillip - we made that our niche - we wanted to be special. In one paragraph Phillip would call him Reverend Suzuki, Suzuki Sensei and Suzuki Roshi, Roshi, get all mixed up

I used to stand outside his cabin hoping he'd come out so I could be with him - I developed a kind of father complex - looking for his approval and all that and I would pat him on the back and do things that others were too shy to do. I got into a warm cocoon of relating with him - got into that hi Roshi pattern. And I would try to drive him as much as I could and Mrs. Suzuki would tell me to drive him someplace because she didn't trust Dick - she thought he drove too fast.

DC: Same with me

And behind Dick's back I would reinforce the image and tell her that he usually drove over a hundred. I really slandered him. Roshi must have never snitched on me cause I was a terrible driver and I would fall asleep while driving and he'd start working on my neck

DC: Same with me - once driving him to Stockton to Dan's parents place for a Quaker meeting I was falling asleep and Phillip was in the back seat and kept asking me if maybe he shouldn't drive and was worried that I was going to kill his teacher. We were always so tired from getting up early and going to be late.

We fell into a roll that if he was going to a Japanese person's home one of us would drive him. If he went to get antiques he might take Silas. We went to the house of the guy who's daughters were Rumi and Kumi.

We went to a wedding or a funeral or something and I had a couple of drinks and was enjoying and relaxing and I thought that was my function - that he liked me cause I could talk freely with them and be friendly and he came over and said to me with a roar "You're drunk!" and I wasn't drunk but that was the first experience I had with him that showed he expected something of me - improvement or growing sense of discipline. He didn't drink but he never let on that he cared so I was surprised.

Later at Zen center housing when Jeff B. decided he'd go around naked - he was trying to be real to communicate and took off his clothes and I was Claude's assist. as head of ZC housing. Suzuki Roshi said we had to talk to Jeff because if he saw him he'd have to banish him forever. That was a surprise to me - it seemed he was saying he had an uncontrollable temper that most people would never guess cause we were so masterfully tamed and he was so sweet and gentle.

Another time I saw him bark the same way with his wife when he came home for the hospital when he had that throat coughing thing - 69? He'd had a long stay in the hospital. After that he was laid up in his room and for a couple of months it seemed we'd be sitting in the zendo and as we sat we'd hear him coughing through the whole period - repeated coughing. When he came home Okusan told me to carry him on my back upstairs, piggyback because he was weak - and he growled at her that he was not going to be carried like a grandfather - that's how they carry the old in Japan when they're crippled. He really lashed out at her.

Once at Sokoji I thought I saw a miracle. Siddha (supernormal) - a side product of practice. He wanted to get up into the ceiling at Sokoji through the hole in the tall ceiling so I went to get a chair from the kitchen table - he was just over in the alcove where things were stored. And I was thinking of putting a chair on a table - and I turned around and he was up there. It was an extraordinary gymnastic feat. How in the world could somebody less than 5 foot tall leap up there - off the kitchen table in the hall way out there - and I was really shocked - he was going up there to see how much the pigeons were infecting the attic you know the cooing we'd hear - quite a racket - in cooing or mating season - he wanted to go up and check it out. I thought of that when later he told me that instead of manifesting as a big dragon that he also had a dragon but he kept it little and in his kimono so that people couldn't see his dragon. He had a secret dragon - he said that in his office not long after he flew up to the ceiling. I think he was telling me about not trying to be special in other people's eyes.

Later I saw another miracle at Tassajara when we were building a retaining wall in the little creak by the bridge. Mike Daft was down there and Roshi was watching him build the wall down below and Suzuki Roshi picked up a fifteen pound rock, a small boulder, and he threw it over the bridge towards Mike's head and as it was in the air he said "Mike!" who looked up and caught it - a very unusual occurrence that remains with me to this day.

DC - I've heard similar stories. Jumping in the tree and onto the back of the dump truck flat footed. Maybe it's a Japanese thing - Arthur Okamura used to amaze folks at Smiley's bar in Bolinas by jumping up on the bar flat foot from the floor.

Ask Phillip Wilson how he'd move rocks. He had pretty good strength considering he was a frail man in his sixties - and occasionally he would do things that just didn't jive - because he had that bent finger - and without putting any weight behind it, he'd move a rock with his hands instead of with his body. In working with rocks you have to get close up - you can't just reach up with your hands and move them so his way of working was a little surprising - but basically he was straightforward. It wasn't miraculous but something nagged at me that he had a special relationship with these rocks because they moved around when he felt like it.

Phillip and I would have contests of strength - we'd act like complete show off babies and he'd fuel the fire and he'd ask on of us "isn't that one too big to move and we'd completely exhaust ourselves trying to impress him - he'd get an incredible amount of work out of us - or just let us play out our energy and I was quite amazed at working with him that he could do all this without drinking water - you know hot hot Tassajara summer The way we had to guzzle down water to work in the sun - he didn't want a sip - he didn't get thirsty, he didn't sweat.

In those early days before his private bath time was announced by Dick, I often used to bathe with him. I would finagle it. I would always make sure I took my bath at the exact same time that he did because I wanted to be around him. The first time he undressed in the hot summer he was wearing a wool haramaki (waist sweater) and I said what's that and he looked at me very directly as if to say that I'm going to tell you this just once - "I wear this every day no matter how hot it gets."

DC - Japanese laborers wear them but a neighbor of mine in Japan said they're for yakuza. We got them from SK Ueda in LA.

I've been through quite a few.

I remember he used to come back from the baths wearing a small white towel on his head. Then one day I saw him carrying a book like he was going to sneak a read. I stopped - I used to watch his movements as if my eyes could suck like a baby sucking at a nipple - that's the way I looked at him. Like I could get some key to the mystery of life by watching him. I wasn't the only one who looked at him that way. Anyway, the book was "Born in Tibet" - a guy named Frank had given it to him who came over from Scotland - huge Adam's apple. He'd studied with Trungpa Rinpoche in England and evidently Roshi was reading it and liked it a lot.

I used to try to impress Roshi. Before Reb came I used to sit in the seat right in front of him at Sokoji - the row facing the people facing the wall. One day I had a sleeping attack and he did his rounds and bypassed me because I'd automatically sit up when I knew the stick was coming around. He was up on the platform again and I was nodding out and he stepped down to hit me and I thought that's very compassionate and sat bolt upright and he went back up but then I fell asleep again and that time he leaped down and whacked me a few times. I thought what a blessing - now I'll be completely wide awake - although I've disturbed my teacher's own chance to practice he's blessed me with this lighting awareness in which I'll be able to penetrate in the deep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. So then he came down and whacked me harder and harder and didn't leave and I fell asleep and it kept going like that till the period was over.

Remember when we used to bow to him after sitting - I used to compose how I was going to bow to him.

DC - I remember how a few times Loring took acid right before dokusan in sesshin - so he'd be peaking when he met Roshi.

He liked to walk - he was so natural- completely unaffected - but still when people were looking he'd tend to walk in shashu (shashu is hands together and the solar plexus) but when he was by himself - like going to visit that Christian friend of his who had the antique store down on Webster street - he'd sometimes walk with his arms straight and out a bit and with his palms to the front - hitting the air - I don't know why he did it that way - if he liked his chest to be open - an unusual posture you don't see people normally doing.

DC: He used to walk casually with his arms at his side all the time, even at Tassajara - that's what I remember.

Around that time there were the riots in the Filmore and we told him he mustn't go.

DC: We went over and told him he should get out of the neighborhood - there was rioting in the streets and we were worried about it spilling up into our area and had fears of angry blacks streaming into Sokoji breaking into buildings and killing people and we told him and Okusan they should leave and he said no, black people like me - they like to put their finger on my head - they like to pat babies and Buddhas. In fact I think I'll take a walk up there and go visit them and we said no no no no! please no and he backed off - we said ok ok stay - but at least please don't walk up there.

Later in that riot, when it wasn't safe - he did take a walk - to go see his friend on Webster street.

I went with him a number of time to that shop like if he had to get a wedding present for a friend he might go back two or three times just looking to see if something would grab him.

He did go for a walk anyway, with relaxed confidence.

I remember a year or so later he was up late at night agonizing over a letter he had to right to his friend Yamada Roshi at headquarters, the vice abbot of Sotoshu. Suzuki Roshi was trying to resign from Sokoji and he wanted to write a letter and explain to them that he wanted to spend most his time with his American hippie students. He wanted to give them warning and he was agonizing over the letter and I said to him, if he's your friend why don't you just call him, and he made me feel like as a 20th century American boy I could augment the Buddha activity because it never had occurred to him he could do such a high tech thing and that it would make sense and wasn't a terrible waste of money and he treated me like I was a very clever person for thinking that one out and he made the call and his friend understood the whole thing and he didn't have to write the Japanese letter.

DC: Do you remember the time when he'd been sick? or maybe it was because he was going to Japan soon or - I don't remember, anyway we went over and caught him and he said "and while I'm in Japan I'm going to give Dick transmission, and then you'll have an American priest, teacher," and he seemed so pleased to say that and we went WHAT?! and you said "Suzuki Roshi, if you give Dick transmission, EVERYBODY's gonna think you're crazy."

Oh yeah

DC: And he said no no no sort of whiney and I asked does that mean that Dick is fully enlightened and he said no no no it just means he has a good understanding and a FULL commitment.

Right - commitment

DC: We couldn't believe it - we were shocked - and we weren't actually down on Dick like a lot of others.

We weren't in those circles.

DC: I told Kobun that in the office and he raised his hands up in horror like a monster was attacking him and went "no no no - maybe he's talking about Phillip." But we had such romantic ideas about transmission then which to most Japanese priests is like graduating from college.

Why did Kobun take it so seriously?

DC: Cause Dick and he didn't always get along - Dick couldn't stand the way students related to Kobun with awe as soon as he arrived even though there were Westerners who'd studied Zen a lot longer around there. We'd sit up late with him asking him about his enlightenment experiences cause he had a yellow robe and was Japanese. He spoke so slowly.

Waiting for his next vowel

DC: Remember when he was giving a lecture in the summer and guests came to it to hear a Zen lecture and he was staying up late studying and he spoke so so so very slowly - Kato says he does that in Japanese too - slowly but so beautifully - and there got to be longer and longer spaces between the words and then he was just sitting there and then he started to lean forward and then he started to drool and this long strand of drool went down into his mudra and woke him up and he just sat up and started talking slowly again.

I remember when the shit hit the fan and he lay in bed like he was sick day after day cause he'd had the thing with Evelyn Lentz. and Suzuki Roshi tortured him by making a rock garden right around his doorway and on some very hot days his door would be open to help cool his cabin down and he wouldn't even get up to take a pee for hours while we worked waiting for the end of work period. It was a kind of double-edged behavior for Suzuki Roshi to have - he kind of felt sorry for Kobun who wasn't feeling well but on the other hand he was needling him with this extraordinary hot claustrophobic breath of being right outside his door all day long.

DC: I was carrying the kyosaku one night in the zendo and I left, walked out and right up to Kobun's door and knocked and as he stood there I hit him gently on each shoulder with the kyosaku and he bowed and I went back hearing his door close as I walked off.

DC: I once was driving Suzuki Roshi and I asked him have you ever had a student who understood your teaching and he said yes and I said how many and he said one and I asked was it an American and he said no and I said was it a man and he said yes and I asked was he Japanese and he said yes and I asked what happened to him and he said, "He died." [I now think he may have been speaking of Nishinakama.]

He told me that he was very impressed with Trudy Dixon. Once after the Monday morning sitting in Mill Valley he said let's go visit Trudy and we rang the door bell and Mike answered the door and he had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, unshaven and instead of jumping to attention like everybody does what he'd been through was so devastating walking someone through their dying when you're as young as he was and going through his own turmoils about his sexual orientation - and he just went oh hi Roshi and just kept talking there with the cig in his mouth dangling out of the corner and we talked to Trudy for a while and she was so interested in him and what he had to say and seemed to be equally interested in me. She was just interested in other people in how they were doing and how they felt and what they had to say - even though she was very ill with cancer - and so we left there and he said after he'd gotten into the car, "Now there's a real Zen master."

When his son Otohiro went into the army and he asked me to move into his apartment by Katagiri's across the street from Sokoji

Roshi asked me to vacate the apt so Trudy could live near ZC for the last few weeks of her life - I left my clothes in the apt and was crashing up the block and I'd go there after ironworking to take a shower and change and we used to carry Trudy across the street to meditate - lie on her back because she was so weak.

And I'd visit her and tell her whatever was going on in my brain and she'd ask things about it and I'd be so oblivious that I was talking to a dying woman that I'd sit there relaxed lying back in an easy chair and ask her to make me a carrot juice which would use up all the available strength she had for three days that she needed to sit.

DC: Yes I remember at Tassajara she had special food in one of the fridges in a bag marked for Trudy do not touch and you told me that you couldn't stop yourself from stealing it even though there was only enough for her.

Roshi and Rinpoche were talking in the dining room at Tassajara where they first met in 70 - his second visit [to America?] - and Rinpoche had his back to the creek and Suzuki Roshi was facing him sitting at one of those tables for eight people and the han started to go for Suzuki Roshi's evening talk and Roshi said don't worry, I've got about fifteen minutes before I've got to give my talk. And Rinpoche said, I know, we've got a system just like that in Tibet. And then they looked at each other and there was an electrified air of silence. A kind of nervous silence and then they started talking again except when they resumed talking it was in English. Evidently Roshi had said the business about I have fifteen minutes in Japanese and Rinpoche had answered him in Tibetan.

DC: Then how'd you know they said those things?

I talked it over with Rinpoche afterwards and I asked him what happened and he said I'm not sure, what do you think happened and we went back to the event but I never discussed it with Roshi

DC: But Roshi never said anything in Japanese

Well when I talked with Rinpoche it seemed the two of them had had a flash and flipped into some sort of family feeling - a different kind of environment - I'm trying to tell you the unusual things I remember I know he didn't speak in Japanese - that's why I remember it. This was a unique situation.

Rinpoche was brought into Zen center flat on his back like by pall bearers after throwing down a couple of fifths of Johnny Walker black label. He said, hi Roshi, I'm druuuuunk. And not long after that Rinpoche invited me to come to boulder and I said I had to talk to Suzuki Roshi about and he said "Oh he'll think it's a good idea and I was taken aback that he'd be so presumptuous but when I asked Roshi he almost cried. He said when I think about Trungpa it makes me think I want to tell all my students to drink more. He said he thought it was a good idea and he'd always opposed my crackpot schemes to go to do this or that. Once I left with you to go to Texas and he was opposed to it till I told him we wanted to visit the Hopi and your mother and grandmother and there were people in Texas interested in Zen. Once he saw it wasn't' just for entertainment or excitement he said okay.

DC: I never asked him about things like that - I'd just tell him.

Yeah - it's like the time that Jewish girl - Beverly - found a twenty dollar bill on the street and she was full of guilty type of thoughts about like what should I do with it, I didn't earn it, so she went to Roshi and asked him what she should do with it and he said give it to me without hesitation.

He said I couldn't go to Mexico to visit my old friend Juan with Alan Marlowe. He said no but when I told him that it would stop Alan from going to Tibet to live in a cave he said okay.

Ask Henry Schaeffer about Roshi.

DC: He stopped going to ZC because Roshi asked him to cut his hair didn't he? [I later did an interview with Henry.].

DC: In what way did Suzuki Roshi teach?

He was reluctant to comment on a persons practice very much so that when he did people cherished it and studied it like a koan - now if he did say something - like David you're too hard on yourself, you'd remember that forever. And you couldn't catch the rhythm of why he approved or why he disapproved.

DC: Like the time that you and I were with Trungpa screwing around and he was drunk of course at night after a talk and he said that our problem was that we were too serious.

Straight forward direct criticism of you was unusual and people would cherish it as the direct teaching.

He always apologized for telling us too much because he said it was much better to not say anything but I can't help myself, I've got to tell you the following.

I was in Toronto with Trungpa at Beverly Webster's? house and Kalu Rinpoche was sitting on the floor with his students, paying their respects, and Trungpa Rinpoche was sitting in his chair drinking a bloody Mary and Kalu was asking him how to teach Americans and they got up and did their prostrations and left and then Fran Lewis came in with a phone message from Yvonne that Roshi had advanced cancer and wasn't expected to live and before she finished saying it Rinpoche was crying blood, he burst a blood vessel in his eye or something and his tears were all pink and he cried like a baby who'd just seen their parents mowed down - there was no shock, just agony and he was really torn apart, couldn't stop crying and he said to me you go back immediately and I said I have so much confidence in Roshi he's a living buddha he's fine and you're completely falling apart and he said no he's your teacher you have to go and I'll come up in a couple of days and so I went and went immediately to Okusan to talk to her in the kitchen and Roshi came out to us from his bed which was evidently unheard of he wasn't seeing anybody at all - this was a low period and he was all purple and weak.

Remember how he did Dick's ceremony when that strength came from somewhere amidst the fainting. When I saw him there he kind of struggled out and he sat down and he said to me with measured breath, "How many of my students are with Trungpa?" and I was fumbling and said, "You look really good Roshi" and I told him I'd been at Rocky Mt Dharma center and there were about a dozen and he asked me how Rinpoche's health was and how his leg was and then I helped him back into bed and then I noticed there was this stack of get well cards off in the corner on the dresser but right to his bed was this big post card flipped around to the back with the writing showing no the post card was showing - a picture of the Rockies that I had sent from Colorado - a big postcard I'd said Dear Roshi and had drawn a picture of Buddha with a picture of Suzuki Roshi on one side and Rinpoche's teacher on the other side and said this is Rinpoche's shrine which was also Karmadzong at the time because we sat at his home and I said Rinpoche's shrine, love Bob. He was very intently interested in what we were doing there - he didn't say how are you? to me. He wanted to know how Rinpoche was doing. When Rinpoche came out a couple of days after he'd heard, I couldn't meet him at the airport but I went to meet him where he was staying that evening and I went in and he told me a little Boulder gossip and then he said "I had a really beautiful visit with Roshi today - I went from the airport right to his home and went to his bedside and we didn't say a thing, we just held hands for about three hours, we really didn't say a thing and he looked at me and he kind of puffed up his chest and he said, and I didn't even cry at all and then he started sobbing just like he had in Toronto and we couldn't stop him.

DC: But they did talk - I know because Rinpoche published it - in Garuda [which is on cuke]

Once Roshi was sitting on the floor front row center for Rinpoche's talk sitting with all the students and Rinpoche pulled his leg up, pulled it up to crossing as he sat in the chair till it fell down, and did that a few times and then he said "The open way is the title of the talk at Page Street" and he said "I'm not gonna sit here like a little righteous old man telling you what to do and what not to do "- it sounded like he was criticizing Roshi who'd tell people how to live - you should wash your hands after you go to the toilet you should handle things carefully, live mindfully and all that but he wasn't - there was this great love that went on between them -

I remember the first time he came to page street Roshi asked him to sit down on a sofa in the guest dining room and Rinpoche blurted out "in your tradition what's the difference between prajna and vijnyana[sp?]? because I'm a little confused having read so much emphasis by reading the English translation of Zen texts" and Roshi said just a second and he almost ran up the stairs to his room, very uncharacteristically, and he came back excitedly and he said what word was it and he looked em up in Sanskrit and saw the Chinese and said well for us prajna means this and vijnyana means that and Rinpoche said I'm so glad because that's exactly what it means for us and the two of them were quite happy about that the further discovery that both had the same sense of these subtle philosophical distinctions between things so then Rinpoche asked one of the people in his group to run out to his car and get the magazine called Garuda - the first Garuda - and Rinpoche who was well trained in oriental politics and had been to oxford with princes and hobnobbed with Nehru and the Dali Lama opened up the Garuda and said to Roshi and this is our center in Colorado and here you see this and this is what we're doing so instead of the usual diplomatic stuff he's all excited like a son showing his father what he'd done and Roshi was quite happy about the whole thing

Once I was driving him back from Mill Valley and I asked him if he thought I should give up smoking and he said weather or not you give up smoking you should always practice as hard as if you're involved with giving up smoking and then he said what did you ask and I said should I give up smoking and he said yes just to punish me for asking.

DC: Once we went to Bill Kwong's sitting and afterwards went over to Bill's for breakfast with Roshi cause he'd literally given us each like a heaping tablespoon of seven grain cereal or rice or something and afterwards we were all starving and went to a pancake house cause we were all hungry.

DC: Once you were sitting in the back seat, maybe that time, maybe not, and you asked him if you should quit smoking and he said that practice is pretty hard, it's at least as hard as quitting smoking, and you said did you hear that David and feigned throwing your cigs out the window and you might have done so but you smoked just as soon as he was out of sight.

I remember one time driving him to Tassajara he wanted to stop at the Monterrey zendo in someone's house - Ueno's, the priest - he remembered roughly how to go there but it was my first time and he was saying it's around here someplace - we were getting there very early so we could sit so we left at about three. And the sun was just coming up and he said stop and we got out and he looked up at the mountains and caught his orientation and he said go this way - he had a geographical sense of where he was in relation to the mountains, the Santa Lucias.

DC: So how did Suzuki Roshi teach?

He always talked to us about how impatient he was because he always used the most extreme utmost patience in teaching so his idea was that Dogen taught about returning the water to the river not so much by telling people that he did it but by actually doing it day in day out. To do it whether he felt like it or not.

DC: Definitely

And Roshi looked forward to days when he didn't feel like practicing because that's when he could make the message to us that you do it weather you feel like it or not rather that just lecturing us about that and that

Somebody asked Gandhi, my boys addicted to sugar talk to him to break him of the habit and he said yes I'll talk to him but wait a couple of weeks cause I have to kick it first myself.

DC: Can you give an example of how he taught by example?

One day I tried to make a point to him that I was a sentient being with human needs and desires so I said to him at dinner want to go so a movie tonight? and he said sure - Okusan's not here and a group of us looked at what was on and piled into my van and went to see 2001 and it was a second show and a long movie and it was in the South Bay quite a ways away and we got back very late and the next morning he was up for sitting

DC: I was there and during the movie he didn't say anything except to tell me to shut up when I tried to explain him something and afterwards he said, "Is that what LSD is like?"

And later he used that movie frequently in his talks - the monolith was like the Alaya Visnana - he refereed to various things about that movie

Looking back on it, it seems his mind was constantly seeking for ways that he could explain Buddhism in our own language

DC: Do you remember before the first practice period at Tassajara when we were sitting in where the zendo came to be before there was any zendo - with the big fireplace - you asked him, "Suzuki Roshi, there are various students doing things that actually don't seem to be an ideal part of the practice - like bathing together men and women or talking in the baths and it seems we need more rules and don't you think we need some rules here? And he said yes the broom over in the corner is standing on its bristles and it should be on the wooden butt and that will preserve the broom - there - that's your first rule. And that's the way Buddha's rules came about - not sitting around dreaming up rules but in response to actual situations. However, the next day he said that up to now we've had men and women together in the baths and they are a place to practice, to continue our zazen , second only in importance to the zendo and when we bathe together men and women its not really practice, it's social - so for now on men and women will bathe separately and the people like Jim and Bill and their wives who were trying to practice with us got mad and left saying it was too puritan for them.

He appointed me ino (head of the zendo) for Tatsugami's visit and I was completely undisciplined and he teased me afterwards calling me mistake ino Roshi. He said your problem is that you try too hard. after I'd screwed up breaking all the rules. He said everything would be fine if your not so hard on yourself.

DC: Yeah, Tatsugami told you that he knew what your problem was - that he'd had a friend like that and he got neurosurgery. You were crushed.

Suzuki Roshi said I'm not so Japanese anymore. Yoshimura is and more so Katagiri. They are typically Japanese whereas Chino sensei is more like you - a real unusual type.

DC: It was interesting how we could get him to gossip or comment on others. I remember once standing on the road with him and he pointed to a woman and said she's too serious and I wondered why did he say that to me - is it because I'm too serious? Why else would he try to tell me about somebody else?

He told me that he had a philosophy about children - that they shouldn't be taught - they should just be played with and he told me I should be involved with education when he gave me my Buddhist name and that he liked the way I was with younger people

Do you remember at the funeral? Well first all these honchos from Japan and America one after another with red robes - the vice abbot of Eiheiji or whatever went by his casket and Rinpoche walked up heaving in agony with the Tibetan white scarf and kept trying to put the scarf on him and he wouldn't go and it kept flipping off the casket and he was heaving with emotion and Okusan broke into tears who had been so composed through the ceremony and afterwards she in a hurried way ran upstairs to get his walking stick that he'd last used and came down into the hallway and gave it to Rinpoche.

He had his last visit with Roshi at San Francisco Zen Center a short time before Roshi's death; Rinpoche returned there for Roshi's funeral in December. During the ceremony, he went up to offer a khata, a Tibetan ceremonial white scarf. With one hand, he unfurled the scarf and it hung in the air and then draped perfectly, beautifully, over the casket at the same time that he uttered a piercing cry.

-- Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, by Diana J. Mukpo with Carolyn Rose Gimian


I used to drive him to Marian's house and there were usually about five people - it was in Marian's garage with a tiny group of housewives.

DC - I remember more like fifteen.

They showed movies at Sokoji in the big auditorium on the weekends and I remember Roshi saying that i resolve not to go to the samurai movies and then I hear those swords clashing and I begin to think I wonder why they're doing that I wonder what's going on in there and then I hear a couple of more swords clash and then I go in and I'm hooked and I stay for the whole thing.

Then I remember another time driving him down to Tassajara with some Zen monks from Japan and we stopped in a motel in Monterrey and they were watching TV ignoring it and chatting but when the commercials came on they were captivated by them

When he was tested for alpha waves by Joe Kamia he constantly slept during the test

DC: Rinpoche said that until he met Little Joe, the Peyote Road Man, Suzuki Roshi was the only sane man he'd met in America

Rinpoche said that after he left Tibet he never heard of his teacher again and he felt so sad and alone and then when he met Roshi he felt that he had a friend

He said that all the people supporting him in England were only making things worse - the whole Christmas Humphreys crowd.

I asked Suzuki Roshi isn't it important what you eat and he said yes but it's more important how you eat and more important than that is how you sleep and he said it with his brilliant sense of irony and timing but he also said not to read before you go to bed

DC: He said don't drink anything before you sit zazen

No intoxicants - but his message about diet and all that was not to screw up one's synchronization of mind and body

I was worried that my parents might not approve of Suzuki Roshi when they came to Tassajara and he told me that I needn't go in and join them in his cabin. I was nervous waiting outside and it went on and on and on and I opened the door and my father and he were rolling on the floor laughing and my parents had completely fallen in love with him and my mother thought he was exactly like her father and he said to my father that they think we're old and they don't realize how young us old people can be. He said the only old one around here is the mountain. To this day my father quotes him.

He got angry at me once for making a disparaging remark about Alan Watts - I said his books were shallow and he said that was completely missing the point that what I should notice is that Alan watts books brought thousands of people to Buddhism.

DC: He also said that Alan Watt's was a great Bodhisattva - same thing.

He also got angry at me once when I told him I got a job iron working and he asked me how much I was being paid and I said 6$ and hour and he said that was no kind of money for a Zen student to make - however he did tell me that he felt that Dick should get a salary like a director of a corporation.

At one point Claude and I were worried that he was banking his $600 a month he was earning when he went on ZC salary and stopped taking money from Soto headquarters and we talked to him and Okusan and found out he was giving about two third of his money to charity without telling anybody. Like polio or united fund. The only time he'd spend any money would be if he bought a gift for a Japanese friend or something.

Once we were crossing a toll gate and he asked me to get a receipt for a quarter and he said I'm too old to learn how to take care of financial things but there's still time for you.

DC: Okusan said that he kept good records and was careful to distinguish between what was ZC and what was personal and that he never had time to teach Dick about that and that's why Dick didn't understand those things so Dick got confused about what was personal and what was ZC. But from what I saw, Dick was more special to him than anyone else and he left that sort of thing up to us. Personally I wasn't so bothered by Dick's spending. Maybe it got out of hand but a lot of it was for public benefit like his trip to Russia with the US Soviet friendship people. He didn't do anything carelessly, just not in synch with the students I guess - ultimately.

My impression is that he respected Dick's ability to manipulate the situation and ride heard as an administrator to keep the whole thing together. He liked his vision in that sense and to be quite the artist or as sensitive a person as Roshi was but that he well represented him in terms of catching the vision of how he wanted things to grow and develop so he felt quite good about him as a heart son in that respect.

Do you think that Suzuki Roshi planted seeds in his students that are just beginning to come to fruition?

DC: I don't know. I guess so.

I do. I think that anytime he said anything to anybody that they didn't understand that they kept playing it or replaying it and that late something would percolate. Later they'd see it meant something they never realized.

Suzuki Roshi couldn't understand everything people said and when he spoke extemporaneously it wasn't near as good as when he prepared - he'd tell us how forgetful he was but he could remember lots of words he looked up in the dictionary

What about Hoitsu?

DC: He has no inclination to do what his father did - he doesn't like zazen and Suzuki Roshi asked him to learn English so he could come over and help but he didn't want to. [Hoitsu has totally changed since then. - dc 5

Hoitsu studied kendo for many years and Sri Oribendo said the way East and West will finally meet will be in sports. Hoitsu got mad at me for bringing him gifts in Japan - he said you can come but don't bring gifts.

DC: Wow - that's what all Japanese do. He also gave me back a donation I'd left on his altar.

This is the end of the cuke interview with Bob Halpern.

Photos of Bob

4-04-11 - Had some fun exchanges with my dear old friend Bob on Facebook today and downloaded these four photos from his page. - dc

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That's Bob, Suzuki, and Philip Wilson

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Bob Halpern with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

[x]
This photo withdrawn by cuke censor: Bob Halpern with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the center at - I don't know, maybe a meeting of the Vajra Guard. They look like they're getting ready to invade someplace.

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Bob recently. Hi Bob! - dc
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Re: Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexuall

Postby admin » Sun Jul 28, 2019 2:11 am

Henry Schaeffer with Sam Bercholz and Walter Fordham
by cuke.com

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Henry Schaeffer: I saw Rinpoche and Roshi together on four different occasions. The first time was when he gave the talk at Zen Center in May 1971, in the dining room, not the Buddha Hall. The second time was when he blessed Taggie (Tagtrug Mukpo). The third time was when we went there for lunch. Were you there, Sam?

Sam Bercholz: Mm-hmm

Henry Schaeffer: Yeah. We went there for lunch. It was Sam, myself, I think Frannie (Fran Lewis), Cason (Tania Leontov), John baker and Marvin (Casper). We went there and one of the things Rinpoche had said to us then was: "Ask Roshi what's the difference between prajna and jnana." Roshi said: "They're the same." And then one of us said: "Rinpoche says they're different." So then Roshi said: "Excuse me, I have to go up and get my Japanese Sanskrit dictionary. He went up to his room and came back down with it; then he looked at it and said, "Oh, they're different." I really felt, and I believe it to this moment, that he [Rinpoche] was also instructing Roshi. Now, is that something strange to say? I don't know. But that's what I saw.

The fourth time Roshi invited Rinpoche down with Diana. So I drove them down to Tassajara. And then Rinpoche gave a talk at the zendo one of the evenings we were there. Another thing we did down there was Roshi showed us the spot where he wanted to have his ashes, [after he was] cremated. It was further downstream from those buildings: the zendo, the kitchen, the whole thing. We took a walk over there, and Roshi showed us that he had chosen these particular rocks and boulders and stones. It had already been worked on, but it wasn't complete. That I remember very clearly. That was the fourth time I saw them together. [The site is not downstream - dc]

But the third time, he [Rinpoche] was staying with Sam's [business] partner, Michael, in Oakland.

Walter Fordham: Michael Fagan.

Henry Schaeffer: Michael Fagan yeah. And Michael Fagan had this big, maybe Victorian apartment, that was either on the second or third floor, and overlooked several backyards, and it had a back porch. So it was a nice night, and as you know, Rinpoche liked to stay up late at night, and he had a lot of us students there drinking and hanging out with him and talking. It was very late, three or four in the morning, and in the first Garuda [a sangha newsletter, which had just been published, and which Rinpoche was paging through for the first time], there's a photograph of Rinpoche from Gold Hill, wearing a kind of a grayish sport coat with a turtleneck sweater. But in that turtleneck sweater you can see his beads [malas]. They showed through [the sweater (see photo above)]. We were there and Rinpoche told us, "The time for this is over," and he took his beads and twirled them around like this, and threw them over a backyard, he just threw them away.

Walter Fordham: The malas?

Henry Schaeffer: The malas. Yeah. He just threw them across to another backyard. I can't remember which one it was, but ... We were kind of facing parallel and right and left and in front of us were backyards. And then he told me, tomorrow morning, go at ten or ten thirty and tell Roshi that he [Rinpoche] was coming at 11 with Taggie, and Roshi was going to bless Taggie. Not ask him. Tell him.

As I told you, Roshi always told me I did things wrong. I never did things the right way. I was always doing them wrong. So I told Rinpoche, "No no, oh no, he's going to really get angry with me." I already felt like maybe I had offended him because I had gone to study with the Rinpoche. A lot of people at Zen Center, Yvonne Rand, and lots of people told me I had betrayed Zen Center and Roshi by going to study with Rinpoche. You know they were telling me that there.

Rinpoche told me to get up early in the morning, and go there. So I did. Rinpoche said, "I'll be there at 11." So I went there, and I asked for Roshi, but he was up in his apartment. So then I asked for Yvonne Rand. So she came and I told her what the situation was, and she didn't like it at all, and she said, "No." I insisted, so she finally went up and talked to Roshi, and then in a few minutes he came storming down. At least that was how I saw it, and he was chewing me out, telling me, "What's this? I'm supposed to ... like giving me orders ...?" I repeated what Rinpoche said, and just then the doorbell rang and they had a desk there, with a person there, and the person went and opened those two double front doors at the Zen Center and when he opened the door, Rinpoche was there in kind of a similar shirt that we saw in the video of where Rinpoche is holding Taggie with Diana, that kind of shirt. And he's holding Taggie, and we're just seven or eight feet from the front door. I'm standing there with Roshi. And he [Roshi] wasn't that tall, but he was like a mahakala, or something. That's how I experienced it. The doorbell rings, Rinpoche is holding Taggie, and walks up to us and starts walking around in circles, holding Taggie. I'm standing kind of like this and Roshi is here, looking at me, and Rinpoche just walks around, making a few circles.

Walter Fordham: He goes around you?

Henry Schaeffer: No, just in front of us, just circles, walking around in circles. So then Roshi says, "You want me to bless Taggie?" and Rinpoche said, "Yes." And then Roshi said, "Okay." It changed then, and then Roshi said, "I have to go upstairs because I have these new Roshi robes from Japan that I've never worn before." So it was a very special thing. We went into the Buddha Hall, and Roshi had a special twig with little branches on it.

Sam Bercholz: I was there.

Henry Schaeffer: With water

Sam Bercholz: Yes.

Henry Schaeffer: And he had a little mirror, and he did this whole thing; chanted certain things in Japanese, and then he put the twig with little branches in water, and ...

Sam Bercholz: That's where Rinpoche got that ceremony.

Henry Schaeffer: ... and sprayed Taggie. And then he took the mirror, the special mirror, front of Taggie and [claps hands twice] like that. And Taggie responded

Sam Bercholz: Yeah.

Henry Schaeffer: He said, "But ..." I can't quite remember. But he saw it as a very good sign. Then we went into the dinning hall, and had some sort of refreshments.


Sam Bercholz: Mrs. Suzuki had prepared something.

Henry Schaeffer: Mrs. Suzuki was there, too, right. "Missus" in Japanese is "Okasan," that's how she was always referred to, "Okasan." [dc - Okusan]

Walter Fordham: That's great Henry. That's fantastic detail.

Sam Bercholz: His memory is unreal.

Walter Fordham: And that's a really important event because he [Rinpoche] did that ceremony.

Sam Bercholz: That's unreal. How would anyone remember that, I mean the details of it. But some people have asked where that [ceremony] comes from, and it came from right there. That was the first time, and Rinpoche really paid attention.

Henry Schaeffer: So, I'll tell him about the talk. Yeah, that was something, that was something. So there was already a set date that Rinpoche was going to come [May 27, 1971]. There was already a lot of controversy at Zen Center: Rinpoche was a charlatan, Rinpoche was just a pandita (scholar), not a yogi/practitioner. So this talk had been arranged and a lot of people came. You know, his books were out, Born in Tibet, Meditation in Action, and the first Garuda ... I drove Diana and Rinpoche, and Rinpoche had been drinking pretty good. So we walked in there, and they had the traditional ... the priest's dressing room ... a room shortly after you came into the building, and we went in there before the talk. People were all gathering and they're mostly there already, because we always got there a little late. So we're in there, and Rinpoche was sitting on a regular chair, and he had these high boots, remember the high shoes with a lot of laces? So I was kneeling on the floor.

Sam Bercholz: He had that leg brace thing.

Henry Schaeffer: Leg braces, yeah. Even after the operation, he still wore the braces. So I had to take all that off, and I was kneeling, and there was a knock on the door, and I think Diana opened the door, and it was Roshi. So Rinpoche says to Roshi, "Hi, Roshi, I'm drunk." So they talked while I was doing this, and then Rinpoche said to Roshi, "Well, Roshi, you can go now." So Roshi [says], "Okay," and he walks out and he's looking concerned. So Diana walks out with him, and closes the door, and they're standing in the hallway, and then Diana comes back in and says to Rinpoche, "Roshi thinks you're angry or upset with him."


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Chogyam Trungpa: We need someone to help light the candles immediately.

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Chogyam Trungpa acting very "politely" to the 16th Karmapa

-- Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche -- Screencap Gallery, produced and directed by Johanna Demetrakas




My beloved daughter had no chance against this wicked person, who I believe is a Nazi sympathizer as per his Facebook profile post (see video). As a result of Katsura Kan’s manipulations my daughter is dead, and he is promoting Hitler.

Amazingly, but not surprisingly, he was considered good enough to be hired by Naropa University in Boulder, CO, which is an accredited higher learning institution, where we believe he taught his students without any proper teachings credentials, the destructive dance of Butoh and its philosophy in the classroom which promoted pain, suffering, and death. We will look into what I believe is the undeserved accreditation of this university.

Thank you for watching,

Tibor Stern
On Behalf of the Sharoni Stern Estate
President of F.A.C.T., Inc.


Earlier that year, Allen had invited several poets to Boulder for a poetry reading. Gary Snyder, Robert Bly, and Nanao Sasaki were invited to read poetry with Allen Ginsberg and Rinpoche. In addition to his own poetry, Allen read some of Rinpoche's poems from a recently published book, Mudra, which included many of the early poems Rinpoche had written, in England in the sixties. The evening ended rather disastrously after Rinpoche put a large Japanese gong over his head while Robert Bly was reading a serious and significant poem. Rinpoche did a number of things to disrupt Bly's reading, actually. Gary Snyder and Robert Bly interpreted Rinpoche's behavior as rude and drunken. I guess it was, but from his point of view, their behavior was arrogant and bombastic, and he felt that humor was needed to lighten up the space. Allen took this controversy remarkably in stride, and managed to remain friends with all involved. Snyder and Bly, however, wanted nothing further to do with Rinpoche, and as far as I know, he had no regrets on his side.

-- Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, by Diana J. Mukpo with Carolyn Rose Gimian


Sam Bercholz: Do you remember what the talk was he gave? You were going to say that. I think Dick Baker was there, right?

Henry Schaeffer: Yeah, everybody was there. It was totally jammed, people on the floor. I mean ... have you ever been to Zen Center? [DC - Dick Baker was in Japan]

Walter Fordham: No.

Henry Schaeffer: It's got a big dining room and they had, you know, they moved all the tables out.

Sam Bercholz: Yeah.

Henry Schaeffer: There were people sitting in the aisles. There were people sitting everywhere, all around. Roshi is up there, Katagiri [Roshi] is up there, and Rinpoche still keeps them waiting a bit. So finally, Rinpoche says, "Well, time to go out." He wasn't staggering at that point, but when he got out in the hallway ... I am holding on to him and he's going all over the place. We're walking down, and they had these like French doors right there and we start walking in and all these people are sitting in the aisles and everything, and [I'm] barely holding him and he's going all over the place, like you're in a ship at sea, a stormy sea. I finally get him up to his seat. Katagiri is there. Roshi is there. And then I sat on the floor, and Yvonne Rand was sitting in a seat. I was right next to her. The place is jam-packed and they're all looking at him [Rinpoche]. He barely gets on the seat. He used to be able to cross his legs and he could always ... you remember this? When he sat, his right leg could go totally parallel to the floor even though ... Do you remember that?

Walter Fordham: Yeah. Right.

Henry Schaeffer: So he would ... and he would miss....[his leg] and he was doing all this stuff.

Sam Bercholz: What a joker.

Henry Schaeffer: And Katagiri went to help him, but Rinpoche went like that [demonstrates] to him. Because I saw it, you know, and Katagiri sat right back down.

Sam Bercholz: Sensitive guy.

Henry Schaeffer: Huh?

Sam Bercholz: He [Katagiri] was a sensitive guy. He knew.

Henry Schaeffer: He knew.

Sam Bercholz: It was just a little ... it was the tiniest little gesture.

Henry Schaeffer: Yvonne Rand said to me, "You're his attendant, you ought to be helping him," and I said, "No way." So there he is. He finally gets the leg up there, and I guess Diana brought the drink in. Whatever it was, but it was alcohol, and they had a glass of water there for him. But she brought him a glass too.

Sam Bercholz: Those were Johnny Walker days, so it was obvious.

Henry Schaeffer: So he's there ... Was it the Open Way?

Sam Bercholz: Something like that. That's right. I remember it was a Mahayana talk.

Henry Schaeffer: Yeah, yeah. At first it's very hard even for us to understand him, but pretty soon ... Oh .... He took a long time, like he used to, before he even spoke, he just [exhales], you know. He felt the whole room, and got the sense of it, and everybody is there with all their thoughts and thinking. I think he must have lit a cigarette and that really ... The drink and the cigarette ...

Sam Bercholz: It was driving them insane. Not like they didn't all smoke or drink, but still ... driving them insane.

Henry Schaeffer: Finally though, he does begin to speak, and as he's talking it gets clearer and clearer, and pretty soon he's just totally right there, and the room changed. It was really something, and then in the question and answer period, it was amazing. So many people, a lot of people fell in ... a lot of Roshi's students.

Sam Bercholz: They were so magnetized, it was unbelievable.

Henry Schaeffer: Yeah, a lot of them immediately planned to leave and go to Boulder, so that was the other thing. It made a tremendous uproar at Zen Center. It was so powerful, and like Sam said the other day, it was like a stroke, a samurai stroke. But it was so gentle, it was so gentle.

He gave the talk during the sesshin and it was either a 7 or a 9-day sesshin [ dc - 7 - never was a 9], I can't recall. The talks were on Tuesdays or Wednesdays generally at Zen Center, and Saturdays. That Saturday I heard that Roshi was giving a talk, and then I went to the talk at the sesshin. I got there in the morning and sat and then about 11 he gave the talk. So he started talking and he said, "I want to talk about Bodhisattva Trungpa. He said, "When Alan Watts came here and smoked and drank [dc - that wasn't at the City Center, he just said he couldn't accept Watts' drinking], I couldn't accept it. But when Bodhisattva Trungpa came here and smoked and drank, and drank the way I'm drinking water now... (and then he took a sip), I gave up." And he went like ..., he made that gesture like, "I just gave up." Then he said, "You have no idea how much support he's giving you. He's giving you so much support. You have no idea."

So he [Roshi] saw. He understood right away.


For example, in the Shobogenzo-zuimonki Dogen Zenji tells a story, which was told to him, about an influential person, Ichijo Motoie. One day Motoie discovered that his sword was missing, and since no one else could have broken into his house, one of his own men must have stolen it. The sword was found and brought back to him, but Motoie said, “This is not my sword, so give it back to the one who owns it.” People knew that the man who had the sword was the one who had stolen it, but because Motoie didn’t accuse him of it, no one could say anything, so nothing happened. This is the calmness of mind we should have, according to Dogen.

If we have generous, big mind, and if we have a strong spirit of practice, then there is no need to worry. Dogen emphasized a sparse, simple life. Without expecting anything, we just practice our way. Many students asked how it would be possible to support the temple or group without any plan, and he said, “If it becomes difficult to support our temple, we will think about it.” So before something happens, it is not our way to think about it too much. In that way we have complete calmness of our mind. Because you have something, you worry about losing it, but if you don’t have anything, there is no need to worry.


-- Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen, by Shunryu Suzuki


Politeness is about not hurting other’s feelings, not putting people on the spot, and not crossing them in front of others by saying things which might cause the speaker embarrassment. Instead, hold your correction until later when it’s one-on-one and the person has a chance to consider why they may be wrong.

Polite people do not blame and do not complain.

-- Politeness beyond words, by Amy Chavez
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Re: Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexuall

Postby admin » Sun Jul 28, 2019 4:40 am

Politeness beyond words
by Amy Chavez
Special to The Japan Times
December 24, 2011

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We all know the Japanese are “very polite.” But being polite goes beyond just saying excuse me or thank you or holding the door open for someone. Let’s start with the word “teinei,” or “polite,” in Japanese. Teinei goes beyond the English word “polite” because it applies to far more than just people and their actions. In Japanese, you can treat a fragile item “politely” meaning “gently” or “with care.” A birthday present should be wrapped “politely.” A friend recently complimented my cat, exclaiming how “politely” she uses her litter box (clean and orderly).

Politeness can also be synonymous with respect. Putting other people first: giving them the biggest piece of cake, the best seat in the restaurant, or the center position in the photo, are all part of everyday politeness in Japan. The traditional Japanese house even has a dedicated seat for guests — the one in front of the tokonoma, so that the guest is framed in a background of the beauty of Japanese art (hanging scrolls, ikebana, ceramics, etc).

Respect is about patience. Waiting in line without complaint, and giving others the chance to express their opinion without someone immediately challenging their words. It’s about listening to others, allowing them to open up. It’s respecting other’s opinions, even when they’re different from yours. Respect includes copious doses of “benefit of the doubt.”

Respect means not boasting, not dominating the conversation, and not talking in an angry voice. Respect even entails holding in your emotions, so as not to make a scene if things don’t go as smoothly as you think they should at the bank, post office or city hall.

Politeness is about hesitation, that slight verbal delay employed when you have to ask a favor (rather than just barreling right in with your request). And when someone does ask us a favor, so often we are inclined to think: What’s in it for me? Instead, we should be asking: What’s in it for us?

And don’t just accept favors, return them too. No, not tomorrow, today. Procrastination results in putting yourself before others, doesn’t it?

Politeness is about not hurting other’s feelings, not putting people on the spot, and not crossing them in front of others by saying things which might cause the speaker embarrassment. Instead, hold your correction until later when it’s one-on-one and the person has a chance to consider why they may be wrong.

Polite people do not blame and do not complain. In short, politeness is the realization that, OMG, it’s not all about you! Instead, it’s about us.

Politeness is about grace. Using your hand to refer to the person standing over there rather than pointing that accusing index finger. It’s about honoring dress codes: dressing well just to please others. Yes, you may be uncomfortable in that shirt and tie, but if you wear jeans out to a nice restaurant, you are making your guest look bad. Think about the people around you and that they might be uncomfortable if you: talk too loud, gossip about others, or wear offensive clothing.

Politeness is about respecting property. If it’s not yours, don’t take it. Just because it’s not chained down doesn’t mean it’s yours. In Japan, there isn’t even any “finders keepers . . .” (“losers weepers!” How’s that for compassion!). Instead, if someone drops their hat on the sidewalk, the finder rests it on the nearest post, so it is easily visible to the person coming back to find it.

Politeness is about being a good citizen. Don’t throw trash on the ground, and if others do, clean up after them (yes, even if you didn’t do it). Sweep the sidewalk or pathway in front of your house every day. Clean the drains in your neighborhood of leaves and debris. Take responsibility for your environment, rather than just blaming others who don’t. Clean up after yourself, whether it be a hotel room, a stadium seat, or a camping spot. Do your part. Then do some more.


Respect means you do not deface property, even if you are an underprivileged youth or a rebel high school student on detention. Privilege is not a prerequisite to politeness.

Politeness is about having a sense of duty, and doing things even though you may not want to. Are the in-laws driving you crazy? So what! Honor your spouse and tolerate them. Rather than cop out by avoiding them at holidays, ganbaru instead! Remember, it’s not about you, so stop being so selfish. Instead, be selfless.

Politeness is about the little things, such as staying to help the host or hostess clean up. “Of course I do that,” you might tell yourself. But are there also times you don’t do it? Quite a few, actually? Being polite is making these things regular habits. No exceptions. Even when you’re tired. Even when you don’t feel like doing it.

In my country, people get noticeably nicer at Christmas time. But should politeness be seasonal? Why not be polite all the time? We should strive to always live at the highest level, the highest ideal.

Politeness promotes harmony. But most importantly, try to remember that it’s not all about you — it’s all about us, living in this world together.

And may your cat use her litter box politely.
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Re: Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexuall

Postby admin » Sun Jul 28, 2019 5:55 am

Wrongful Death Lawsuit of Naropa Dance Student Upheld
by Christine A. Chandler
April 14, 2019

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Trungpa’s Tantric College in America to Spread his Cult Teachings and Programming in the United States

EXCLUSIVE: Heartbroken father wins wrongful death lawsuit against Japanese ‘death dance cult leader’ who made 32-year-old daughter his ‘sex slave and plied her with mind-bending drugs’ that drove her to suicide

• Tibor Stern won a wrongful death lawsuit after a six-year legal battle against Katsura Kan, who he accused of driving daughter Sharon to suicide in 2012
• Kan is a Japanese citizen who was teaching Butoh, a dance in which students are told to ‘wallow in the darkness of their soul’ at a college in Colorado
• He was found liable by a Florida circuit court in March after he failed to attend a summary judgment via telephone; Damages have yet to be determined
• Butoh features slow, controlled movements and is traditionally performed in white body makeup, it also portrays grotesque imagery or absurd environments
• Sharon met Kan when she enrolled in the master of fine arts program at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado in 2007
• ‘Kan intentionally and/or recklessly inflicted emotional pain and suffering on Sharon from the day he met her until the day she died’ according to Tibor’s suit
• Tibor claims Kan ‘seduced Sharon, abused her physically and mentally, humiliated her, insulted her, and manipulated her’
• He added: ‘I’m a very loving father and she was my best friend. I know who she was. I know what she became. The man needed to be found guilty’
• From the Daily Mail Article Updated April 9th, 2019 by Donna Anderson for the Daily Mail.

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prayer flags on Shambhala Day

“Naropa University has over 6,500 alumni that are leaders in their fields, entrepreneurs, healers, educators, and innovators. They start businesses, nonprofits, private practices, and innovative community organizations. They show up differently in their fields because they (sic) unshakeable and grounded while exuding compassion and non-judgment for others. As an alum of Naropa, you shared a journey that shaped who you are today – and who you are in the world. We invite you to stay engaged with the Naropa community and join us for Community Practice Day, Shambhala Day, Community Week, and various events and receptions throughout the year. As unique as our alumni are, they each share one powerful commitment: “to meet the world as it is and change it for the better.” Explore resources, ways to connect, and share your story with us through the links above.”

-- From Naropa’s Website. 2019


Thousands of Trungpa’s Naropa graduates, with their ‘soft science’ careers and/or tenured professorships at Colleges and Universities; Journalist Schools; Environmental Programs and Environmental and International Law; Harvard Divinity and Religious Studies, and most particularly Psychology programs to help promote Shambhala International and its Tantric, chaotic and undemocratic influence on American soul.

Naropa’s motto, for all who enter its Tantric halls, promoted as just a liberal institution, is to be “Change Agents to Change The World.”

Naropa was set up by Chogyam Trungpa, and his Karma Kagyu Lamas, to infiltrate through psychology, psychotherapy, religious studies, academia, the arts, and create graduates under ‘undue influence’ of his cult; without being aware that they, too, were part of the Plan. Just as much as the more active, die-hard cult Vajrayana members, who took vows to these despots on thrones.



-- Danza Butoh - Katsura Kan en Buenos Aires "Time Machine" 1/3


Katsura Kan, and his cult of Butoh Death Dance, a very Tantric-influenced cult, would have been like a bee to honey finding Naropa’s attitude to ‘crazy gurus’.



My beloved daughter had no chance against this wicked person, who I believe is a Nazi sympathizer as per his Facebook profile post (see video). As a result of Katsura Kan’s manipulations my daughter is dead, and he is promoting Hitler.

Amazingly, but not surprisingly, he was considered good enough to be hired by Naropa University in Boulder, CO, which is an accredited higher learning institution, where we believe he taught his students without any proper teachings credentials, the destructive dance of Butoh and its philosophy in the classroom which promoted pain, suffering, and death. We will look into what I believe is the undeserved accreditation of this university.

Thank you for watching,

Tibor Stern
On Behalf of the Sharoni Stern Estate
President of F.A.C.T., Inc.


Starting in New York earlier in the year, Rinpoche had developed some spontaneous theater, shall we say, in connection with taking his evening pill to control his blood pressure. (He had developed high blood pressure in the early 1970s.) This ritual reached new heights that summer. At the end of an evening at Aurora 7, whoever was there when Rinpoche was getting ready to retire, which often included the servers, would be invited into the living room to witness a spontaneous play. The drama always revolved around Rinpoche taking his medicine. He would speak in what sounded like Japanese, although he didn't know Japanese, and David would tell the audience what he was supposedly saying. The point of the play was that, when Rinpoche would swallow the pill, it was supposed to be committing seppuku, or ritual suicide, as in the Japanese samurai films. Instead of using a sword, Rinpoche would die by the pill. When he actually swallowed the pill, he would fall down on the floor, writhing in what seemed like genuine agony, and sometimes a little saliva would leak out of the corner of his mouth. Then he would fall silent, his eyes would roll up in his head, and frankly, he looked like he was dead. Then he would revive himself and laugh heartily about the whole thing. The first time I witnessed this, I thought we should call an ambulance.

-- Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, by Diana J. Mukpo with Carolyn Rose Gimian


This is because the earliest and most fanatic cult devotees of Trungpa run the place. They learned first-class trickery from master tricksters: Lamas like Trungpa; the master trickster of them all. His early devotee cult members have been training thousands of unwitting change agents for this late Warlord from Kham who are now in our psychotherapy clinics, in the arts, in gender studies departments, in prestigious Divinity Schools across our nation. Spreading this medieval doctrine, as secular, liberal and ‘compassionate’ to new, vulnerable college students they recruit.

These harem-keeping ‘no-good-no bad’ chaos-creating early cult members of Trungpa were the most thought-controlled of all; to help him undermine our Western democracy: Trungpa’s explicit goal with his ‘advanced’ Shambhala change-agent students.

I was one of them. I took that vow; ‘to perpetuate’ Trungpa’s medieval world. All of Naropa is still staffed and administered by these early cult members; his first inner circle.

So Naropa University didn’t think anything was wrong when a Japanese guru (a ‘visiting’ Naropa teacher on staff for eight years) tortured and drugged and abused and eventually caused the death of this beautiful young dance student; a daughter, a sister, and a friend.

They looked the other way. Like they always do. But, fortunately, the public and our legal system weren’t cult-influenced by Trungpa and Tantra and didn’t look the other way. Katsura Kan has just been found guilty of contributing to the wrongful death of Sharon Stern.

Naropa Institute has been one of the main enablers of ‘Crazy Wisdom’ gurus like Katsura Kan.
Con Artists, and Abusers. Like Chogyam Trungpa; and Trungpa’s Regent, who also could do what he wanted, even if it killed students, too. And Trungpa’s son, biting and abusing and sexually exploiting hundreds of female students. Many Tibetan Lamas on the prowl have taught at Naropa.

That this is a Tantric cult being run out of Naropa Institute (now University) under the Karma Kagyu Lama hierarchical Theocracy of despotic Tibetan gurus on Thrones, influencing our American sons and daughters and getting Federal Grants, i.e., our tax dollars, to exist to abuse ‘another day’ is little known. Trungpa’s early students are experts at keeping secrets; having taken vows to do so to their first guru.

What I find still shocking is how much cognitive dissonance strategies are being used to deny, obscure and hold onto this cult of Tantric Lamaism by those who believe they are addressing the problem while still under the Lamaist hierarchy’s thumbs. They refuse to believe that all these Lamas operate as One. Fooling Westerners over and over and over again. They cannot accept that they are still in the cult of Lamaism when they continue to stay in its Tantric net. They are addicts who still need a guru fix. It is sad and disheartening to see, after all this exposed abuse. That they remain enablers of Lamaism’s institutional abuse by not letting it go is hard to watch.
Since this abuse cannot be changed while still in the cult of the Lamas.

Naropa University has its influences in big business, with many enablers outside of the cult, such as in Boulder, Colorado and at the University of Colorado. Not to mention the billion-dollar Mindfulness commodity, started by two Naropa students and the Dalai Lama. So, it is not surprising that there is ambivalence and mostly silence in addressing Naropa being complicit with guru abuses.

Naropa, after years of disassociating from Trungpa, is now creating a Chogyam Trungpa Institute within Naropa to teach Trungpa’s medieval Tantra unashamedly again. These Naropa staff and administrators have no shame. I believe Trungpa’s inner circle watched and waited and saw how these women who were abused, could be confused again, easily, and that the whistle-blowers were few.

Because, to whistle-blow and truly be a survivor (not just clamoring to take a settlement and sign a non-disclosure agreement with the billion-dollar corporation that is Tibetan Lamaism, and the secrets will be kept) you cannot be part of this overarching, highly organized, multi-sect lineage of the Tibetan Lamist cult anymore. Not in any way. You can’t go off with other Lamas recommended by the Lamaist hierarchy to keep you still in the sticky net. You must leave your cult friends still in it in any way. Because they can’t be trusted. They are still under the spell. Unable to call the root of the problem out. This is one big Lama cult and that is what has to be seen to be free.

But, winning this Wrongful Death Lawsuit? This threw a wrench in the cover-up mix of Naropa and Shambhala International, and all the Tibetan Lamas and their damage control plans. Winning this ‘wrongful death suit’ is Big. It should have happened thirty years ago when Trungpa’s Regent caused a wrongful death. He was the President of Naropa around this time and a sadistic guru who slept with hundreds of mostly heterosexual male students while knowing he had AIDS.

AIDS was just a concept to this cult bunch and still is. Even when a young dharma brat died.

It took thirty years, for finally a wrongful death suit to be won. It is a start.

When I look out at both these Sharia Islamist and Tibetan Lamaist devotees now? I see female enablers who would rather be in a sexually, misogynistic cult, than face the truth of their having been in a cult; enabled the cult; and refuse to do the hard work of coming out.

Some of them still in the Tibetan Lamaist cult are getting book deals to promote the Dalai Lama’s innocence in all this, and the protection of their own guru Lamas. They want the public to think Sogyal, and Trungpa, and his son are just ‘exceptions.’ And, how there is ‘no overarching hierarchy’ of Tibetan Lamaism, a.k.a. ‘Buddhism’ even though they watched as the Lamas of other lineage sects sexually shared their daughters and friends.

It is more important to save Tibetan Lamaism, and Tantric factories like Naropa University, than their sons and daughters from abuse.

And I extrapolate this cult-like behavior to the Progressives who are the Hard Left’s les idiots utile du systeme. These populations overlap, since Allen Ginsberg days. They don’t care about boundaries, either. Or right or wrong. The end always justifies the means to their similar Utopian dream: The destruction of a Western Democracy by stealth.

Neither do Tibetan Lamaists care about the boundaries of women, westerners or other Democratic nations that have supported them, gave them refuge. They have no concept of these things. So Katsura Kan fit right in. They don’t care about women or boundaries or a democracy of free people, or thinking for yourself.

Tantra is a misogynistic nightmare for women, and Katsura Kan exposed it for what it is.


So, this is really about cults in our midst. Whether religious or political. And warning people when they have dangerously merged.

And the psychologists and anti-cult groups who do nothing about it? Don’t call it out? Don’t want to know? Don’t want to see? Are in their Mindfulness groups? They aren’t going to rock the boat. They went along with the “new religious movement’ politically correct label that allowed these groups to become wealthy cult ‘Churches’ with no transparency. How many of these Tantric psychotherapists and Hard Left Progressive academics, in collusion with these Eastern cults, have infiltrated into Anti-Cult groups? They have infiltrated everywhere else. It wouldn’t be the first time that cult-apologists have infiltrated anti-cult groups to weaken them. Fortunately, F.A.C.T is not one of them and calls a Cult a Cult when it is the Elephant in the room.

Winning this suit is a big victory; One of the many to come, we hope.
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Re: Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexuall

Postby admin » Fri Aug 02, 2019 3:00 am

CU's [Colorado University's] expertise in Tibetan and Buddhist studies is unusually deep
by Clay Evans
March 1, 2014

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Image
Holly Gayley, assistant professor of religious studies at CU-Boulder, takes in the view near the Amne Machen Range in Tibet. Photo courtesy of Holly Gayley.

We have three tenure-track, full-time specialists in Tibet, and that’s three more faculty specializing in Tibet than you find at most universities. It’s not a huge group … but it’s an incredible opportunity (for research) and also for students.’

Belly up to a bar, drop by a café, or sit down at a bus stop and mention Tibet in most any American city, from Baltimore to Boise, Phoenix to Philadelphia, and the ensuing conversation will be short.

“I would say that in general Americans who pay attention to global events will know something about Tibet, but they might not know much,” says Holly Gayley, assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“They know something bad happened there that might involve China, and that’s where the Dalai Lama comes from,” says Carole McGranahan, associate professor of Anthropology, who specializes in contemporary Tibet. (See YouTube interview, at right, about her research on the CIA and Tibet.)



But that isn’t the case in Boulder, a small island of Tibetan and Buddhist culture and home to a thriving community of immigrants and exiles from the Himalayan nation that was invaded by China in 1950.

Tattered, fading Tibetan-style prayer flags flutter from eaves throughout the city and many a Subaru, Volvo or SUV sports a “Save Tibet” bumper sticker. Buddhism, considered exotic and mysterious in much of America, is just another belief system in Boulder.

The city also has become a center of academic research into Tibetan religion, culture and the environment. Naropa University, started by the late Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1974, was the first Buddhist-focused university in the United States.

What many people may not know is that Trungpa first taught in Boulder at CU [Colorado University], and today the university shares with Columbia University the distinction of having three faculty members who specialize in modern Tibetan studies: McGranahan, Gayley and Associate Professor of Geography Emily Yeh, whose research focuses on environmental issues on the Tibetan Plateau and the Tibetan diaspora. All three women have traveled extensively in Tibet.

“I usually say we have three tenure-track, full-time specialists in Tibet, and that’s three more faculty specializing in Tibet than you find at most universities,” McGranahan says. “It’s not a huge group … but it’s an incredible opportunity (for research) and also for students.”

McGranahan in recent years has been researching Tibetan guerillas who fought against the Chinese occupation in the 1960s and were trained by the CIA at Camp Hale, a U.S. Army facility near Leadville, Colo.

The combined academic heft of CU’s [Colorado University's] Tibetan studies trio, Naropa and a new Boulder research branch of the New York-based Tsadra Foundation, which funds the translation of Tibetan Buddhist texts, have attracted attention and new opportunities to Boulder and Colorado.

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Emily Yeh, associate professor of geography, interviews members of a grassroots environmental protection group about their traditional environmental practices on a sacred mountain in Chamdo, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. July 2005. Photo by Kunga Lama (Center for Asian Studies)

A joint lecture series between CU [Colorado University] and Naropa, named in honor of Chogyam Trungpa, kicked off in 2013 with Janet Gyatso of Harvard University. John Makransky, professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston University and a meditation teacher, will speak in September on compassion, the theme at Naropa’s 40th-anniversary year.

“This is a step forward in the collaboration between the universities,” Gayley says. “There is the perfect nexus for Buddhist studies in Boulder and (collaborations of this kind) will strengthen both programs.”

The lecture series was started with a seed grant from the Uberoi Foundation for Religious Studies, founded by the late Mahinder Uberoi, former chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at CU-Boulder.

In October, the Tibetan Translation and Transmission Conference, sponsored by the Tsadra Foundation, will bring some 200 Tibetan studies scholars and translators to Keystone. Andrew Quintman, assistant professor of Religious Studies at Yale University, will speak in Boulder as a lead up to the conference.

“Boulder is definitely a lightning rod for Buddhist and Tibetan studies,” Gayley says. “I always have a wait list for my Buddhism classes, and I get 120 to 150 for the Foundation of Buddhism class. … It would be hard to garner that kind of interest anywhere else.”


Of course, Tibet is a real place, not just a subject of academic research and study. The nation continues to struggle under Chinese occupation. The 14th Dalai Lama, who escaped from his homeland to become a global leader for peace, is now 78, and China has signaled its intention to choose his successor. It’s doubtful many Tibetans in exile would accept such a choice: Some 130 Tibetans have set themselves on fire in the last five years in acts of protest against China.

All that sounds dire. But, says McGranahan, the exile community refuses to give up.

“The one thing the Tibetan refugee community is most defined by is the politics of hope,” she says. “They hold a real belief that Tibet will be Tibetan again. … No state or empire … has existed in a consistent shape or form without end. … But I think change needs to come in part through change in China, the Chinese making demands on their government.”
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