Best Of

I am not sure it's wise to expect religious fields filled with devotees, most often brimming over with the wounded in life in both leaders and followers, to be any less susceptible to the human condition than any other groupings where power differences occur.
In fact, the very expectation that a religious field should be less dangerous to the vulnerable is a naivety that ill prepares a path walker to navigate through those power imbalances safely.

Only beings in positions of power over others, who unfailingly place the welfare of those in their care above that of their own, are likely to be free of power's abusive failings.
How much more difficult it must be for ordinary teachers, in isolation from their betters, to be ever transcendent of their own baser natures when ever surrounded by followers whose practices are devotional in nature.

Our Sangha's are littered with bitter practitioners who have only discovered later in life, how complicit they've been in a teacher's failings just by placing them on a pedestal.

Talk of death, in ordinary social circles has, until relatively recently, been a taboo subject. We have different euphemisms to describe it; kicking the bucket, pushing up daisies, passing on or away, going before, going West, crossed over, beyond the veil, met their Maker, closed the book...people feel it's a morbid subject, and shy away from discussing it, for fear of facing their own inevitable demise. Maybe for Assisted Dying to not be so controversial, we should strive - skillfully, appropriately, and kindly - to make talking about dying, the same way we chat about going on holiday. Only, there's no Return Ticket....🤷‍♀️

Right View and Right Intention help in understanding the nature of temptation.

Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration help cultivate inner discipline.

Right Effort encourages abandoning unwholesome states and developing wholesome ones.

And Dharma teachers being Dharma teachers (aka 'human' ) are still susceptible to temptation.

Temptation is like letting kids loose in a sweet shop. Some will resist with discipline, while others will indulge. The struggle with desire is at the heart of Buddhist practice, and even Dharma teachers, as human beings, are not exempt from it....

When our desires take over the mind.

Every path has its own potential failings along with its successes.
Sexual transgressions happen to be a potential failing of the faith/devotional path.

The most common cases of sexual predation occurring within the Buddhist clergy seem to be found in those same teachers who have fostered deliberate levels of autonomy from their own spiritual peers, elders & masters. A relative freedom from scrutiny.
The power differences that allow spiritual pedophilia to occur in the master/disciple relationships do not occur in a vacuum. They are the careful orchestrations of a perpetrator over their subjects. Senior disciples must also enable such failings in their teacher to allow them to continue to be hidden.

Teachers who allow a student's ardor and faith/ devotion to be applied to the teacher, rather than to a practice, are simply grooming that follower for the potential arriving preceptual breakages that will swallow both of their practices.

Perhaps all of us have some potential for being abusive over those less able to defend themselves. Perhaps the seeing of where we might also have such potentials within ourselves might allow us to not walk so blindly down those same paths.

TNH hugged everyone. His monks were as unenlightened as him, when I saw him and some of them. His books are superb. He was a pure being.
https://plumvillage.org/live

'The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying' was mainly written by one of Sogyal Rinpoche's disciples. The silly bits are his contributions between molesting students.

Llama Surya Daz and his brainwashed are still whitewashing his activities? Ah well, a waste of time? Or do we have to offer discernment?

Tee Hee welcome to the Hell-o Realms... (I'll bring sand witches)

The Buddha does not 'belong' to people, places, trees or temples 🤔

• Some Awakened Ones are women, stories or practices 🦋
• Buddha is the community, teachings and placement of ideals🤔
• The Tao is part of Buddhism☯️
• Many pagans are awake to Buddha in Nature🍇
• Hindu or Jain heretics are part of Buddhist heritage and vice versa

Seems like we are all Beginners again...

Not so long ago in the Dutch parliament there was a request that was debated about a new right which some of the political parties were sponsoring to be put into the constitution. This was a right to die at a completed life, so basically euthanasia for people who felt their life was ‘complete’ and what remained would only detract from it.

A lot of the people sponsoring it were elderly, and were thinking about a possible dementia or Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Some were mental health patients. Some were sufferers from other illnesses. There were quite a few groups whose needs would have been addressed by this.

But in the end the debate in parliament failed to gain the needed majority.