What Meditation Really Is - Sogyal Rinpoche

DaltheJigsaw

Sogyal Rinpoche explains that there is much more to meditation than saying mantras and burning incense. Find out more - http://whatmeditationreallyis.com/ and http://www.rigpa.org/

Lazy_eye

Sogyal Rinpoche explains that there is much more to meditation than saying mantras and burning incense.

Given the allegations against him, I have a little trouble taking this statement at face value...

ddrishi

In my view, even if one were to believe all the allegations against him, still there is nothing to find fault with in his description of meditation.

Dazzle

In my view, even if one were to believe all the allegations against him, still there is nothing to find fault with in his description of meditation.

So, if someone was a rapist for example, it would be ok in your opinion to take meditation instruction from them ?

MindGate

In my view, even if one were to believe all the allegations against him, still there is nothing to find fault with in his description of meditation.

So, if someone was a rapist for example, it would be ok in your opinion to take meditation instruction from them ?

Well, am I in prison with him and is he teaching meditation to the inmates?

Jeffrey

To me it shows that the mundane is necessary for the supramundane realization. Without moral ethics one has not developed the qualities of a buddha. On the other hand of course these are only allegations and we shouldn't presume that they are true. Or false!

Dazzle

In my view, even if one were to believe all the allegations against him, still there is nothing to find fault with in his description of meditation.

So, if someone was a rapist for example, it would be ok in your opinion to take meditation instruction from them ?

Well, am I in prison with him and is he teaching meditation to the inmates?

I don't understand what you mean, Mindgate - and my post was a response to ddrishi

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Dakini

Well, am I in prison with him and is he teaching meditation to the inmates?

Hey, you have to watch out for these 15-year olds, they can be pretty sharp! Completely out of left field!

But we're talking about more ordinary circumstances, MG.
*sheesh* I can't believe they're still being called "allegations" against Sogyal. :grumble: mumble, mumble....
And who said meditation is only reciting mantras and burning incense, anyway? It's not as if we need Sogyal of all people to tell us this.

MindGate

In my view, even if one were to believe all the allegations against him, still there is nothing to find fault with in his description of meditation.

So, if someone was a rapist for example, it would be ok in your opinion to take meditation instruction from them ?

Well, am I in prison with him and is he teaching meditation to the inmates?

I don't understand what you mean, Mindgate - and my post was a response to ddrishi

.

You asked if we'd take meditation advice from someone who is a rapist. I then asked: Are me and this rapist in prison together and is he teaching all the inmates how to meditate?

Dazzle

You asked if we'd take meditation advice from someone who is a rapist. I then asked: Are me and this rapist in prison together and is he teaching all the inmates how to meditate?

Irrelevant. Why take advice from someone who has continually been in the public eye for his negative exploits with women to the extent that he was featured in a TV programme about it.

He's hardly a good example of a Dharma teacher -certainly not for women at any rate.

betaboy

Is there proof? If so, why isn't he in jail?

SattvaPaul

@Dazzle,

Do you know what the programme was called? I'd like to watch it.

Dazzle

It was Canadian and called 'In the name of Enlightenment'.

Mentioned here in the UK Guardian newspaper :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jul/01/lama-sex-abuse-sogyal-rinpoche-buddhist

Trailer here:

http://www.cogentbenger.com/docs/sexscandalsinreligion/inthenameofenlightenment/index.php

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Dakini

"In the Name of Enlightenment" will be shown in the US and Europe eventually. Discussions with regional TV stations there were going on earlier this summer. It's part of a series on abuse in religions. Each segment focuses on a different religion.

Why Sogyal is still able to have a huge following is a mystery, after all the scandal. Why so many lamas are able to still operate abusively is a difficult question. Women need support in filing criminal charges. Traumatized women often just want to get over it and get on with their lives, many have been threatened by their lamas not to go public with their experience, and with the secrets of the ceremonies some have been involved in. This is starting to change, some are putting up blogs. One woman in Austria just had to take her blog down, due to threats from her former lama.

Part of the reason why women don't file charges has to do with the nature of trauma. The whole thing is a mess, very painful and samsaric, the opposite of what Buddhism is supposed to be.

Cloud

I'd take meditation instruction from a rapist, an arsonist, a murderer, anyone at all... as long as I knew they were a good meditation instructor. After all, isn't the point to learn about meditation? A genius math teacher can still teach math, and his pupils understand it, even if he killed his wife. I'm not saying we usually choose people who have done wrong, but what they have done does not necessarily reflect on what they teach. Even a book can teach, and a book can't practice at all!

Dazzle

I'd take meditation instruction from a rapist, an arsonist, a murderer, anyone at all... as long as I knew they were a good meditation instructor. After all, isn't the point to learn about meditation? A genius math teacher can still teach math, and his pupils understand it, even if he killed his wife. I'm not saying we usually choose people who have done wrong, but what they have done does not necessarily reflect on what they teach. Even a book can teach, and a book can't practice at all!

Cloud, a school or college teacher is banned from teaching if they are a child abuser, rapist murdere etc. The fact that they might be a good teacher is irrelevant because they can't be trusted to behave honorably with their students.

Morality is also important in Buddhism. A Dhamma teacher with any level of realisation is not capable of committing such inappropriate acts anyway.

Cloud

What I was really talking about was aversion. Our aversion can run so deep, be held so fast, that we fail to recognize the truth when we hear it. We can become instantly blind to any benefit we could receive from listening to someone, because we judge them as a whole to be unwholesome. We color the entire page black, instead of seeing distinctly that which is wholesome and that which is not (or absorbing the information and then trying it out ourselves, testing it).

Also it was only about meditation instruction, not on how to choose a full teacher of all-things Buddhism... naturally if you're going to put your complete trust in a teacher, you'll choose them carefully.

IronRabbit

Excoriating Sogyal Rinpoche as unworthy as a teacher or a human being because of certain behavior is naive - and speaks of the same naivete that is responsible for western students submitting to the little brown smiling foreign teacher's unacceptable sexual advances without dispute. While there is no excuse for Sogyal's behavior - there should at least be an awareness that the "victims" in these incidents can and did have the ability to both avoid and/or extract themselves from a bad student/teacher relationship - before it ever rose to this level. Their choice was otherwise. It is obvious that Sogyal took advantage of their naivete - but Sogyal is no Charlie Manson. It sounds, though, as if a healthy skepticism of following a guru's lead unquestioningly might serve any and all students better in the long run.

The lawsuit was settled out of court - agreed upon by all parties - assault and battery - accusations of infliction of emotional distress - breach of fiduciary duty - all charges dismissed through mediation. The plaintiff agreed to and signed a "non-disclosure" in exchange for an unspecified cash settlement against the $10 million dollar suit. This sounds suspiciously like divorce proceedings.

One might think this would put an end to such episodes but Jack Kornfield, the eminent Buddhist author, once took a survey of around 50 Zen teachers in the West, and found that over a third of them had sex with students. It is everywhere in western spiritual traditions!

Disheartening on one hand - some folks enjoying themselves on the other.

Skillful - unskillful?

Just don't know.....

shanyin

I guess we'll see how it goes down in court.

Dakini

Excoriating Sogyal Rinpoche as unworthy as a teacher or a human being because of certain behavior is naive - and speaks of the same naivete that is responsible for western students submitting to the little brown smiling foreign teacher's unacceptable sexual advances without dispute. While there is no excuse for Sogyal's behavior - there should at least be an awareness that the "victims" in these incidents can and did have the ability to both avoid and/or extract themselves from a bad student/teacher relationship - before it ever rose to this level. Their choice was otherwise. It is obvious that Sogyal took advantage of their naivete - but Sogyal is no Charlie Manson. It sounds, though, as if a healthy skepticism of following a guru's lead unquestioningly might serve any and all students better in the long run.

Skillful - unskillful?

Where's Sherab Dorje with his dead horse-flogging photo when we need him?

Rabbit, I've studied this problem. Why do students submit so easily? But it wasn't just students/disciples in Sogyal's case. He was (still is?) a bereavement counselor. People came to him who had never known him in a disciple-teacher setting, who had never seen him before. He would tell women that sex with him would help alleviate their grief, tantric sex can help, and I don't know what else he said. Apparently there's something about the psychology of grief and extreme distress that makes people vulnerable to this kind of thing, and he took advantage of it. I don't fully understand it, but I've never been in extreme grief. Ask a psychologist, I'm sure any one of them can explain in more detail than I can.

Last year on this forum, an MD whose job was to serve as expert witness in rape cases explained the psychology of disciples who give in to manipulation or coercion by clergy. He said it's usually the members of the "flock" who have a childhood history of abuse who are the vulnerable ones (this is a recurring theme in the "lama abuse" cases), because they look to the guru or priest for approval, or they view the spiritual authority figure as the psychologically healthy parent they never had. They expect kindness, and the authority can take advantage of emotionally needy congregants. This is why there are strict ethical rules, this is why there is fiduciary trust law for spiritual guides and spiritual counselors. Because these situations can be fraught with risk. This is why the authority bears all the responsibility for misconduct. This MD said that it's not really consensual when there's such a power imbalance, and an imbalance between the psychologies of the two parties involved. We don't place the same kind of trust in university professors. We just go to class, take notes, and leave. It's very different in churches, sanghas, temples, and grief counseling settings, and psychotherapy as well. It's easy for us to say, well the women could have walked away. But when the student refuses the demand for sex, and the lama gets angry and uses intimidation tactics (on someone who has certain psychological weaknesses, bear in mind), and has said since day one of instruction that he represents the Holy Dharma and has the student's best interests at heart, confusion sets in on the part of the student.

This may sound like lame reasoning to you, Rabbit, but I would hope that compassion would lead you to try to understand these situations, rather than coldly dismiss them by putting some of the blame on the victims. Using disciples for sex is predatory and unethical. And btw, Sogyal wouldn't have paid a settlement if he hadn't had to.

Dakini

P.S. How could it possibly be skillful if people are left traumatized? Get real. Undeniably, there were students who were willing, not coerced, and in full possession of their faculties. That doesn't make it right, nor skillful. Dudjom Rinpoche, now-deceased former head of the Nyingma sect of which Sogyal is a member, and who had approved Sogyal's Rigpa organization originally, when he learned of Sogyal's behavior, told him to go back to India do "ripen his practice". Sogyal's response was to take Dudjom Rinpoche's name off the Rigpa letter head, and go it on his own. At least Dujom Rinpoche had the decency to try to do something about the situation, and knew misconduct ("unskillful" conduct) when he saw it.

http://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/briefing-document-on-sogyal-rinpoche/

Lazy_eye

...There should at least be an awareness that the "victims" in these incidents can and did have the ability to both avoid and/or extract themselves from a bad student/teacher relationship - before it ever rose to this level. Their choice was otherwise.

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No offense, but this sounds to my ear like a familiar line of argument known as "blaming the victim".

It sounds, though, as if a healthy skepticism of following a guru's lead unquestioningly might serve any and all students better in the long run.

But does Tibetan Buddhism encourage students to maintain a "healthy skepticism" in their relationship with their guru?

The issue, as I see it, has to do with power relations. If we're talking about a situation where a student is encouraged to place complete confidence in a teacher, and to regard that teacher as infallible -- within a tradition where much is kept secret -- well, this is a situation where one party is extremely vulnerable. Trust would seem to be a necessary ingredient in such a practice.

That's why allegations like these are so disturbing.

fltnr1

If one see's an apple, is it not an apple.If one hear's wind, is it not wind.So critical and negative I read here sometimes.Is stone not where gold or precious metal be found? I came to this forum to learn wisdom of buddism.I am 57 yoa.2 wars and many lives lost at my fingers.Ranting of what, or is not.Is it not just is?This is confussing. serenity is what I am told buddism is.Following the 8 fold path.The young is precious, their insight can be insightful.What is here?

ddrishi

Let us see what was the issue at the start of this thread. What Meditation Really Is - Sogyal Rinpoche. The sole question was whether Sogyal Rinpoche's definition of Meditation is correct or not. Does acceptance of the definition given by him imply that we are accepting him as our 'teacher'? Why are we going into his character at all? Does it in any way affect the validity of meaning he has attributed to meditation? Is it a fair discussion?

caz

Watched it and he certainly explained it in a good way.