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Kalu Rinpoche, June Campbell
trendybuddha
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What do you guys think about the scandal with Kalu Rinpoche and June Campbell? The new buddhist group I am thinking of joining use books from Kalu Rinpoche, and I don't know what to think. Even though this happened, his teachings can be good? I mean we are all good and bad. I just wish I could practise buddhism and not think about all these things, I just think it is hard to ignore. I don't know.
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Just goes to show humans are humans regardless of what conceptual framework they create around themselves.
I don't have to molest women, be racist or ignorant just because a lecturer of mathematics I wish to learn behaves this way . . . do I?
You don't have to get into a wheel chair just to learn physics from Stephen Hawking.
We do learn from the disabled, the ignorant, the unenlightened. It is where we are . . . Now where . . . ?
Free your mind.
What was the moral character of the doctor/nurse who administered your smallpox vaccination as a child, or your latest round of antibiotics as an adult? Good medicine is not contaminated by those giving it. But we, the student, need to be sure to concentrate on the medicine and not get hung up on the personality of the one dispensing it.
Kalu Rinpoche, (the boy posting youtube videos today) if viewed with a clear mind, is a troubled young man trying to deal with a boatload of crap that began when he was yanked away from his family and forced to pretend he was someone else, a tulku, some reincarnated Bodhisattva. Considering all that, he's a normal kid. He's basically a nice guy with some issues. Sounds like he might turn into an effective teacher one day, but he'll be battling a league of enablers who cheer even his self-destructive behavior because "That's crazy wisdom, don't you know, and who are we to criticize his drinking or question his projectile vomiting after a weekend party?"
What he isn't, is some savior with special insight or enlightened mind. He wasn't born with special abilities, no matter what the Tibetan myth wants you to believe.
Ms Blavatsky, in her article, is struggling with her own understanding of why the reality she sees and hears about is so different from the myth and false face presented to the world. The truth is, these monks are just people like you and me. There are good and bad monks, and even the good monks hold biases and attitudes that reflect the problems with their mysogynist culture. A system and culture that minimizes and downgrades the nature and role of women, suddenly forced to deal with women who act and assume a male role? Yeah, like that won't cause problems. A system that assumes total secrecy and worship of the tulku and Rinpoche, no matter what, trying to deal with a culture that assumes even lay people should have a say in what goes on behind temple walls and how their Teachers behave? Of course there's going to be conflict.
The question is, can the Tibetan monk system adapt and respond to these criticisms. That's not a given. Theocracies are extremely conservative and resistant to change. Just look at the Catholic church.
You may be interested in one of Kalu Rinpoche's main projects, Cinorjer. He plans to prohibit the induction of boys into monasteries that he's in control of, and to start a school for boys that would be an alternative to the monasteries. The boys would learn both a modern secular curriculum along with religious studies, so that at 18, they could choose between entering a monastery, getting a job (for which they'll be a lot better qualified than if they left a monastery, only knowing how to read and do math), or going to college. As a residential school, this wouldn't solve the problem of the institutionalization of boys and its attendant perils, but it's a step in the right direction. It's about time someone called attention to these serious problems, so that children enduring this particular brand of suffering might have hope of a more normal--and safe--life. As a result of Kalu Rinpoche's speaking out, which seemed rather cathartic to me--a necessary part of his healing process, other young tulkus have begun to speak about their similar experience.
http://www.paldenshangpa.net/2011/09/a-vision-for-the-future/
I regard this work of his to build a school and take a step toward ending the tradition of child novices to be Bodhisattva work. It doesn't really matter if he ever becomes a great teacher, if he's able to bring about badly-needed reforms to the system.
The question of succession was brought up with the Buddha by his personal attendant, Venerable Ananda, just moments prior to the Great Demise. The Blessed One, however, did not appoint anyone in his place. Instead he advised his followers to regard the doctrine and discipline that he had taught as their teacher. The Dhamma-Vinaya was to succeed him as the highest authority, one from which Buddhists may derive guidance and instruction. This was, indeed, a farsighted proclamation. The Buddha knew that placing absolute powers and responsibility in the hands of any individual could in the long run jeopardize the institution. Even during his lifetime he had made regulatory provisions for the Sangha administration to be carried out through collective deliberation and action of its members without vesting any special privileges or prerogatives on any individual. This method remains the model for all ecclesiastical rites and actions within the Sangha institution down to the present day.
http://www.buddhanet.net/cmdsg/getting2.htm
The Blessed One's Final Exhortation
1. Now the Blessed One spoke to the Venerable Ananda, saying: "It may be, Ananda, that to some among you the thought will come: 'Ended is the word of the Master; we have a Master no longer.' But it should not, Ananda, be so considered. For that which I have proclaimed and made known as the Dhamma and the Discipline, that shall be your Master when I am gone.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.16.1-6.vaji.html
Even if we don't practice with or receive teachings directly from a master what is the source of the information we are receiving and who did it come from?
Certainly there must have been some monks with more knowledge regarding the Dharma then others, and they were the obviously looked to for some kind of guidance in determining what and what wasn't to be included in scripture. Even the idea for a council had its origin.
For me this would indicate there had been some form of organizing leadership even from the very beginning with teachings passed down from master to disciple through the ages. Directly or indirectly the influence is still there whether we recognize it or not.
You may be interested in one of Kalu Rinpoche's main projects, Cinorjer. He plans to prohibit the induction of boys into monasteries that he's in control of, and to start a school for boys that would be an alternative to the monasteries. The boys would learn both a modern secular curriculum along with religious studies, so that at 18, they could choose between entering a monastery, getting a job (for which they'll be a lot better qualified than if they left a monastery, only knowing how to read and do math), or going to college. As a residential school, this wouldn't solve the problem of the institutionalization of boys and its attendant perils, but it's a step in the right direction. It's about time someone called attention to these serious problems, so that children enduring this particular brand of suffering might have hope of a more normal--and safe--life. As a result of Kalu Rinpoche's speaking out, which seemed rather cathartic to me--a necessary part of his healing process, other young tulkus have begun to speak about their similar experience.
http://www.paldenshangpa.net/2011/09/a-vision-for-the-future/
Just read the article, seems to hit Bulls-eye on all points!!!
Hope this is the very first step towards a better TB.