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What Meditation Really Is - Sogyal Rinpoche
DaltheJigsaw
Mountain View Veteran
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/
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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.
He's hardly a good example of a Dharma teacher -certainly not for women at any rate.
Do you know what the programme was called? I'd like to watch it.
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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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.
Morality is also important in Buddhism. A Dhamma teacher with any level of realisation is not capable of committing such inappropriate acts anyway.
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.
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.....
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.
http://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/briefing-document-on-sogyal-rinpoche/
No offense, but this sounds to my ear like a familiar line of argument known as "blaming the victim". 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.