Crime is fine as long as you are endorsed by the Dalai Lama

[Dondrup Shugden]

Sexual Abuse, Molestation, Rape and all forms and levels of sexual misconduct are criminal acts both in the secular and spiritual code of law/vows.

It is impossible for me to accept that the government of the Dalai Lama will do nothing to take to task all these lust driven lamas, whatever their level of "seniority" with the monastic order. From what I read, these are high flying lamas who seem to be able to raise funds for CTA and are mixing within the international elite societies. So they are useful to fulfil the pockets of the Tibetan leaders.

Can we then conclude that for the sake of financial gains the stainless and pure practice and teaching of the Dharma is compromised?

[Rowntree]

It is a logical conclusion that the CTA will not do anything to lamas of other lineages provided they can bring in the money and manipulate international elite societies. They do not care about preserving the teachings of the lineages because only money and network matters.

[dsnowlion]

It is a logical conclusion that the CTA will not do anything to lamas of other lineages provided they can bring in the money and manipulate international elite societies. They do not care about preserving the teachings of the lineages because only money and network matters.

Yup I agree. I am beginning to realise that this whole Tibet Shambala paradise thing and about the people are Buddhist is a sham! It's all just to get the world mystified about them so that they can continue to cheat the world, especially the Western world who have no real clue. Real Buddhist do not favour money over vows, and principles based on Buddha's teachings. What the Tibetan Leadership does is a total contradiction of Buddhism, which means they do not know a thing about Buddhism. So how dare they persecute Shugden Buddhist monks and practitioners? Disgusting!

[Rowntree]

Just a hypothesis, perhaps the Dalai Lama only protects the Gelug teachings, so other lineages are not his concern? One thing to note, no scandals like this ever happened in the Gelug lineage, especially among the Dorje Shugden lamas.

[dsnowlion]

Just a hypothesis, perhaps the Dalai Lama only protects the Gelug teachings, so other lineages are not his concern? One thing to note, no scandals like this ever happened in the Gelug lineage, especially among the Dorje Shugden lamas.

Well if the Dalai Lama only protects the Gelug teachings, he would be protecting all the different schools of Buddhism, wouldn't he? Because Lama Tsongkhapa created Gelug based on the essence of all four different schools - Sakya, Nyingma, Kagyu. So in reality Gelug scholl of Buddhism is the synthesis of all the different schools. So there really is no issue and the Buddhas do not follow labels, so I think Chenrezig would have the wisdom to know which is school of Buddhism is most relatable for this degenerate times and to suit the people's karma.

[Rowntree]

Just a hypothesis, perhaps the Dalai Lama only protects the Gelug teachings, so other lineages are not his concern? One thing to note, no scandals like this ever happened in the Gelug lineage, especially among the Dorje Shugden lamas.

Well if the Dalai Lama only protects the Gelug teachings, he would be protecting all the different schools of Buddhism, wouldn't he? Because Lama Tsongkhapa created Gelug based on the essence of all four different schools - Sakya, Nyingma, Kagyu. So in reality Gelug scholl of Buddhism is the synthesis of all the different schools. So there really is no issue and the Buddhas do not follow labels, so I think Chenrezig would have the wisdom to know which is school of Buddhism is most relatable for this degenerate times and to suit the people's karma.

It is a benefit that the Gelug lineage arose later in order for Lama Tsongkhapa to learn from lamas of all lineages in order for him to combine them and present in the Lamrim Chenmo form for us. Lineages are labels for us to communicate but we shouldn't attach to it and use it to discriminate against other lineages. When we do this, we are no longer practicing dharma. Similarly, people who discriminate Dorje Shugden are in actual fact going against the Buddha dharma, performing actions that give rise to anger, hatred, and suffering. Buddhism teaches us to eliminate our suffering, not to add onto what we already have.

[Rowntree]

Another disappointing exposé for Shambala. Their so-called meditation teacher and author Lodro P. Rinzler is found forcing himself onto a member of Shambala and took advantage on her after getting her drunk. What kind of meditation teacher is he? One that teaches on giving in desire and harm others based on that. He is clearly contemplating on sex other than dharma and clearly learns from their Mipham Rinpoche who does this always. Too bad for him to get caught after the first attempt while their 'spiritual guide' got away from so many sexual assaults before he was exposed. No wonder the Buddha predicted the demon who will destroy the dharma during the kaliyuga is no other than those who is suppose to practise and protect it!

Buddhist teacher quit Shambhala in ‘protest’ before his own sexual misconduct allegation went public
He's promoting a book called Love Hurts.

JOSHUA EATON | JUL 23, 2018, 8:00 AM | UPDATED: JUL 23, 2018, 6:24 PM

Meditation teacher and author Lodro P. Rinzler announced that he was leaving the Buddhist group Shambhala International on July 1 after several women came forward to accuse its leader, Sakyong Mipham, of sexual assault. He failed to mention that he had been accused of sexual misconduct himself.

“I am feeling a lot of pain around what is happening in the Shambhala community,” Rinzler wrote on his private Facebook page at the time. “I personally have clarity that it is time for me to officially leave Shambhala as an organization and no longer teach there.”

It was one of the most high-profile departures in an organization that’s been in tailspin since the sexual assault allegations against its leader.

But Rinzler was already facing fallout from Shamabhala over an allegation against him. A woman told the organization he had pressured her into sex in 2013 even after she said multiple times that she did not want to sleep with him. After Shambhala opened an internal investigation into that allegation last month, it asked local meditation centers not to host Rinzler’s upcoming book tour. Within two days, he announced he was leaving the group, according to interviews and documents obtained by ThinkProgress.

ThinkProgress is not aware of any other allegations of sexual misconduct by Rinzler. In a statement, Rinzler denied any sexual misconduct and said his decision to leave Shambhala had nothing to do with the allegation against him.

“I was deeply troubled by the allegations against the leadership of Shambhala and after learning of them stepped away from any involvement with Shambhala’s programs entirely of my own accord,” Rinzler said. “There is no truth to the allegation that Shambhala fired me. Nor have I ever been involved in any inappropriate sexual behavior or interactions with any individual.”

A source close to the Shambhala community confirmed that it’s investigating Rinzler for alleged sexual misconduct and defended how senior Shambhala officials Judith Simmer-Brown and Adam Lobel have handled the allegation since the woman first raised it in 2013.

“Lobel, Simmer-Brown and supporters within the Shambhala community feel confident that they took all appropriate measures, offering ongoing support and follow ups for over 5 years,” the source said by email.

“Let’s just relax and see what happens”
Rinzler, 35, ran Shambhala’s local center in Boston, Mass., before co-founding MNDFL, a for-profit meditation studio with three locations in New York City where he’s currently chief spiritual officer. He’s the author of six books on Buddhism and mediation, and his work has been featured in The New York Times. (Disclosure: This reporter pet- and apartment-sat for Rinzler for a week in 2015, when they were acquainted through Buddhist writer circles on social media.)

The woman, “Amy,” who requested we withhold her real name for privacy reasons, described her interactions with Rinzler in an interview with ThinkProgress. They first met when she coordinated his visit to Portland, Ore., to promote his book Walk like a Buddha in October 2013. Amy had been active in Shambhala most of her adult life and was interested in teaching meditation, so she was looking forward to working with a young teacher she looked up to.

After they talked at Powell’s bookstore, Amy said Rinzler invited her out for a drink and later up to the apartment where he was staying for a nightcap. She found the invitation flattering at first. But when he moved in for a kiss, she said she clearly told him that she wasn’t interested.

“I remember literally putting my hand out and pushing him away,” Amy said. “Like, ‘No, I don’t want to kiss you.’ He said, ‘Well no, I’m just curious. Let’s just relax and see what happens.'”

By that point in the evening, she was too buzzed to drive herself home. Rinzler suggested she stay there and promised not to touch her, even offering to build a pillow “wall” between them.

But once they were in the bed, Amy said, Rinzler continued his unwanted advances and began trying to kiss and touch her yet again.

“I think some part of me was flattered,” she said. “But I was also just really not into it. [I was] just going along with it.”

In a last-ditch effort to get through to Rinzler, she told him again that she didn’t want to have sex, and when he asked why, she revealed that she’d been sexually abused in the past. Instead of offering understanding and empathy, Amy said, Rinzler suggested that sleeping with him could help her break through the trust issues from her past trauma.

Then he began to touch her again, and she froze. She felt paralyzed, she said in an interview — as if she wasn’t in control of her own body. Tired, drunk, and dissociated, she said that she performed oral sex on Rinzler in the hope it would make him stop.

“I thought, ‘OK, I’m doing this to get him off of me without having to have sex with him and just survive,'” she said.

“[J]ust survive”
Amy told two people about what happened over the next two weeks — a local Shambhala teacher and a teacher at another Shambhala center. Both corroborated her account to ThinkProgress.

The next day, after an unsatisfying apology from Rinzler, Amy told the first official, based at the local center, about what happened the night before. That official sent an email, obtained by ThinkProgress, to senior Shambhala officials Simmer-Brown and Lobel with a brief description of what allegedly happened and an offer to put them in touch with Amy for more details.

Simmer-Brown responded to the local official five days later to say she’d read the email to Rinzler — without asking Amy first or obtaining her permission.

Rinzler was “heartbroken” over the “real mistakes” he made with Amy, Simmer-Brown wrote. But her email portrayed those mistakes primarily as a violation of the student-teacher relationship — not as an issue of consent.

“[Rinzler] is only now realizing the ramifications of pressing his affections while in the role of a teacher of Shambhala,” she wrote. “He was not defensive, and was very honest with me about what happened. He is also deeply sorry for any harm he has caused.”

Other things that Lobel and Simmer-Brown said gave Amy pause, she said. In one conversation, for example, Simmer-Brown talked about how she’d known Rinzler since he was a kid, making Amy wonder whether she would be impartial. And after Amy told Lobel what happened, she said he responded with, “Wow, that sounds really confusing.”

“It made it clear he had doubts about what I was saying,” Amy told ThinkProgress.

Lobel and Simmer-Brown offered two options for moving forward — mediation between Amy and Rinzler, or Shambhala’s internal investigation process, called “Care and Conduct.” But after a back-and-forth with both teachers, Amy decided to let it drop.

“At that point, I honestly just wanted to forget about it and not keep getting thrown around these different people,” she said.

Lobel checked in with Amy in 2015, according to a source close to the Shambhala community. She didn’t pursue more support from Shambhala then. But Lobel reached out again this year, after a report in February by the advocacy group Buddhist Project Sunshine detailed anonymous accounts of sexual abuse within the Shambhala community.

“I’ve been thinking of you in the midst of the painful and massive learning about gender and power that we are going through in Shambhala,” Lobel wrote in an email obtained by ThinkProgress. “I am wondering how you are and how this is all feeling to you? If you would like to check in, I would appreciate it.”

After a second report by Buddhist Project Sunshine publicized several allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct against Shambhala’s head, Sakyong Mipham, Amy decided to finally move forward with a Care and Conduct investigation. On June 29, she sent Lobel a written account that detailed the incident and her subsequent conversations with Shambhala officials. It matches her account to ThinkProgress.

In separate statements to ThinkProgress, Lobel and Simmer-Brown said they’re glad Amy decided to pursue Shambhala’ formal complaint process.

“After what has now been a few years of offering support, suggesting opportunities for further assistance, and access to resources through Shambhala’s Care and Conduct process, I am pleased that the complainant has decided to take the formal steps she feels are necessary,” Lobel said in his statement. “I stand behind her decision and remain completely supportive of her journey through this process.”

“I have been concerned for [Amy’s] welfare, and hope she will find the healing she seeks,” Simmer-Brown’s statement said.

On July 1, two days after Amy sent Lobel her written account, he wrote back to say a center director had heard about the allegation of sexual misconduct and confronted Rinzler about it. That triggered questions from other centers about whether they should host Rinzler as he toured to promote his new book of Buddhist relationship advice, Love Hurts.

Shambhala asked the centers not to invite Rinzler for book talks while the investigation was pending, Lobel wrote. But Lobel speculated that the question from the center director may have tipped Rinzler off. Rinzler announced he was leaving Shambhala that same day in a post on his private Facebook page, screenshots of which were obtained by ThinkProgress.

In that post, Rinzler also offered his support for anyone who wanted to talk about their experience with sexual misconduct in Shambhala.

“I will hold space and listen and share my heart if you would like me to,” he wrote. “I am truly available to you.”

Do you have information about sexual misconduct in Shambhala or elsewhere? Contact reporter Joshua Eaton by email at [email protected] or by Signal at 202–684–1030.

CORRECTION: This article previously stated that Judith Simmer-Brown spoke with Lodro Rinzler before speaking with “Amy.” Simmer-Brown and Amy did speak before she spoke with Rinzler, but she did not ask Amy’s permission first.

UPDATE (7/24/2018, 9:37 a.m. ET): This article has been updated with an updated statement from Adam Lobel.

https://thinkprogress.org/buddhist-teacher-quit-shambhala-in-protest-before-his-own-sexual-misconduct-allegation-went-public-c7b85ceb36e2/

[Drolma]

It is so sad that the CTA is making use of the Dalai Lama to fatten their wallets. They know very well that these Lamas are involved in sex scandals, but they make arrangements for them to take photos, have audiences with the Dalai Lama. They don't care if it would affect the reputation of the Dalai Lama.

Dorje Shugden followers have not done any crime but the CTA segregates them from the Tibetan community, imposes a  ban on Dorje Shugden practice.  They have a name list of Dorje Shugden followers on their website to indirectly ask the Tibetans to be hostile towards them. They have many articles on the website to tell people how bad the practice is. It is a big scale smearing campaign. The CTA is doing this to cover up their failure in fulfilling their promise to the Tibetans.

These Lamas are the source of income for the CTA, of course, they will be friendly to them. They don't care about the welfare of the people, they care more about their own interest. They don't protect the purity of the Tibetan Buddhism, they are destroying it.

[Rowntree]

Under the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA; Tibetan leadership based in Dharamsala), one might be surprised that financial mismanagement, embezzlement, murder and sex scandals have always been common throughout the history of its existence.

Many monks and lamas have been accused of or admitted to sexual impropriety, or taking advantage of their positions to have inappropriate relationships with their students and women in recent years but cases like this were pretty much unknown to the world since Tibet was very much contained themselves in the mystical Shangrila. To make it worst, all of these lamas have not been sanctioned by the Tibetan leadership and, in many cases, have enjoyed the continued endorsement of the Tibetan leadership in spite of the allegations, the most recent ones being Sogyal Rinpoche, Sakyong Mipham, Gangten Tulku, Lama Norlha, Lama Choedak Rinpoche, Tenzin Dhonden and etc. The reason is very obvious, they do not practice Dorje Shugden and hence whatever they do is excusable because they remain financially lucrative for the Tibetan leadership.

Take Sogyal Rinpoche for example. He was often pictured with beautiful women and is obnoxious in keeping a harem of women. In spite of decades of allegations of sexual abuse, he was able to continue unchecked because the Tibetan leadership endorses him and keeps his act of impunity until recently. Imagine he has not faced any repercussions from anyone because he doesn't practice Dorje Shugden. While the Tibetan Leadership and their supporters harass Dorje Shugden practitioners for peacefully practicing their religious freedom, the Tibetan Leadership says nothing about Sogyal Rinpoche and many lamas who are consistently and constantly accused of abusing their students.

This is just one of the many classical cases we see where criminals are allowed to run free as long as the Dalai Lama is being sent to their centers for pictures to be taken in exchange for lucrative donations paid to the Tibetan Leadership.

[Pema8]

The news about scandals does not stop. Now in Germany a 62 year old Buddhist monk has been convicted of sexually abuse children was sentenced to seven years and nine months of prison.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/child-sexual-abuse-buddhist-monk-convicted-sentenced-hans-d-augsburg-bavaria-germany-a7836436.html

[Rowntree]

I wonder if he is a good friend of Stasi East German Tenzin Peljor who is fishy with his dealings with boys, young boys especially. Stasi Peljor loves boys and man, but more boys. He was 'touring' Germany going around to meet young boys in the name of Dharma. I just can't wait that he is busted for his unethical behaviors with the boys and he can spend the rest of his life in jail so no one will continue to be harmed by him. Some people are just born to create harm. All they know is to do evil deeds and earn lots of money from it.

The news about scandals does not stop. Now in Germany a 62 year old Buddhist monk has been convicted of sexually abuse children was sentenced to seven years and nine months of prison.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/child-sexual-abuse-buddhist-monk-convicted-sentenced-hans-d-augsburg-bavaria-germany-a7836436.html

[michaela]

I respect the Dalai Lama for his immense contribution to spreading Tibetan Buddhism around the world. His influence is significant, and that is undeniable. However, sometimes he endorsed lamas and people with unsavory reputations and known to do harm and crime like sexual assault. The endorsements from the Dalai Lama were often used to justify for these people are doing.

I hope in the future, the Dalai Lama's attendants will be more selective in recommending personalities to be associated with the Dalai Lama.

[Tracy]

It is really a shame to have the Dalai Lama taking photos with these monks who sexually assaulted their female students. Does the Dalai Lama actually know their background and still accepts their request to have an audience with him? Or his personal assistant arranged it without letting the Dalai Lama knows what these people have done?

The Dalai Lama's image will be affected negatively by having his photo taken with these lamas. The way the CTA handles these cases are similar to the Catholic Church, just close one eye and hide the truth. They let these monks continue to sexually assault other women and let Tibetan Buddhism degenerate.

One of the missions of the CTA is to preserve Tibetan culture and Buddhism, how they manage these sex scandal shows they don't really care about preserving Buddhism. These lamas are rich and they probably pay the CTA for an audience with the Dalai Lama. Instead of apologising to the victims, the CTA is letting them do what they want.  If this continues, more and more people will lose faith in Tibetan Buddhism.