Some Buddhist groups thriving during crisis

Mary Finnigan (Guardian.co.uk, Nov. 18, 2011); modified by Wisdom Quarterly

Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje attracted 2,000 people, paying $200 each, to hear him speak at an event (Lobsang Wangyal/EPA).

The Buddhist organizations thriving during the debt crisis
The Guardian

Here we are stuck in an economic downturn, with the threat of a financial tsunami gathering momentum in the eurozone, with pundits telling us it can only get worse.

One might expect people to be careful about their budget priorities -- and that nonessential expenditures like spiritual teachings would be put on hold.

Evidence suggests, however, that the opposite is true -- especially if one happens to be Buddhist.

"Spiritual materialism" has been a problem in Tibetan Buddhism at least since Chogyam Trungpa coined the term in 1973 while himself living the high life in the West.

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It seems that during this period of acute financial stress, Buddhists are still willing to part with their dollars, pounds, rubles, and rupees in order to sustain their meditation practice.

Because meditation calms the mind and generates insight, this is an understandable response -- but what does come as a surprise is the amounts of money involved.

Take the 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, for example. He is a young, high-profile Tibetan Buddhist lama with a romantic history of escape from Tibet after escaping Chinese "security" forces.

Confined for several years under conditions resembling house arrest in India, he eventually managed to visit the United States for the first time in 2008. About 2,000 people gathered at a monastery in Woodstock to catch a glimpse of him. They paid $200 each.

Roughly $400,000 (£250,000) hit the registers. And after expenses, the monastery had enough left over to embark on an extensive building project.

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Then there's Sogyal Rinpoche -- credited as author of the bestseller The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. A recent feature in the French news magazine Marianne revealed that the cheapest fee for a week's teachings with him at his center Lerab Ling in France was $665 (€500, £425) -- which entitled participants to pitch a tent and eat vegetarian food.

Five hundred people attended the retreat, including reporter Elodie Emery, which means that Sogyal attracted more than $337,375 (€250,000) on one occasion. More

Sogyal Rinpoche in Sex Abuse Scandal

• Allegations against Sogyal Rinpoche highlight the dangers of [Mahayana] Buddhist injunctions against gossip [that in any way criticizes the Sangha, which in Mahayana Buddhism means the entire "community" of practitioners, in front of outsiders] and insistence on loyalty.

Lama sex abuse claims call Buddhist taboos into question

Mary Finnigan (guardian.co.uk)
An exiled Tibetan Buddhist nun prostrates around the main temple and the residence of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama (Ashwini Bhatia/AP).

In November 1994 an American woman known as Janice Doe filed a $10m lawsuit against the Tibetan lama Sogyal Rinpoche, charging him with sexual, mental, and physical abuse. The case was dealt with out of court and Janice Doe signed a non-disclosure agreement in return for a cash settlement.

Sogyal Rinpoche with Joan Halifax and Richard Gere in Switzerland, 1985

Sogyal denies allegations of abuse, but fresh evidence against him was recently aired in an investigative documentary called In the Name of Enlightenment, broadcast on Vision TV in Canada.

A beautiful young woman identified as Mimi described an abusive sexual relationship. She was the first person claiming direct experience of Sogyal's exploitative attentions to go public since the 1994 lawsuit.

Sogyal (surname Lakar -- rinpoche is a title that means "precious one") is the frontman for a Tibetan Buddhist organization called Rigpa, which has a worldwide reach with 130 centers in 41 countries. He has a bestselling book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, to his name and he starred alongside Keanu Reeves [Chris Issak, Bridget Fonda] in the movie Little Buddha.

Sogyal is a formidably successful guru -- probably the best known Tibetan after the Dalai Lama. His trajectory into Buddhist superstardom suffered only a temporary setback following the Janice Doe lawsuit -- despite the fact that lurid rumors about his sex life circulate on the Internet with increasing volume and persistence.

The allegations raise a wider question: Why are victims of sexual exploitation by charismatic religious leaders reluctant to denounce their abusers? In the Canadian documentary, Mimi highlights the "Stockholm syndrome"... More

Sex Scandals in Religion.com

A Tibetan Buddhist master beloved by millions uses his position and authority to take advantage of young women. For over three decades, complaints are dismissed as merely the grumblings of the uninitiated. A guru focused on his own pleasure turns the Path to enlightenment into a road of sexual servitude. Written and directed by Debi Goodwin.

Sex and Buddhist monasticism?

Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

Renunciates have always faced the lure of desires, aversions, and delusions making the ordinary (non-accomplished), uninstructed Sangha ripe for abuses.

How would Buddhism be any better a tradition if it concealed serious rule violations by its monastics? Most stories that come to our attention are not actually alleged to have been acts committed by "monastics" who follow many precepts. They are usually the deeds of "novices," who are probationers in training to keep ten precepts.

• The Buddhist Monastic Code (English)
  

For fully ordained monks and nuns, four acts are considered "defeat offenses" entailing immediate expulsion and loss of ordination from the Buddhist Monastic Order.

This is true for all Buddhist schools, even if lesser rules have been altered over the centuries. The historical Buddha set up a celibate monastic tradition with many disciplinary guidelines dealing crucial requisites and minor etiquette. Why?

The Buddha explained that it was ultimately for the good of humans and devas, so that the teachings would remain in the world as long as possible. More specifically, the rules are in place to increase confidence in the Sangha so that people will become receptive to hearing the Dharma and practicing for the benefit of one and all. It is also for the peace and progress of sincere monastics and the training of those able to be trained.

By following the Five Precepts, lay Buddhists do not face the same restrictions as those who follow hundreds of guidelines. Nor do they risk losing their status for lapses. If Buddhists conceal the disqualifying offenses of monastics -- an act as unskillful as making false allegations -- the Dharma is lost. There are only four monastic acts that cannot be remedied:

1. murder
2. sexual penetration of any kind
3. stealing
4. falsely claiming spiritual attainments

DEFEAT: (Sanskrit, pārājika-dharma), a group of four offenses that are the most serious in the Buddhist monastic code of discipline (Prātimokṣa). The penalty for any of the four is lifelong expulsion from the monastic order (Sangha). The four are (1) sexual intercourse; (2) serious theft; (3) murder; (4) falsely claiming to have attained supernatural powers [or the stages of enlightenment]. A monastic who commits a "defeat" (the traditional etymology of pārājika) offense is compared to "a person whose head is cut off, or a withered leaf dropped from the tree, or a stone slab split in two, or a palm tree cut from the top [which is incapable of regrowing]." Such a person has been defeated and cannot be readmitted to the Order (encyclopedia.com).

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