From the San Francisco Chronicle 1994

Thu Nov 10 22:57:55 PST 1994
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Best-selling Buddhist author accused of sexual abuse
$10 million civil suit filed in Santa Cruz by a woman who says Sogyal Rinpoche, author of the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, "coerced" her into an intimate relationship
By Don Lattin
Special to the Free Press
SAN FRANCISCO -- With the blessings of the Dalai Lama, a group of American Buddhist women have launched a campaign to expose the alleged sexual misconduct of a prominent Tibetan lama and best-selling author.

Sogyal Rinpoche, author of the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, is accused of "physical, mental and sexual abuse" in a $10 million civil suit filed last week in Santa Cruz County Superior Court.

According to the lawsuit, an anonymous woman identified only as "Janice Doe" came to Rinpoche for spiritual guidance last year at a retreat sponsored by the Rigpa Fellowship meditation center in Santa Cruz, but was "coerced into an intimate relationship" with the Tibetan guru.

"Sogyal claimed (she) would be strengthened and healed by having sex with him and that to be hit by a lama was a blessing," the lawsuit states.

The suit -- which accuses Rinpoche of fraud, assault and battery, infliction of emotional distress and breach of fiduciary duty -- also charges that the Tibetan lama has "seduced many other female students for his own sexual gratification."

Sandra Pawula, spokeswoman for the Rigpa Fellowship of Santa Cruz, one of many meditation centers in the United States, Europe and Australia, declined to comment about the allegations, but said that Rinpoche is not married and does not claim to be a celibate monk. Rinpoche, who lives abroad, could not be reached for comment. The lawsuit follows a letter-writing campaign to the Dalai Lama by American women concerned about alleged sexual exploitation by Rinpoche and several lesser-known Tibetan lamas.

"What some of these students have experienced is terrible and most unfortunate," said Tenzin Geyche Tethong, the Dharamsala-based secretary to the Dalai Lama.

In a letter sent earlier this year to one of the women, Tethong said Tibetan Buddhist leaders "have been aware of these (allegations) for some years now."

Jack Kornfield, founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County, was among a group of two dozen Western teachers who discussed the sexual misconduct of Buddhist teachers with the Dalai Lama last year in India.

According to Kornfield, the Tibetan Buddhist leader told the Americans to "always let people know when things are wrong. Put it in the newspapers if you must do so."

Another woman allegedly abused by Rinpoche, Victoria Barlow of New York City, said she is "disgusted by the way the Tibetans have manipulated the reverence Westerners have for the Buddhist path."

Barlow, 40, said she first met Rinpoche in the mid-1970s, when she was 21, and that she was sexually exploited by him during meditation retreats in New York and Berkeley.

"I went to an apartment to see a highly esteemed lama and discuss religion," she said in an interview with the Free Press. "He opened the door without a shirt on and with a beer in his hand."

Once they were on the sofa, Barlow said, the Tibetan "lunged at me with sloppy kisses and groping."

"I thought I should take it as the deepest compliment that he was interested and basically surrender to him," she said.

Sources say the Tibetan Buddhists were trying to handle this issue within their community but decided, especially after the Dalai Lama made the comment about going to the press, to go public now.

"The Dalai Lama has known about this for years and done nothing. There is a real code of secrecy and silence," said Barlow

Jane Campbell: The inner circles of the world of Tibetan Buddhism - for all ist spread in fashionable circles in the West - is a closed and tight one.

Victoria Barlow and a snapshot of a recent article from an Irish newspaper

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Jane Cambell article

Samia
BUDDHISM DEBATE

With her book, Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism, the Scottish philosopher of religion, June Campbell, opened the floodgates for an honest and sound debate about Tantric Buddhism. She worked as a translator for Tibetan lamas, including Kalu Rinpoche, whose "secret sexual consort" she became. Here we reproduce an article about her from the Independent.

The Independent - 10. February 1999 - Paul Vallely

I was a Tantric sex slave

For years June Campbell was the`consort`of a senior Tibetan Buddhist monk. She was threatened with death if she broke her vow of secrecy. But then enlightenment can be like that.
Feet of clay? No, it was a different part of the anatomy - and of all too fleshly substance - which caused the trouble. But, I suppose, you don`t expect Tantric sex to be a straightforward activity. Then again, sex of any kind isn`t really what you`re planning when you become a celibate nun.

It was, said June Campbell as she began her lecture, only the second time she had been asked to give a talk to a Buddhist group in this country since her book. Traveller in Space came out three years ago. Small wonder. The topic of her talk was "Dissent in Spiritual Communities", and you don`t get much more potent types of dissent than hers. For she not only revealed that she had for years been the secret sexual consort of one of the most holy monks in Tibetan Buddhism - the tulku (re-incarnated lama), Kalu Rinpoche. She also insisted that the abuse of power at the heart of the relationship exposed a flaw at the very heart of Tibetan Buddhism.

This was heresy , indeed. To outsiders, the Rinpoche was one of the most revered yogi-lamas in exile outside Tibet. As abbot of his own monastery, he had taken vows of celibacy and was celebrated for having spent 14 years in solitary retreat. Among his students were the highest ranking lamas in Tibet. "His own status, was unquestioned in the Tibetan community", said Ms. Campbell, "and his holiness attested to by all".

The inner circles of the world of Tibetan Buddhism - for all ist spread in fashionable circles in the West - is a closed and tight one. Her claims, though made in a restrained way in the context of a deeply academic book subtitled - "In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism" - provoked what she described as a primitive outpouring of rage and fury. "I was reviled as a liar or a demon", she said during a public lecture last week at the nonsectarian College for Buddhist Studies in Sharpham, Devon. "In that world he was a saintly figure. It was like claiming that Mother Teresa was involved in making porn movies".

But it was not fear of the response which made her wait a full 18 years before publishing her revelations in a volume entitled Traveller in Space - a translation of dakini, the rather poetic Tibetan word for a woman used by a lama for sex. It took her that long to get over the trauma of the experience. "I spent 11 years without talking about it and then, when I had decided to write about it, another seven years researching. I wanted to weave together my personal experience with a more theoretical understanding of the role of women in Tibetan society to help me make sense of what had happened to me."

What happened was that , having become a Buddhist in her native Scotland in the hippie Sixties, she travelled to India where she became a nun. She spent 10 years in a Tibetan monastery and penetrated more deeply than any other Westerner into the faith`s esoteric hierarchy. Eventually she became personal translator to the guru as, during the Seventies, he travelled through Europe and America. It was after that, she said, that "he requested that I become his sexual consort and take part in secret activities with him".
Only one other person knew of the relationship - a second monk - with whom she took part in what she described as a polyandrous Tibetanstyle relationship. "It was some years before I realised that the extent to which I had been taken advantage of constituted a kind of abuse"
.
The practice of Tantric sex is more ancient than Buddhism. The idea goes back to the ancient Hindus who believed that the retention of semen during intercourse increased sexual pleasure and made men live longer. The Tibetan Buddhists developed the belief that enlightenment could be accelerated by the decision "to enlist the passions in one`s religious practice, rather than to avoid them". The stategy is considered extremely risky yet so efficacious that it could lead to enligthenment in one lifetime.

Monks of a lower status confined themselves to visualising an imaginary sexual relationship during meditation. But, her book sets out, the "masters" reach a point where they decide that they can engage in sex without being tainted by it. The instructions in the so-called "secret" texts spell out the methods which enable the man to control the flow of semen through yogic breath control and other practices. The idea is to "drive the semen upwards, along the spine, and into the head". The more semen in a man`s head, the stronger intellectually and spiritually he is thought to be.

"The reverse of ordinary sex expresses the relative status of the male and female within the ritual."
More than that, he is said to gain additional strength from absorbing the woman`s sexual fluids at the same time as withholding his own. This "reverse of ordinary sex", said June Campbell, "expresses the relative status of the male and female within the ritual, for it signals the power flowing from the woman to the man".
The imbalance is underscored by the insistence by such guru-lamas that their sexual consorts must remain secret, allowing the lamas to maintain control over the women. "Since the book was published, I`ve had letters from women all over the world with similar and worse experiences".

So why did she stay for almost three years? "Personal prestige. The women believe that they too are special and holy. They are entering sacred space. It produces good karma for future lives, an is a test of faith". The combination of religion, sex, power and secrecy can have a potent effect. It creates the Catch 22 of psychological blackmail set out in the words of another lama, Beru Kyhentze Rinpoche: "If your guru acts in a seemingly unenlightened manner and you feel it would be hypocritical to think him a Buddha, you should remember that your own opinions are unreliable and the apparent faults you see may only be a reflection of your own deluded state of mind...If your guru acted in a completely perfect manner he would be inaccessible and you would be able to relate to him. It is therefore out of your Guru`s great compassion that he may show apparent flaws... He ist mirroring your own faults".

The psychological pressure ist often increased by making the woman swear vows of secrecy. In addition June Campbell was told that "madness, trouble or even death" could follow if she did not keep silent. "I was told that in a previous life the lama I was involved with had had a mistress who caused him some trouble, and in order to get rid of her he cast a spell which caused her illness later resulting in her death.

There are those Buddhists, like Martine Batchelor - who spent 10 years as a Zen Buddhist nun in a Korean monastery and who now teaches at Scharpham College - who insist the religious techniques the Buddha taught can be separated from the sexist, patriarchal and oppressive culture of many Buddhist countries. But June Campbell is not convinced. "You have to ask what is the relationship between belief and how a society structures itself," she said. In Tibetanism, power lies in the hands of men who had often been traumatised by being removed from their mother at the age of two and taken to an all male monastery. "Some were allowed visits from their mothers and sisters but always in secrecy - so that they came to associate women with what must be hidden".

But there is more to it, she believes than that. Teaching at Sharpham last week she gave the students a whole range of material about different kind of feminism - from the political to the psychotherapeutic. She then asked them how it relates to the fact that there are no female Buddha images or to why in Tantric sex images the woman always has her back to the viewer, or to why Buddhist women are told to pray that they will be reborn into a male body in their next life -for only in a man`s body can they attain full enlightenment.
"Once I started unravelling my experiences, I began to question everything," she said. That meant not just the actions of a particular guru But the very idea of the guru. She began to wonder whether the Tantra was just a fantasy, and whether there is really any difference between Tantric sex and ordinary sex. She questioned the very concept of enlightenment itself and the practice of meditiation. "I realised that in order to be myself I had to leave it all - completely an utterly."

Wednesday, July 6, 2011Bad Karma by Gabrielle / On Sogyal-Rinpoche
Posted on June 14, 2011 by dialogueireland

BUDDHIST LEADER FACES CLAIMS OF SEX EXPLOITATION MADE BY WOMAN WHO WAS ASKED TO UNDRESS

THE Tibetan spiritual director of a Buddhist Centre in Cork, has been accused of sexual exploitation by two women in a new documentary. Sogyal Rinpoche, who is in Ireland this week to lead a nine-day retreat, is the founder of the Rigpa movement, which has 130 centres worldwide. Its Dzogchen Beara centre in west Cork is listed as a tourist destination by Tourism Ireland and was visited by President Mary McAleese in 2007.

Bad karma

Complaints against the Buddhist master were raised in In The Name Of Enlightenment, part of a documentary series broadcast on Canadian television last month. The allegations of physical and sexual assault follow a $10m (€7m) US lawsuit filed against Rinpoche in 1994 for alleged physical, mental and sexual abuse. In the case, which was settled out of court, an anonymous woman claimed she was “coerced into an intimate relationship” having visited Rinpoche on a Connecticut retreat following the death of her father. No details of the settlement have emerged. Rinpoche is the author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. He also played a starring role alongside Keanu Reeves in the 1993 film Little Buddha.

A woman identified as “Mimi” in the documentary said she met Rinpoche at the age of 22 when she began working at a Rigpa centre in France in 2000 to be near her father. She became an “attendant” to Rinpoche after passing what she took to be a “test of devotion” to join a group of women close to the spiritual teacher. “Women close to Rinpoche were considered to have good karma,” she said in the documentary. “After working at the centre for two months, I was invited into his room. He ordered me to undress, which I thought was a test of devotion. “Some Buddhist masters have this crazy wisdom where they use beatings as a way to open your chakras and open your way to enlightenment.

If he beats you or has sex with you, he’s actually opening your path to enlightenment.

“He asked me to swear never to speak about it to any one. I f I talked about it, it would sever this connection. I feel very sad because I lost myself and I was in a group of girls who had lost themselves even more.”

A London spokeswoman for Rigpa said Rinpoche has been aware of the allegations in the documentary and take s them “very seriously.” “Consistent with the Buddhist values that Sogyal Rinpoche up holds, Rinpoche respects and cares for all of his students past and present, without exception,” she said. “Rinpoche is deeply saddened to learn of anyone who has less than good memories of their time as a student even if they are only few in number. “We do not consider it helpful to enter into a public debate via a television programme about the experiences of any individual. We have full confidence in the sincerity, authenticity and conduct of Sogyal Rinpoche as a Buddhist teacher. We have only ever seen him act for the benefit of other people, and with their best interests at heart. None the less any allegations of inappropriate behaviour are taken seriously by the organisation.”

In a Sunday Times article in 2009, a spokesman for Rigpa described allegations of sexual exploitation against Rinpoche as “uncorroborated and without evidence”.

Victoria Barlow, who has spoken to newspapers of her experiences with Rinpoche, also featured in the documentary. Speaking from her home in Manhattan, she said she began a sexual relationship with Rinpoche in America in 1976. She met him in New York City after studying Buddhism in Dharamsala, the Indian home of the Dalai Lama. She said she sought out spiritual guidance after encountering sexual abuse as a child and was invited to his apartment. “He sat really close to me and started stroking my cheek. Then he was lying on me. I was stunned…fool that I was, I thought that it must be a blessing. But it was not remotely tantric or meaningful. He conned me.”

Mary Finnigan, a British journalist and Buddhist, said she has been compiling a dossier on Rinpoche for 16 years because she regrets helping him to launch his career in London. “Sogyal’s promiscuity was obvious to every one in the mid-1970s in the Buddhist community and that’s what he has been doing systematically ever since,” she said. “But he puts on a good show. He offers people a dumbed-down version o Buddhism which appeals to people who want a quick fix.”

For those interested in purchasing the DVD featured in the Sunday Times article please follow the instructions below.

“The Sex Scandals in Religion,” is NOT for commercial sale form our website, especially because we have a distribution with Looking Glass International to sell DVD to the European market and European broadcasters.

Jennifer DiCresce
Cogent/Benger Productions
1352 Bathurst St, Unit 201
Toronto ON M5R 3H7
Ph: 416-535-5394

www.cogentbenger.com

Further requests for this DVD can be place to:

Looking Glass International:
Nha-Uyen Chau at Telephone (Australia) +61 3 9415 6884,
nha-uyen@lookingglassint.com

For further information on Sogyal and Rigpa please follow these links:
* Sunday Times Article 2009

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Posted by josey at 6:54 AM

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"An update on Sogyal. I have been entering factually accurate, corroborated information on Sogyal onto his entry on www.wikipedia.org Winthin hours it is deleted."
Pema wrote in 2009

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An update on Sogyal. I have been entering factually accurate, corroborated information on Sogyal onto his entry on www.wikipedia.org Winthin hours it is deleted.

This indicates to me that his poodles are hot on the trail -- and more significantly, that they are in deep denial.

I have recently been reading interview material with several ex Rigpa people in France. Their statements corroborate similar ones made to me by English speaking ex Rigpa people over the years since 1994.

I believe the momentum to expose Sogyal as an abusive, self-indulgent charlatan is close to tipping point. The sadness I experience is that when this happens it will tarnish the reputation of Tibetan Buddhism as a whole and HH The Dalai Lama in particular.

The Tibetan diaspora has had its collective head buried in the sand for a long time -- hoping, I suspect, that the details of Sogyal's depraved lifestyle will remain secret. This is no longer an option. Too many people know about it and are willing to speak out. HHDL knows because among others, I tiold him. Several times.

But -- and its a big but -- he is the only high profile public figure on the world stage today who speaks from the moral high ground and is taken seriously. This position is now threatened because of HH's association with Sogyal. IMHO, this is a great pity and will not benefit humankind. Sogyal has a lot to answer for -- and HHDL and his advisors have made some very bad decisions.

Note to readers:

If you want to learn the actual bigotry and idiotic idolatry of the DL that goes on in Dharamsala, get and read a copy of Nikolai Grozni's memoir, Turtle Feet.

Grozni's landladies, both devout and both adoring of the Dalai Lama demanded that Grozni eject a friend of his from his rented lodgings.

Why?

Because Grozni's friend was a man who had taken vows as a monk and then had disrobed. Grozni's rented lodgings where he had permitted his homeless friend to stay, were situated within a couple hundred feet of the Buddhist Institute of Dialectics and...the Dalai Lama's own lodgings.

The landladies, one of them a Geluk nun, informed Grozni that it was morally wrong for a man who had given up monastic vows to live so close to the Dalai Lama!

Grozni said, you are treating my friend like an animal, he has no where else to call home.

And Grozni also told them he had just recently paid the next months rent.

He was ordered to kick his friend out or get kicked out too.

Such wonderful compassion.

So if this bigotry is how superstitious Tibetans relate to the Dalai Lama, how does he actually behave when behind closed doors and away from Westerners, among his own cozy clique?

Note: Grozni also learned that the Tibetans in Dharamsala considered stray dogs to be disrobed monks who had been reborn as those dogs.

And stray dogs are not usually treated well in Dharamsala, from what I have heard. The dog care that has been set up was instigated by kindly Westerners, not by the locals.

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