Regarding his wife, Diana J. Mukpa, you are correct, she was 16 or so when she and Trungpa started their relationship. She talks about it in her recent book, "Dragon Thunder" which is about their relationship.

He didn't advocate heavy drinking per se - he felt that people tended to be a little more direct and honest after a few drinks. He thought it preferable to using pot/cocaine/whatever, which in the late 60s and early 70s was very prevalent amongst the "spiritual seekers" that wound up at his door. He was all about getting people to come down to earth, and felt obligated to cut through people's "trippy" fantasies about what spirituality was about, and apparently pot/coke/whatever seemed to encourage those sorts of fantasies.

He himself, however, was clearly an alcoholic and never really seemed to either hide it or to try and stop. How exactly he transitioned into a "chain drinker" I'm not sure, but towards the end of his teaching career it was clearly taking a toll on him (see e.g. Bhagavan Das's "It's Here Now, are You ?" for some stories about this; see also William Patterson's "Eating the I").

As for his sexual exploits, I believe the book "Dragon Thunder" goes into this to some degree as well. It also talks about her relationship strained her relationship with her mother, how Trungpa initially won her mother over (at least for awhile), and in general would make interesting reading for some on this forum.


_xtvb9_

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jograves
Chögyam Trungpa

I don't know if there are any on the database or not, but I have heard allegations made against Chögyam Trungpa, before his death. (At least, I think I remember him dying. It's been a long time.)
I know that he advocated heavy drinking at one time, and drank a lot himself. I met him. I never got into the philopsophy, period, but I think it was along the lines of "crazy wisdom".
He also took an extremely young (teenage) wife, if my memory serves me.

Her name is "Mukpo", not "Mukpa". Sorry about that.

_xtb9_

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xtb9
Regarding his wife, Diana J. Mukpa,

Read John and Nancy Steinbeck's book The Other Side of Eden for convincing descriptions of Trungpa's behavior. They say he was also a cocaine addict. Certainly an overt addicted womanizer though because of drugs and alcohol not able to perform well. And as for his Regent Tom Rich, they have a lot to say about his addicted sex behavior and general sociopathic morality including possible rape of young males. They are not reporting from outside and conjecture but were very much insiders before they made the committment to kick the alcohol addiction.

I've heard that's a very good book. That "possible rape of young males" would explain the occasional comments from men on Buddhist forums about having been abused by their teacher long ago.

I don't see why "starfish" was demanding substantiation of the OP's list. Even back when the thread was started, the predations of people on the list were well-documented. Many more could be added to the list, but I think it makes more sense to simply say: beware of Tibetan Buddhist teachers.

Notice that the article on the incident at Amherst is no longer available. Hopefully the Boston Globe could provide it if someone made a request. It's important to have documentation of these incidents.

Here's an article that lists some perps, and explains the rationale used to justify silencing whistle-blowers and blaming the victims:
[portland.indymedia.org]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2012 04:41AM by Misstyk.