In the article "Neo-orthodox Tradition and Transition: Lama Ole Nydahl and the Diamond Way" Bee Scherer writes:

Academic criticism can only be justified based on evidenced, sufficient understanding of the diachronic and synchronic contexts (in this case sufficient expertise in Tibetan Studies, Buddhist Studies, and Sociology & Anthropology of Religion); and, if scholars reflect openly upon their own positionality in order to mitigate any possible bias. In the past, the Diamond Way has received some harsh criticism from some writers, including academics, who lack, in full or part, these two vital preconditions.

The same principles of rigour and transparency need to apply for decisively uncritical academic or semi-academic outputs which have appeared over the recent years in the fields of sociology, psychology, geography and anthropology of religion, often written by central European Diamond Way devotees, who, without fact-checking, repeat Diamond Way PR.

This is an important point. The fact is that Diamond Way PR has mushroomed and metastasized to the level of academic writing. This is an issue because this PR has an aspiration to influence academic narratives and perceptions.

Bee Scherer writes further: Those who have read my previous critical analyses of the Diamond Way around topics such as right-wing politics and machismo might be tempted to reduce the movement simply to a (personality-)cult with questionable tendencies. Yet, avoiding obvious reductionisms, I would be interested to see future research on the movement, exploring pertinent angles such as the construction of authority, ‘authenticity’, and tradition; the internal negotiations of transnational politics of Tibetan Buddhism in exile; or the subjective well-being benefits and/or the spiritual bypassing utilised, and possibly the trauma & harm experienced, by Diamond Way devotees. E.g., in light of the traumatic #metooguru scandals engulfing organisations such as Shambhala and Rigpa, would it be really justified to place the Diamond Way on the same level with those controversial movements (as done in 2017 by the journalist Mechthild Klein)?

An important point again. I am very glad someone has said it explicitly in an academic paper. There is an issue of harm and trauma experienced by diamond way devotees. There is also an issue of spiritual bypassing.

I know little about Shambala but do not place diamond way at the same level as Rigpa. There were scandals in Rigpa but in fairness Sogyal Rinpoche did not hire a league of lawyers and solicitors to suppress the discussions which unfolded on the Internet and to close down forum and blogs which were taking this topic on. He allowed the critique to unfold. He faced the criticism. He did not attempt to suppress his students’ liberties in terms of voicing publically their opinions. They were not blackmailed to stay silent. The discussion was in open. I think it was healing for Rigpa members.

Next: With over 600 centres worldwide, the Tibetan Buddhist Diamond Way movement founded and led by Ole Nydahl (*1941) is a fast-growing global lay Buddhist movement and the arguably largest convert Buddhist movement in Central and Eastern Europe.

Yes, Ole Nydahl often uses the argument that he leads the largest buddhist organisation in the world, as an evidence to prove the legitimacy of his claims in Karmapa Controversy. There was an important discussion unfolding on this forum regarding the basis and foundation that Ole's centres are based upon. What qualifies as a centre? What criteria have to be met for a centre to be registered?

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Anita 2
It is a pity we cannot see that date, that this
letter was sent on.

Hello Anita,
the letter was sent at the beginning of May 2021, around 10 days before I posted it.

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Anita 2
Exclusions from buddhist centres are systemic and
have been deliberately practiced. The existence
and persistence of a cult of a guru banks on a
systemic existence a scapegoat. This topic has
been already discussed on the Rick Ross Forum in
the context of activities of Lama Ole Nydahl. We
will come back to that, since this is a key
problem in this organisation.

Oh yes, this is used as to keep people in line. Also once you either leave on your own or are expelled, members of the group in general will cease any contacts with you as to not be "contaminated" by your opposition to the problems in the group. Which is a classic cult mechanism.

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Anita 2
I personally have no problem seeing everyone as
kings and princesses. I am lucky to have tasted
this perfect richness.

The problem with this idea is that it is not even a vajrayana concept, but is being presented as such. Vajrayana practice of pure vision is not based on thinking that shit is chocolate, because by merely thinking that shit is chocolate it will not become one :D Vajrayana practice of pure vision is based upon direct experience of one´s own natural state and understanding that others equally have such natural state and upon not clinging to any concepts. In other words when practitioners of pure vision meet someone who treats them nice, they will not think "oh this person is such a good person" and when they meet someone who treats them poorly they will not think: "this person is bad". They will hold no concepts about either of those two, they will view them equally and as having same nature as oneself. So here Ole presents a mental exercise of seeing everyone as buddha by thinking that everypne is a buddha which is not in accord with vajrayana, but he pretends it is the actual method of vajrayana, while also excluding certain groups of people from this fake pure vision :D

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Anita 2
I remember that during one of his lectures Ole
said that it has been scientifically proven that
black people have smaller brains than white ones.
The audience was laughing their heads off. So was
the translator. For those of us who didn't quite
get it, Ole repeated it again: “It has been
scientifically proven that black people have
smaller brains than white ones. Really, really,
seriously.“

I tried to talk about this statement with the
audience members after the lecture. They were
laughing at me. Obviously I wasn't getting it.

I have no access to the recordings from this
lecture, if such even exist. So I cannot offer a
hard proof. I can only assure you it happened.

Oh yes, Ole is racist, this is beyond any doubt now and many of his students are racist too and they often hold other extreme right wing views - both racism and other views of extreme right are in direct opposition to Buddhist teaching on compassion and bodhicitta, but this somehow escapes them. I met several of Ole´s students who got fire arms license and regularly train at the shooting range in order to "defend themselves from immigrants". Now during the corona pandemic many of his students are vehemently opposed to vaccination and the protective measures such as mask wearing, which creates conflict between the organisation itself that adheres quite strictly to these measures and the individual members who are opposed to them, becuase they indoctrinated themselves with extreme right wing non-sense.

It would be worthwile to make a more thorough analysys, with direct quotes from Ole, of how his group diverges from standard Tibetan Buddhist teachings, to demonstrate that it is in reality not a Buddhist group, but a personality cult with extreme right leanings that merely masks itself as a Buddhist group. Unfortunately I do not have an access to any of Ole´s recordings, but if someone could provide to me an original recording of some recent internal lectures, I would gladly make such analysys.

RE: Kawa Lhundrub
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Quote
Kawa Lhundrub
Oh yes, this is used as to keep people in line.
Also once you either leave on your own or are
expelled, members of the group in general will
cease any contacts with you as to not be
"contaminated" by your opposition to the problems
in the group. Which is a classic cult mechanism.

That's true. They cease contacts with ex members.

Quote
Kawa Lhundrub
this fake pure vision :D

Yes, that's fake pure vision. That is also a violation of a bodhisattva vow that Ole Nydahl teaches. Moreover it turns the concepts of refuge and samaya into travesty.

Quote
Kawa Lhundrub
I met several of Ole´s students who got fire arms license and regularly train at the shooting range in order to "defend themselves from immigrants".

I have heard about that. Some of Ole's students are apparently militarized.

Quote
Kawa Lhundrub
to demonstrate that it is in reality not a Buddhist group, but a personality cult

Yes. The point I am making is that the cornerstone of a personality cult is the scapegoat mechanism. I remember that people were citing on this forum a French philosopher who in his works described how a personality cult emerges and how scapegoating and exclusions from “religious” (or rather para-religious) communities are a necessary and founding mechanism of such cults.

Shortly after this discussion unfolded on Rick Ross Forum, the Wikipedia web page of this philosopher was taken down. The references to his work previously existing on other Wikipedia web pages, were also deleted. It is a common knowledge that diamond way Buddhists are actively and openly encouraged by Ole to become Wikipedia editors and they exercise an active influence on the content of Wikipedia.

We are talking here not only about violations of Buddhist samaya, vows and precepts. We are talking about violations of human rights and existing legislations.

Ole Nydahl makes sure that the people who become scapegoats are vulnerable enough not to be able to defend themselves. It is a ruthless practice.

Earlier someone on this forum has recalled an incident when Tomek Lehnert broadcasted an email to all Diamond Way centres (they have 700 of them) letting everyone know that a particular person from Russia was excluded from the Diamond Way and was not supposed to be let in to any of Ole’s centres. Not only was a full name and family name of this person included in this letter. Tomek also included a photo of the excluded man. That’s how it is done. This is not a trivial matter.

As we can see these types of emails with explicit or implicit threats of exclusions are regular communications and are deliberately designed to trigger certain social mechanisms and reactions.

A friend of mine remembers that shortly after Tomek sent this email, the diamond way sangha that he was a member of, viciously expelled another man from the centre. For nothing really. He has done no wrong. They have just followed the example from the top.

Here is the link to the YouTube video that I was referring to earlier. Ken Wilber - Casting Shadow: [www.youtube.com]

I think this video is very relevant to the conversation we are having.

In my posts here I am referring the the earlier Rick Ross Forum posts on this topic. I have been following this blog for quite some time, but taken that this discussion now has nearly 200 pages, it is difficult to remember who posted what. So, sometimes I generalize.

Someone has posted earlier that people would ask during Ole's lectures, how many women he had slept with. His responses were always that he slept with more than 600, 700 or 800 women. That was 10 years ago. To say that by now this number has reached 1000 women, is a safe assessment.

Ole Nydahl's date of birth: 19 March 1941
Harvey Weinstein's date of birth: 19 March 1952

I remember situations when Ole was with Hannah during courses. In the evenings Hannah would work and Ole partied with students. Hanna would come to the party to collect him, only to find him in a foreplay, physically intimate with his female students or with a tongue in his student mouth. She would leave the party crying. She was not impervious to Ole's infidelities. She suffered as everyone of us would.

Hannah was a force of goodness. Thinking of her still brings tears to my eyes.

exdwgirl Wrote:
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> Good luck for all your efforts! Unfortunatelly I
> don't think this pics will do much... :( Anyway,
> do you anything about why he got divorced from
> Alexandra? There is also hardly anything on the
> net about Alexandra Munoz Barboza, all I could
> find that they were married for 3 years, and he is
> married again to Anna, who is again super young.
> Alexandra was kind a tough on him, that I know.
> She almost changed her mind even about the
> wedding, because Ole was cheating on her and she
> said than no marriage, if the rumour was true, so
> Ole stopped it that time. Those times I was in the
> Sangha, this is how I know it. But I am wondering
> what could happen. Alexandra was like an amazon,
> really strong, tough Venezuelan woman.

I don't know much about Alexandra Munoz Barboza but I kind of sympathize with the previously presented opinion that Diamond Way activities in South America and Caribbean had something to do with tax avoidance of its executives. Every tax advisor will tell you that the key to avoiding paying taxes is not to settle for longer in any place. As long as you are not an american citizen, you don't pay taxes if you live a nomadic lifestyle. I would not be surprised if Ole, Caty and Tomek has significant fortunes, obtained in tax free way, safely nested in South American banks.

I've never met Hannah but I always felt that she must've been suffering because of him. Every woman would suffer seeing things like that! I personally have huge respect and sympathy for Hannah, she was such a gentle and hard working woman. I never forget when Ole said on one of his lectures that he will pay 10000 dollars to every woman who will stand in front of him and accuse him of rape. It was in 2015 in March. I still have access to his lectures and must say that this guy looks like an old crazy veteran in his military outfits. Obviously I don't listen to his scam, because I'm not going to pay money for that. I paid a big price for being in DW. When I quit DW I was in fear that something could happen to me because I've lost Lama protection, can you believe it? What kind of manipulation is that? People are being brainwashed I ended up doing long therapy sessions trying to get my life back. I still practice Buddhism, I always wanted to do that but unfortunately I had a really bad beginning just because this cult I so easily accessible. The biggest bullshit I've heard it was from one of his students ages ago that he's an emanation of 16th Karmapa. Seriously?

Mary Lou Wrote:
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(...) I paid a big price for being in DW. (...)

I totally understand Mary Lou. Thank you for posting.