Defense for Ole?

This thread is about Ole. But what I suggest Misstyk has revealed is an important point.

This thread is about Ole. But Ole got his mystique from a system that, in its ancient and 'authentic' forms, is itself corrupt. I contend that Vajrayana is corrupt and corrupting because it contains escape clauses (tantrically rationalized) giving permission for its elite cadre of master/senior practitioners to ditch ethical precepts --ethical precepts that continue to apply to those low on the food chain.

Virtue for the peasants, tantric sex for the male elite.

There is no defense for the other supposedly 'authentic' Vajrayanas who abuse women.

If people cannot take matters 'out of the vault of secrecy' and face that Vajrayana, even 'real Vajrayana' is founded on exploitative abuse of girls and women, then we will lack a framework to identify and describe with the needed precision, "Westerners" who are abusing Vajrayana.

The would be reformers of Diamond Way are in a painful predicament.

To keep hoping that a Good Daddy will come in and clean everything up, the Karmapa, for instance. Or the Dalai Lama.

But what if there are no Good Daddies anywhere in Vajrayana Buddhism?

What then?

Note that according to Misstyk, the king of Bhutan took the matter seriously enough to (at least on paper) outlaw actual usage of women in tantric rites.

This in Bhutan, being marketed to the affluent tourist market as the last unspoiled Buddhist kingdom.

We can hope the kings intervention will succeed in ending the abuse of women. But, Bhutan is a closed society.

Abuse of male authority (by the tantrics) is supposed to end via imposition of a greater male authority (the king). Rule of law (apart from a monarch is new. Will this have an effect? Lets see.

Its not a noble human attainment to treat women as mere power outlets for tantric masters to use for recharging their own circuitry.

In the Buddhist precepts we are warned against theft. The utlity companies dont take it kindly when people are found illegally bootlegging electricty and not paying for it. Stealing human vitality from a girl or woman lied to, overpowered by force, or made drunk can only ruin everyone involved.

What Misstyk has described in Bhutan, the theft of a woman's autonomy, dignity and theft of a woman's vitality to empower male vitality and privilege is STEALING.

Stealing is warned against in the Buddhist precepts.

Any set up that insinuates that there exists an elite cadre for whom the precepts no longer apply as the do to the rest of us has (IMO) nothing to offer the West except as a rationalization that one can adhere to an ancient religious system and still Do What One Wills if one considers oneself or is disgnated a tantric adept. .

This thread is about Ole. But Ole got his mystique from a system that, it turns out, is trouble ridden, too.

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corboy
This thread is about Ole. But Ole got his mystique from a system that, in its ancient and 'authentic' forms, is itself corrupt.

I think you will find a tiny percentage of people promoting distorted views in any system, but this doesn't mean the system is itself corrupt. Personally, the one person who Nydahl's behaviour reminds me of is Silvio Berlusconi, and like in this case, this behaviour cannot really be taken as representative of the system as a whole. There is no overall consensus here, no systematic corruption, and no consipracy to be uncovered, just one man promoting his own distorted viewpoint.

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corboy
This thread is about Ole. But Ole got his mystique from a system that, in its ancient and 'authentic' forms, is itself corrupt.

What alot of sweepinbg generalizations you make, Corboy. Tibetan Buddhism is not perfect. It is certainly patriarchal but you cannot tar eveyone with the same brush. As regards the Trimondis - it's yellow journalism of the silliest kind. Redolent of the sort of claptrap that the Communist Chinese or Fundamentalist Christians put out (which indeed may provide some of their sources I think).

Ole's sexual use of his female students has more to do with the group dynamics within personality cults than any specific Tibetan Buddhist sexual practices. To blame Tibetan Buddhism at large is to let Ole off the hook for orchestrating a groupthink that legittimizes his own sexual incontinence.

As I understand, Nydahl did not appoint himself a Lama until after Kalu Rinpoche's passing in 1989. Although the controversy surrounding them both may lead one to "join the dots", I suspect that the timing of Nydahl self-appointment suggests a different story, which is reinforced by the fact that Kagyu centres founded by Kalu Rinpoche support Ogyen Trinley Dorje's canditature and have clearly distanced themselves from Nydahl and DWB.

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suenam
As you said yourself, this is "taken from the Shaivite phallus worship", so possibly the reason it isn't in tantric literature is because it isn't part of Vajrayana. Your logic looks like this; satan is mentioned in the Bible, satanists have orgies, therefore the Bible promotes orgies! - clearly you have made a connection based upon a generalisation that doesn't hold true.

Two of the criticisms of Nydahl I have put forward are this; 1) he mistakenly interprets the tantras in a literal way, 2) he views women as helpless victims that require his protection. Your view seems to take this seriously as the truth about all Vajrayana Buddhism when it is in fact Nydahl's distortion of it.

There are plenty of references in the tantric literature to the vajra (phallus) and it's "adamantine" (rock-hard) quality, that the initiates are to emulate with their own "vajra". But this detail that Karam-mudra provides, about how the master is in full control of his sexual energy, and the erection is used to bless everyone in the room, is something I haven't encountered before. It's pretty clear from the phallic paintings on the walls of Tibetan monasteries around the world that this is of central importance to the "religion".


And we know the tantras were, and possibly still are, practiced in a literal way, by the testimony from Bhutan. (Bhutan and Ladakh are of the Drukpa Kagyu sect.) Also, the fact that Kalu Rinpoche had consorts, including a Tibetan teenager (who died, supposedly of a heart attack) while serving as his consort), and Chogyam Trungpa's teacher had a consort who's still living in Eastern Tibet, and mention in a number of sources of "spiritual wives" that the monks kept for their "practice", would indicate that tantra is, with the possible exception of the Gelug sect, practiced "live" and not merely through visualizations. It was no secret that Dudjom Rinpoche, now deceased former head of the Nyingma order, used his wife as his consort, and his is not an exceptional case.

The Dalai Lama himself has said that he won't reach enlightenment in this lifetime, because he hasn't done consort practice. He says that is essential for reaching enlightenment.

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Misstyk
It was no secret that Dudjom Rinpoche, now deceased former head of the Nyingma order, used his wife as his consort, and his is not an exceptional case.

You are correct, however it would seem a far leap from someone doing consort practice with their wife to what we are discussing here. This is not what I meant by the idea of a literal interpretation.

In the non-Buddhist world people have sex, there is also exploitation of inequality, this does not therefore mean that the system is based upon such an exploitation, nor that every instance of sexual contact is an example of this exploitation.

The general attacks on Tibetan Buddhism by the Trimondi site I think are questionable. The whole site seems an anti-Buddhist diatribe.

I was a Tibetan Buddhist at one time, and when I learned that my own teacher was teaching the highest empowerments, which includes sex I began doing my own research. Because of what I was told about the Trimondis’ I decided to find books on my own, even finding and reading the Commentary of the Kalachakra on my own. I was shocked and sickened. It took two days to read it, and then I emailed my teacher and called him a lair and told him I was finished with Tibetan Buddhism. Then I began doing more research after learning that other men and women were being sexually abused by these sexual predators, and that word I know sounds harsh, but they groom men and women in the same way sexual predators groom, but just these men and women are not children it doesn’t make them invulnerable.

Tibetan Buddhism is based on sex such as has stated. Even in Tibet they have phallic frescos painted on the walls of the monasteries. I am not sure if I am allowed to post them here, but I can provide a link: [downthecrookedpath-meditation-gurus.blogspot.com]

And here is part of an article from the same website:

[downthecrookedpath-meditation-gurus.blogspot.com]

Lama Thubten Yeshe (Introduction to Tantra, 147) wrote:

"There is a certain point in the mastery of the completion stage where physically embracing a consort is necessary . . . ."

Je Tsong Khapa who founded the Gelugpas, agreed that to attain Buddha-hood in one lifetime, it is necessary to use an actual consort (karma mudra) saying, "A female companion is the basis of accomplishment of liberation."

That is, in order to generate an illusory body as that of a particular deity with all the qualities of existence, another person must interact with it.

Tsongkhapa, founder of the Tibetan Gelugpa sect is of the same opinion:
Shaw, Miranda, Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism, Princeton 1994.Page 146
“A female companion is the basis of the accomplishment of liberation”

The Dalai Lama said he would not reach enlightenment in this lifetime because he did not have a consort.

The Dalai Lama also said that many within Buddhist schools believe that the Shakyamuni became enlightenment with a consort under the Bodhi Tree and that his was edited out in many iconographies and written accounts."

The Buddha never taught such practices that are held to be secret. He said that he taught with an open hand, and that monks and nuns were to practice celibacy--ALWAYS.

Warrenz wrote: This I can imagine causes all sorts of conflicts and unhappiness.



He was speaking of women and lamas having sex, and to this I would like to add, Yes, it can, and isn’t Buddhism really about ending suffering, not causing it?

Suenam wrote: I agree. The kind of hysteria this attempts to whip up only really plays into the hands of those like Nydahl, who use that to denounce their opponents as mentally unstable flakes.

You won’t believe how many times I have heard this is Hinduism when a woman complains of sexual or verbal abuse. It makes me so angry that gurus and disciples do this to women. They also add on, the woman just wants fame. This is such a sick behavior by these gurus and disciples and actually criminal. The same has happened in our society when a woman has been raped. Either she was going to the wrong places at night or she was dressed wrong, but basically, it was her fault. Something was wrong with her.

Steve wrote:

I've seen him tongue kissing and fondling a student but she seemed as eager as he was.

Sometimes this may be the case, but more than likely she was groomed for this type of behavior.

Steve also wrote: I will say that a huge amount of pressure was exerted upon me to dedicate many long hours in construction work, event organisation and editing lectures. I was put on a 'guilt trip' if I didn't comply.

And while this was being done to you something similar was being done to women or even men in order to get them into a sexual relationship with a guru or lama.

Drinking to excess was common after many events. Drinking to access is common among gurus, after all they are enlightened now and so they can do what they want. Even the Kalachakra states this. In Vedanta I knew a man who used to go to the liquor store for these gurus, i.e. holy men.

I urge anyone with an interest in investigating Buddhism to stay well away from DWB. Do not get involved.

I urge anyone with an interest in any eastern religion to go to Zen or Theravadin since they don’t engage in these practices. Tibetan Buddhists do practice sex with their disciples in private as do Hindu gurus. It is part of the package and they try to keep it a secret as best as they can. If it hasn't happened to you then the guru is just not interested and also consider yourself fortunate.

Misstyk wrote: I'm not sure why the Trimondis have credibility issues.

The reason is because Tibetan Buddhists have put them down so much that even their disciples believe what these lamas and forum members say about them. They were translators for the Dalai Lama and so got ahold of his texts and when they learned what the teaching was about, well, they decided to expose it. Even June Campbell has been badmouthed by the Tibetans as being a liar. I saw first hand how abusive gurus were in Hinduism and had women friends who left due to this abuse. I was told in all cases that the women were liars, mentally disturbed, etc. I knew these women, and I knew what they were going through, they were not mentally disturbed, except to say that what happened to them caused them to be so for a while. I was disturbed by what I saw and heard as well; I left in anger, and I might say that anger hasn't totally gone away because I hate that people are abused in the name of religion, which is supposed to bring peace of mind in this world where so many are harmed.

Sue wrote: Two of the criticisms of Nydahl I have put forward are this; 1) he mistakenly interprets the tantras in a literal way, 2) he views women as helpless victims that require his protection. Your view seems to take this seriously as the truth about all Vajrayana Buddhism when it is in fact Nydahl's distortion of it.


They are literal Sue. I suggust that you buy the book, Kalacakra Tantra (A Commentary On The) [Paperback]
Geshe Lharampa Ngawang Dhargyey (Author) He was sent to America by the Dalai Lama. This book was not to ever be published, and it warns people that their head will burst if they read it before they are initiated. Well, I felt my head bursting when I read it, but not how he expected it to happen. It was bursting from shock and disappointment in another religion. (You can only get this book on Amazon.

Anyway, he admits that it is literal. REALLY LITERAL.

Nydahl doesn’t consider women as helpless victims to protect. He doesn’t protect them at all. He turns them into victims.

These people that you listen to that tell you these things Sue are lying to you. Don’t fall for it. Here is another book to read that will open your eyes:

Tantrism: Its Secret Principles and Practices by Benjamin Walker

Sue, I even know of men who have been sexually abused by these lamas.

Corboy is NOT making sweeping generations. Tibetan Buddhism has always been corrupt and always will be. Here is what a scholar has to say about Tantra:

Here is a tidbit from the book, History of the Tantric Religion by N.N. Bhattacharyya, Page 20: “In the Agamapramanya of Yamunacarya it is stated that the Vedas do not support Tantric rites and that the Tantras are much in vogue among the low class people. In works like the Desopadesa and the Narmamalat of Ksemendra and in the Bharatakadvatrimiska of the Jains, Tantric rites are depicted as ridiculous and most detestable. ..the Tantras are for the person fallen from Vedic rites and afraid of Vedic penances. ..Followers of the Tantric way should be socially ostracized and that any act of social intercourse with them should be followed by expiatory right.”

I know this comes from Hinduism, but it is basically all the same. The tantras are sexual in nature and have many detestable teachings, such as drinking, eating feces, drinking menstrual blood, and on and on. The Tibetan Buddhists over on Dharma Wheel even spoke about these things openly before they were deleted by the moderator.

My two cents.

I came to my own conclusions after years of research and discussion.

And I have never made any use of the Trimondi site.

And, I hold no brief for the People's Republic of China, either.

Using girls and women as mere energy outlets for male spiritual and social privilege is stealing, whether a Western lama does it or whether a Mongolian or Himalayan Rinpoche whose title comes from umpteen generations of tulku recognitions does it.

Wrong is wrong.

And its no great achievement to create a system where when one reaches elite level of practice, ethics becomes suddenly negotiable.

No Good Daddy (or even a Good Mommy) is gonna ride to the rescue here.

We have to rescue ourselves by becoming citizens and holding Vajrayana accountable to the ethics created by and for citizens.

The methods of debate and philosophy that created the Western mind developed for usage in the Greek city state, where all male property holders were informed citizens. Rhetoric and debate were used in a situation where persons met as social equals.

The Vajrayana debate protocol is actually practiced in which one party argues as the superior, and the other sits in submission, defending the contested point, while the asserting party hammers away. This isnt equal or respectful but domineering and hierarchical.

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grainne uaile
The general attacks on Tibetan Buddhism by the Trimondi site I think are questionable. The whole site seems an anti-Buddhist diatribe.

I was a Tibetan Buddhist at one time, and when I learned that my own teacher was teaching the highest empowerments, which includes sex I began doing my own research. Because of what I was told about the Trimondis’ I decided to find books on my own, even finding and reading the Commentary of the Kalachakra on my own. I was shocked and sickened. It took two days to read it, and then I emailed my teacher and called him a lair and told him I was finished with Tibetan Buddhism. Then I began doing more research after learning that other men and women were being sexually abused by these sexual predators, and that word I know sounds harsh, but they groom men and women in the same way sexual predators groom, but just these men and women are not children it doesn’t make them invulnerable.

Tibetan Buddhism is based on sex such as has stated. Even in Tibet they have phallic frescos painted on the walls of the monasteries.
...
The Buddha never taught such practices that are held to be secret. He said that he taught with an open hand, and that monks and nuns were to practice celibacy--ALWAYS.

We aren't talking about monks and nuns here, we are discussing non-ordained practitioners.

In Tibet they have phallic frescos painted on the walls, and in the West they use images of sexually aroused teenage girls to sell cosmetics. If your campaign is against structural misogyny then I don't think this thread is necessarily the best place to do it.

As we discussed already, the idea of a man engaging in consort practice with his wife as equals cannot really be included in the category of sexual exploitation.

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grainne uaile
Suenam wrote: I agree. The kind of hysteria this attempts to whip up only really plays into the hands of those like Nydahl, who use that to denounce their opponents as mentally unstable flakes.

You won’t believe how many times I have heard this is Hinduism when a woman complains of sexual or verbal abuse. It makes me so angry that gurus and disciples do this to women. They also add on, the woman just wants fame. This is such a sick behavior by these gurus and disciples and actually criminal. The same has happened in our society when a woman has been raped. Either she was going to the wrong places at night or she was dressed wrong, but basically, it was her fault. Something was wrong with her.

The actual point that I was making was that sexual abuse should be condsiered as such and not woven into some kind of narrative about ideology. Therefore I am advocating placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrator rather than shifting the focus elsewhere. As Warrenz wrote,

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warrenz
To blame Tibetan Buddhism at large is to let Ole off the hook for orchestrating a groupthink that legittimizes his own sexual incontinence.

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grainne uaile
They are literal Sue.

Again here you seem to have misunderstood the point. To give an example, the image of the male avoiding ejaculating in order to "steal the essence of the feminine" is symbolic. To take it literally makes about as much sense as claiming that the man who does ejaculate is having his seed stolen by the woman!!!

The claim is not that people do not literally have sex, nor is it in any way denying that there are abuses of inequality, the point is that there are people who distort religious teachings of all kinds to serve their own purposes, and others who disregard them completely and just act selfishly, neither of which can be taken as representative for any belief system as a whole.

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grainne uaile
Nydahl doesn’t consider women as helpless victims to protect. He doesn’t protect them at all. He turns them into victims.

These people that you listen to that tell you these things Sue are lying to you. Don’t fall for it.

I am not claiming that Nydahl actually does protect them, what I am saying is that he claims they are helpless and need protecting in order to bolster his imaginary role as a knight in shining armour. As with actual historical knights, the truth is often a lot uglier than the fantasy.


Nydahl's basic stance is one of blind arrogance. He claims to stand for freedom of speech and uses that to try to silence others. He claims to stand for western liberal values and uses that to promote a sort of tyranny. He claims to represent Buddhadharma and uses that to promote division and dualism. He claims to want to protect women and uses that to exploit them.

I don't find the idea that he is simply preying on helpless and vulnerable women either accurate or useful in this case. The idea that they are somehow passive in this interaction seems to simply reinforce the same stereotype that Nydahl exploits, however that is not to say that they are entirely to blame either.

If we wish to simply blame Nydahl and Tibetan Buddhism then maybe that would suffice, but in the end it seems self-serving our own desire find fault rather than doing something which would empower his followers to see the truth for themselves.

We aren't talking about monks and nuns here, we are discussing non-ordained practitioners.
In Tibet they have phallic frescos painted on the walls, and in the West they use images of sexually aroused teenage girls to sell cosmetics. If your campaign is against structural misogyny then I don't think this thread is necessarily the best place to do it.

As we discussed already, the idea of a man engaging in consort practice with his wife as equals cannot really be included in the category of sexual exploitation.


I hope you don't believe that these lamas are just using their wives as consorts? Children are used in the monasteries in India. They even take the wives of other men to use as they desire. They sleep with whomever they please, as one tantra says, even with their mothers.
Why would a monastery wall have sexual frescos if it isn't about sex?

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The actual point that I was making was that sexual abuse should be condsiered as such and not woven into some kind of narrative about ideology. Therefore I am advocating placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrator rather than shifting the focus elsewhere. As Warrenz wrote,

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warrenz
To blame Tibetan Buddhism at large is to let Ole off the hook for orchestrating a groupthink that legittimizes his own sexual incontinence.

It lets him off the hook? I don't think so, but it puts the entire Tibetan Buddhist tradition on the hook. What Ole' is doing is at least very open, but what lamas do here and in other countries is done in secret. They all do the same; only one is more open about it.

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suenam
I am not claiming that Nydahl actually does protect them, what I am saying is that he claims they are helpless and need protecting in order to bolster his imaginary role as a knight in shining armour. As with actual historical knights, the truth is often a lot uglier than the fantasy.

All people need protecting. All gurus act like a knight in shinning armour and claim to know how to help someone towards enlightenment, which I find to be the biggest fraud of all, i.e. the belief in enlightenment, which I consider a fantasy.

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suenam
If we wish to simply blame Nydahl and Tibetan Buddhism then maybe that would suffice, but in the end it seems self-serving our own desire find fault rather than doing something which would empower his followers to see the truth for themselves.

One way to empower men and women is to warn them about these religions, which is what I am others are doing here. I would go so far as to say that many, if not, most religions use mind control on their people which often ends in abuse. How can you empower people in Tibetan and Hindu teachings if you don't warn them of the negative aspects of it? What you fail to realize is that there is much power in the lama or guru, and he knows how to manipulate people and therefore, get tehm to comply. I would suggest you read, The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power . And as Dr. Margaret Singer, PhD said, "No one is immune from being brainwashed, all they have to do is get their foot in your door." Not her exact quote but it comes from her book, Cults in Our Midst. It really matters not whether you do or do not have high self esteem, but self-esteem helps. Anyone and everyone is vulnerable. Mind control is used in businesses, and it is used in the media, for example, a psychologist wrote a book on mind control being used on Fox News, and yet thousands watch and believe this news network. This psychologist's book: State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind by Bryant Welch.