Re: Sex/Sexuality within Cults
Posted by:
notanantiGnostic
()
Date: April 07, 2010 11:48AM
"In other cases, there have been reports that a leader did not act out sexually himself, remained married, but would order followers into relationships or to be celibate at whim, as though using them as surrogates act out urges he dared not do on his own. "
It may be more than just said leaders desires, it may be a matter of utility. These practices help the group to be controlled and also help to create a sense of community. The group I was involved in, the Gnostic Movement behaved in a similar way. There are many advantages to this but the one that I noticed was that being married within a group would make it harder to leave.
It may be more than just said leaders desires, it may be a matter of utility. These practices help the group to be controlled and also help to create a sense of community. The group I was involved in, the Gnostic Movement behaved in a similar way. There are many advantages to this but the one that I noticed was that being married within a group would make it harder to leave.
Re: Sex/Sexuality within Cults
Posted by:
Blue Dakini
()
Date: April 07, 2010 04:48PM
I have to stick to my guns re Tibetan lamas. I am in touch with Tib Budh people worldwide and have visited centres on four continents. I am known as a researcher into the seedier aspects of the Tibetan diaspora, so people come to me with their stories. Obviously many are coloured by strong emotions -- but after listening to them for 30 years I can identify common denominators which allow me to evaluate the overall picture. There is no doubt in my mind that pre-Chinese Tibetan feudal-medieval attitudes towards women did not change when the lamas came west. And us westerners did virtually nothing to enlighten them in this respect -- overawed as we were by their mystique, charisma and authority. Many thousands if not millions of TB devotees are still stuck in this mind set -- which is why grotesque individuals like Sogyal Lakar aka Rinpoche can get away with their abuses.
Re: Sex/Sexuality within Cults
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: April 07, 2010 10:31PM
Without a climate of accountablity, a climate of accountability that is part of normal media coverage, Buddhist leaders will lack a very important restraining principle.
What I call the Stanford Cookie Experiment may account for many cases of guru greediness for power, wealth and a sense of entitlement to use the sanga for a sexual supermarket.
What can seriously aggravate this is a lack of what I call a normal day to day climate of accountability from both sangha and outside media. Gurus all too often only get scrutiny after trouble erupts. But prior to damage reports, they often lack accountabilty--coddled by an entourage, respect and even grovelling obseqiousness from media, and the luxury of answering only questions they choose to answer.
And, often the troubled sangha whines, 'But why trash the three jewels by telling all this to the secular media?'
Answer to that from Corboy: Because, all too often, people DO try, loyally, to remedy a misbehaving guru by trying to institute reform within the sangha and the misbehaving guru will disgrace them, the misbheaving gurus senior and favored entourage members bar access and slander the people trying to tell the truth, and that means there is no mechanism within the sangha to set limits on the guru and remedy the troubles. Anyone seeking reform finds that the only way to be heard to is to leave the conspiracy of silence that characterizes the sangha and either contact the secular media or create a media outlet of ones own--a blog or website--which is usually hounded by trolls from the troubled sangha.
(It should be noted that a troubled guru is all too often surrounded by what looks like a decadent royal court, with a privy council of enablers and serfs who scrub the floors and take out the garbage. It should be kept in mind that Buddha could have lived as a prince, but chose to leave his palaces and the pleasures of courtly life, and took to the road with a beggars bowl. He did not teach so as to legitimize his successors living like
pampered maharajahs dressed in gold and brocade. )
By contrast, secular elected politicians are the butt of jokes* and in most cases, journalists ask much tougher questions of secular politicans than of lamas and rinpoches--except that these high ranking lamas and rinpoches ARE political leaders--they often are princes and barons in exile.
*(an old one. "When is a politician lying? Answer: When his/her lips move.')
Tibetan Buddhism and its leaders are now chic and come from what I personally call, a part of the world that is 'fashionably oppressed.' The attention given by the media tends to be adoring.
I cannot forget that the high lamas and rinpoches functioned as princes and barons in their old territory and resemble White Russians in exile who longed to return and reclaim their confiscated estates.
Instead, theyve done a most successful job colonizing the western imagination. And, friends, thats the way to build an empire, or regain access to a lost empire--always begin by colonizing the imagination of others so that it would be literally unthinkable for them to see anyone but you as rightful leader.
This does NOT mean that the Chinese behavior toward Tibet and her people and culture is anything less than awful. It is simply that this has gained media attention and
advocacy from socially empowered persons and celebrities in the West.
But this means that Tibetan leaders who misbehave and traditional misogyny are not given the close scrutiny that should always be given to anyone who wields vast power.
At this time, no one has yet created a normal climate of accountability for leaders of the Tibetan diaspora comparable to what the Popes of Rome have to deal with.
By this time, there exists an advocacy organization for Catholics wounded by clergy abuse, named SNAP.
But there exists nothing comparable to aid wounded members of the Tibetan Buddhist community. One dare not question the lamas and rinpoches for then you get screamed down that youre being hard on Tibetans who fled Chinese atrocities, you are risking going to Vajra hell, and your guru equals your practice and how dare you defile the Three Jewels, blah blah.
There is no structure within Tibetan Buddhist tradition by which social roles and the exercise of authority can be analyzed objectively and this empowers anyone who misbehaves and happens to be in a position of authority.
By contrast, Lord Acton, a loyal Catholic, was raised in a western milieu in which philosophy and even theology had created a way to analyze power and social roles objectively.
This enabled Lord Acton to be loyal to Catholicism, yet disagree with Papal Infalliblity and enabled Lord Acton to write the words,
'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'
and to see what happens if someone has been randomly assigned to a leadership position for even a time limited period, read what I have termed the Stanford Cookie Experiment.
Some persons are not content with cookies. They feel entitled to grab for sexual outlets, rather than cookies.
And if someone has been in power for decades, with no climate of accountablity, the effect will probably be far more extreme.
The Stanford Cookie Experiment
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2010 10:38PM by corboy.
What I call the Stanford Cookie Experiment may account for many cases of guru greediness for power, wealth and a sense of entitlement to use the sanga for a sexual supermarket.
What can seriously aggravate this is a lack of what I call a normal day to day climate of accountability from both sangha and outside media. Gurus all too often only get scrutiny after trouble erupts. But prior to damage reports, they often lack accountabilty--coddled by an entourage, respect and even grovelling obseqiousness from media, and the luxury of answering only questions they choose to answer.
And, often the troubled sangha whines, 'But why trash the three jewels by telling all this to the secular media?'
Answer to that from Corboy: Because, all too often, people DO try, loyally, to remedy a misbehaving guru by trying to institute reform within the sangha and the misbehaving guru will disgrace them, the misbheaving gurus senior and favored entourage members bar access and slander the people trying to tell the truth, and that means there is no mechanism within the sangha to set limits on the guru and remedy the troubles. Anyone seeking reform finds that the only way to be heard to is to leave the conspiracy of silence that characterizes the sangha and either contact the secular media or create a media outlet of ones own--a blog or website--which is usually hounded by trolls from the troubled sangha.
(It should be noted that a troubled guru is all too often surrounded by what looks like a decadent royal court, with a privy council of enablers and serfs who scrub the floors and take out the garbage. It should be kept in mind that Buddha could have lived as a prince, but chose to leave his palaces and the pleasures of courtly life, and took to the road with a beggars bowl. He did not teach so as to legitimize his successors living like
pampered maharajahs dressed in gold and brocade. )
By contrast, secular elected politicians are the butt of jokes* and in most cases, journalists ask much tougher questions of secular politicans than of lamas and rinpoches--except that these high ranking lamas and rinpoches ARE political leaders--they often are princes and barons in exile.
*(an old one. "When is a politician lying? Answer: When his/her lips move.')
Tibetan Buddhism and its leaders are now chic and come from what I personally call, a part of the world that is 'fashionably oppressed.' The attention given by the media tends to be adoring.
I cannot forget that the high lamas and rinpoches functioned as princes and barons in their old territory and resemble White Russians in exile who longed to return and reclaim their confiscated estates.
Instead, theyve done a most successful job colonizing the western imagination. And, friends, thats the way to build an empire, or regain access to a lost empire--always begin by colonizing the imagination of others so that it would be literally unthinkable for them to see anyone but you as rightful leader.
This does NOT mean that the Chinese behavior toward Tibet and her people and culture is anything less than awful. It is simply that this has gained media attention and
advocacy from socially empowered persons and celebrities in the West.
But this means that Tibetan leaders who misbehave and traditional misogyny are not given the close scrutiny that should always be given to anyone who wields vast power.
At this time, no one has yet created a normal climate of accountability for leaders of the Tibetan diaspora comparable to what the Popes of Rome have to deal with.
By this time, there exists an advocacy organization for Catholics wounded by clergy abuse, named SNAP.
But there exists nothing comparable to aid wounded members of the Tibetan Buddhist community. One dare not question the lamas and rinpoches for then you get screamed down that youre being hard on Tibetans who fled Chinese atrocities, you are risking going to Vajra hell, and your guru equals your practice and how dare you defile the Three Jewels, blah blah.
There is no structure within Tibetan Buddhist tradition by which social roles and the exercise of authority can be analyzed objectively and this empowers anyone who misbehaves and happens to be in a position of authority.
By contrast, Lord Acton, a loyal Catholic, was raised in a western milieu in which philosophy and even theology had created a way to analyze power and social roles objectively.
This enabled Lord Acton to be loyal to Catholicism, yet disagree with Papal Infalliblity and enabled Lord Acton to write the words,
'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'
and to see what happens if someone has been randomly assigned to a leadership position for even a time limited period, read what I have termed the Stanford Cookie Experiment.
Some persons are not content with cookies. They feel entitled to grab for sexual outlets, rather than cookies.
And if someone has been in power for decades, with no climate of accountablity, the effect will probably be far more extreme.
The Stanford Cookie Experiment
Quote
Gaining power puts the powerholder at increased risk of misdoing.
Let us look at the Stanford Cookie Experiment.
I first learned of this experiment from reading a book, written by Robert I Sutton, a professor of management and engineering at Stanford University, entitled The No Asshole Rule:Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't.
let us look at Professor Deborah Gruenfeld's experiment--what I term the Stanford Cookie Experiment. I believe that scholars of cults and dysfunctional organizatins need to place this experiment alongside Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority Experiment and Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment.
This experiement demonstrates how a leadership role, randomly assigned, has a tendency to trigger swinish bad manners in otherwise normal persons.
The way the experiment worked (and it was replicated a number of times)
subjects were assembled into a group to do a shared task.
*At random, one subject in each group was assigned the role of overseeing and evaluating the others' work--randomly assigned to a leadership role.
During the experiment, a plate of cookies/biscuits was brought in.
Time and again, those subjects randomly assigned to the leadership role, tended
to do the following:
Took more cookies (greed)
Chewed with mouths open (lapses of ordinary good manners)
Got crumbs on their faces and left crumbs on the table (messes for others to clean up)
Thus, random assignment to a brief, time limited leadership role had a potent effect--increasing the probability that the promoted subject's manners would deteriorate.
Now...these were persons who had not sought the leadership role. By contrast, the persons who interest us are those who are driven to desire power, desire fame, spend years seeking ways to market themselves, hone their persuasive skills, and once they become leaders of personality centered groups, are waited on, insulated from consequences, and have enablers making excuses for them.
Imagine the Cookie Experiment going on for ten years or more.
The experiment was done by Professor Deborah Gruenfeld of Stanford University--her
speciality has been researching the effects of putting people in positions of power where they lord it over others.
Read more about the Cookie Experiment here:
[www.google.com]
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2010 10:38PM by corboy.
Re: Sex/Sexuality within Cults
Posted by:
Blue Dakini
()
Date: April 07, 2010 11:40PM
Gassho Corboy -- an exemplary analysis. I love the Stanford Cookie experiment. It takes the biscuit.....
On the basis that internet material is open access, I am pasting your post onto Dialogue Ireland. It is more likely to be read there by Sogyal's enablers than it is here.
They NEED to read it. But the chance of an epiphany from within the close circle is remote. They have invested too much for too long and are brainwashed to the point where they witness Sogyal beating people for "mistakes" -- and rationalise it as "working with negativity".
On the basis that internet material is open access, I am pasting your post onto Dialogue Ireland. It is more likely to be read there by Sogyal's enablers than it is here.
They NEED to read it. But the chance of an epiphany from within the close circle is remote. They have invested too much for too long and are brainwashed to the point where they witness Sogyal beating people for "mistakes" -- and rationalise it as "working with negativity".
Re: Sex/Sexuality within Cults
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: April 08, 2010 12:51AM
Koan For the Day
Is Marketing, designed to identify and increase cravings, compatible with Dharma which is meant to apply insight to craving?
Feel free to share this where you suspect it might enrich any discussion.
And give your best bow and good wishes to Richard Sutton of Stanford University, for it was through his book that I learned of the Cookie Experiment.
Philip Zimbardo's Prison Experiment at Stanford and Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority experiments have become famous/infamous and are in all entry level social psychology text books.
But the Gruenweld cookie experiment is not receiving the attention it deserves.
And remember..the researcher randomly assigned a particular group member to the leadership role. And this role play was time limited to a few hours.
We are not talking about someone who has actively sought a leadership role, or who has been selected for a leadership role while still a child and then, either way, remains in that role for years, decades, buttressed and supported by court ettiquette, and by an ancient and unexamined social scene.
The ability to examine social roles objectively is not possible if one operates within a feudal mindset, whether European medieval or an Asian feudal mindset imported from the monastic fiefdoms of Tibet or the palaces and ashrams of India.
Here is another item:
I took vows to honor forms and ceremonies, but each item of the bodhisattva precepts is interconnected with all others.
We honor forms and ceremonies but only if these same hierarchies forms and ceremonies support the practice of everyone, regardless of age, wealth, and no matter how humble. No practitioner should be objectified and used for a gurus gratification if young and beautiful.
And keeping secrets is to lie, which runs counter to the precepts. Energy devoted to keeping a leader's secrets, to creating a PR image of a leader that is different from private truth drains away energy that could be spent on practice and generates a long tangle of afflication--the very jungle Buddha offered tools to free us from..Buddha did not mean to create a new jungle in which we were to become trapped!
I hope this has not been too great a distraction from our research friends queries into sexual behavior. It is a complex topic.
Committed Buddhists take vows to beware of misusing sexuality. However, these are guidelines, not absolutes. I personally interpret it to mean, among other things, I vow to beware of taking what has not been freely AND CONSCIOUSLY OFFERED.
This excludes anyone who is in a state of intoxication, and is less than consciously adult. Anyone drunk, or who is intoxicated by guru mystique and therefore is not adult, even if he or she feels adult, is not a proper partner, even if they beg for it.
Two...any time a liason must be kept secret, that wounds the sangha and also wounds the more vulnerable partner, even if at one time that partner seemed to make advances.
A true teacher, no matter what his or her tradition will never allow his or her personality to become the focus of intoxication.
And this falls under the heading of the buddhist precept that forbids 'darkening mind and body of self and other with intoxicants.' Charisma and PR are to me, just as much intoxicants as crack cocaine. So is the greed and haste generated by marketing practices and hype.
I offer this as someone who is a layperson, intends to remain so and has no intention ever to teach.
Is Marketing, designed to identify and increase cravings, compatible with Dharma which is meant to apply insight to craving?
Feel free to share this where you suspect it might enrich any discussion.
And give your best bow and good wishes to Richard Sutton of Stanford University, for it was through his book that I learned of the Cookie Experiment.
Philip Zimbardo's Prison Experiment at Stanford and Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority experiments have become famous/infamous and are in all entry level social psychology text books.
But the Gruenweld cookie experiment is not receiving the attention it deserves.
And remember..the researcher randomly assigned a particular group member to the leadership role. And this role play was time limited to a few hours.
We are not talking about someone who has actively sought a leadership role, or who has been selected for a leadership role while still a child and then, either way, remains in that role for years, decades, buttressed and supported by court ettiquette, and by an ancient and unexamined social scene.
The ability to examine social roles objectively is not possible if one operates within a feudal mindset, whether European medieval or an Asian feudal mindset imported from the monastic fiefdoms of Tibet or the palaces and ashrams of India.
Quote
Historian Norman E Cantor, said this about the difference 14th century people's
mindset and our own, regarding attitudes toward power and leaders.
Edward III of England waged cruel and merciless war against France, bringing suffering and death to thousands. He beseiged the French city of Calais into starvation and
when six citizens from the city, staggered forth offering their own lives in a plea
that the surrendered city not be subjected to wholesale massacre, the king would have
had them killed, had his own queen not thrown herself at his feet and begged mercy.
Edward also raped an English noblewoman after sending her husband abroad on a mission to get him out of the way. He funded his wars by taking out hefty loans from a
series of Italian banks, and then defaulted on the loans causing a financial collapse in
Florance.
By our modern standards, Edward III was an abusive monster. But here is what
Professor Cantor tells us:Quote
Quote:
That today we may look back on the English king of the fourteenth century as a kind of destructive and merciless force, while to nearly all articulate and literate contemporaries he was a constitutional king and very model of chivalry and aristocratic honor, illuminates a gap between our world and fourteenth century Europe.
Fourteenth century people lacked the moral catagories that could transcend traditional political and social roles. They lacked a critical value system that judged rulers by consequenes and not the formal catories in which their behavior was structured.
In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made, page 39
There was no way to step outside of the situation and evaluate the kings job performance.
But, in the New Wage and Dharma Lite scene, we risk having our modern citizens minds and the hard won capacity for analytical and critical thought replaced by this medieval mindset that lacks a critical value system that judges rules (and gurus and roshis) by consequences of their actions.
The arguement that enlightenment means a guru or roshi's behavior is beyond the reach of conventional evaluation is another way to return us to the feudal peasants mindset that serves the interests of the Neo Brahmins and New Wage barons carving out their fiefdoms via Twitter, Pocasts, etc.
These Neo Brahmins and New Wage barons claim to be postmodern and 21st century but they're as preoccuppied with hierarchy, especially those who prate of Vertical Hierarchy as any medieval chancellor or scholastic.
They represent a regression, but all dressed up in modern garb to disguise it.
If we become elegantly dressed peasants and keep our noses dutifully aimed at our own little gardens, we will not catch on to all this--and thats what the barons want.
Lennon's song Working Class Hero has this
Quote:
As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
John Lennon
Corboy: I disgree with the 'just follow me' part.
Quote:
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A parody
Keep you cravingly curious whether you're truly Integral
Worrying what color you are on the Great Spiral
You think you're Big Minded, Evolved full member of the spiritual elite
But to the Enlightement Industry you're still just one hunk a meat
In what way is post modern marketing assimilating the insights, images and lingo of Buddhadharma INTO those marketing strategies to make more effective in triggering cravings for aquisition in listeners and readers, rather than the insights of Buddhadharma being applied TO post modern marketing so as to examine exactly how it inflames craving supports an illusory sense of self rather than applying insight to this tangle of market driven craving and self enhancement?
There is a recent book review in the November issue of Harpers
A blogger writes:
"It's a really good, provocative essay on how design manipulates consumerism..."
Consumerism being the inward and outer tangle of cravings that every practicing Buddhist should be encouraged to look at--not support as a reactive spender.
Classical capitalism, exemplified in Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country: "Accumulated capital --in its most basic form, primitive hoarding --is spent on conspicuous demonstrations of waste in the form of leisure."
Late capitalism, exemplified F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night: "..the shadowy shills of the culture industry want us to spend our way to wealth and happiness. Down on the ground, the individual experiences fractured selves, or multiple consumption identities, even while yearning for wholeness."
Postmodern capitalism: exemplified in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, "Consumption is both intimate and relentless: brand-conscious consumers cannibalize themselves, feeding on their jumble of layered identities."
In this form of postmodern capitalism, marketing is aimed so consumers make purchases of various goods, information and services they see as creating and maintaining a particular self concept. (eg I am green, I am progressive, I am evolutionary and spiritual, etc)
And...'insights from Veblen (author of the classic Conspicuous Consumption) are assimilated (into the post modern capitalist strategy itself) rather than Veblens insights being applied to post modern capitalism to consider their new and perverse relevance." (Corboys paraphrase of some notes written after reading a copy of this article)
This is right smack in line with what Nella has invited us to examine.
Is commercial dharma emancipatory, or is it part of something that supports our sense of ourselves as enlightened?
[74.125.93.132]
[forum.culteducation.com]
Here is another item:
I took vows to honor forms and ceremonies, but each item of the bodhisattva precepts is interconnected with all others.
We honor forms and ceremonies but only if these same hierarchies forms and ceremonies support the practice of everyone, regardless of age, wealth, and no matter how humble. No practitioner should be objectified and used for a gurus gratification if young and beautiful.
And keeping secrets is to lie, which runs counter to the precepts. Energy devoted to keeping a leader's secrets, to creating a PR image of a leader that is different from private truth drains away energy that could be spent on practice and generates a long tangle of afflication--the very jungle Buddha offered tools to free us from..Buddha did not mean to create a new jungle in which we were to become trapped!
I hope this has not been too great a distraction from our research friends queries into sexual behavior. It is a complex topic.
Committed Buddhists take vows to beware of misusing sexuality. However, these are guidelines, not absolutes. I personally interpret it to mean, among other things, I vow to beware of taking what has not been freely AND CONSCIOUSLY OFFERED.
This excludes anyone who is in a state of intoxication, and is less than consciously adult. Anyone drunk, or who is intoxicated by guru mystique and therefore is not adult, even if he or she feels adult, is not a proper partner, even if they beg for it.
Two...any time a liason must be kept secret, that wounds the sangha and also wounds the more vulnerable partner, even if at one time that partner seemed to make advances.
A true teacher, no matter what his or her tradition will never allow his or her personality to become the focus of intoxication.
And this falls under the heading of the buddhist precept that forbids 'darkening mind and body of self and other with intoxicants.' Charisma and PR are to me, just as much intoxicants as crack cocaine. So is the greed and haste generated by marketing practices and hype.
I offer this as someone who is a layperson, intends to remain so and has no intention ever to teach.
Re: Sex/Sexuality within Cults
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: April 08, 2010 01:05AM
I will end by saying this.
It isnt only sexual behavior thats a source of trouble. Once I heard it suggested that by the time a leader acts out sexually, this is actually a late stage in a sitaution where boundaries and cravings have been allowed to fall into confusion and have been mismanaged for a very long time prior.
If reports of sexual acting out begin to arise, examine the sangha or ashram and look for mismanaged greed and boundaries that go back for years.
See how craving has actually been managed. Has there been a lust for power, for publicity?
To the extent that any guru lets him or herself be marketed as a celebrity, the more that public image becomes artificial, parasitic and demands more and more energy for it to be maintained.
Greed for money? How are the account books handled?
Greed for expensive and lovely items? Greed for a building too expensive for the resources of the sangha?
If there is greed for money, its very tempting to accept offers from persons or grant agencies who have money from dirty sources.
If you're too eager to market your books or your guru, this means hanging out with PR agencies and publishers that are profit driven and that drags you further into the jungle of afflictive emotion, rather than liberating from it.
Again and yet again, I will say that a true teacher does not let him or herself become the focus of intoxicating personality cultism and will assertively discourage this. And a good teacher will be able to live and socialize outside of a structured, courtly environment and not need to huddle behind an entourage and can respond to unprogrammed questions.
And give good answers, not resort to a giggle.
And especially if a guru can speak fluent English and has a geshe Ph.D from a shedra, he or she should not need to giggle and scratch and exhibit distracting eccentricities. If you have been in the west and enriched by westerners for decades, learn to sit still and reciprocate the trust and respect given to you by your western listeners.
Do not infantalize then and then bitch that westerners want easy, baby food dharma.
If a guru enjoys tax free status from Western democracies, that means those who pay taxes are indirectly subsidizing that guru.
ANd...that means that guru had better reciprocate with basic respect and good behavior and acknowledge he or she is interconnected with Western democracy and respect those of us who do not want to be treated like peasants and who consider the old droit de seigneur (right of the baron to shtup the girls) out of date and not at all appropriate for a guru.
Not even if the guru claims to teach tantra.
It isnt only sexual behavior thats a source of trouble. Once I heard it suggested that by the time a leader acts out sexually, this is actually a late stage in a sitaution where boundaries and cravings have been allowed to fall into confusion and have been mismanaged for a very long time prior.
If reports of sexual acting out begin to arise, examine the sangha or ashram and look for mismanaged greed and boundaries that go back for years.
See how craving has actually been managed. Has there been a lust for power, for publicity?
To the extent that any guru lets him or herself be marketed as a celebrity, the more that public image becomes artificial, parasitic and demands more and more energy for it to be maintained.
Greed for money? How are the account books handled?
Greed for expensive and lovely items? Greed for a building too expensive for the resources of the sangha?
If there is greed for money, its very tempting to accept offers from persons or grant agencies who have money from dirty sources.
If you're too eager to market your books or your guru, this means hanging out with PR agencies and publishers that are profit driven and that drags you further into the jungle of afflictive emotion, rather than liberating from it.
Again and yet again, I will say that a true teacher does not let him or herself become the focus of intoxicating personality cultism and will assertively discourage this. And a good teacher will be able to live and socialize outside of a structured, courtly environment and not need to huddle behind an entourage and can respond to unprogrammed questions.
And give good answers, not resort to a giggle.
And especially if a guru can speak fluent English and has a geshe Ph.D from a shedra, he or she should not need to giggle and scratch and exhibit distracting eccentricities. If you have been in the west and enriched by westerners for decades, learn to sit still and reciprocate the trust and respect given to you by your western listeners.
Do not infantalize then and then bitch that westerners want easy, baby food dharma.
If a guru enjoys tax free status from Western democracies, that means those who pay taxes are indirectly subsidizing that guru.
ANd...that means that guru had better reciprocate with basic respect and good behavior and acknowledge he or she is interconnected with Western democracy and respect those of us who do not want to be treated like peasants and who consider the old droit de seigneur (right of the baron to shtup the girls) out of date and not at all appropriate for a guru.
Not even if the guru claims to teach tantra.
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