Quote
28.
Bill Schwartz says : January 6, 2011 at 4:08 am
To all who have kindly taken the time to comment here,
I apologize for not responding to your comments. My CHF (Congestive Heart Failure)has worsened of late. I’m a husband, father and a grandfather so with the holidays my family, and getting as much bed rest as possible, so that I can enjoy my time with them, has been a priority for me.
For those that dismiss the newsworthiness of the KPC SLAPP story I have an update.
Two weeks I was contacted by a reporter for the
Washington Post. His editor was interested in the story of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in America threatening to sue an online yoga magazine, Elephant Journal, for libel over a blog prior to the publication of the blog. KPC is a local interest religion story for the Washington Post.
This afternoon I was updated on the story by the WaPo (
Washinton Post) reporter. The Religion editor is interested in the KPC Slap story. Waylon Lewis, Publisher of
Elephant Journal, has confirmed that he was indeed threatened by KPC with a libel suit. It’s a pretty straight forward story for someone looking at it in the real world.
The National editor is interested in the story I shared with the reporter about how KPC attempted to sabotage the 2010 Payul Ling Retreat by not sponsoring the visas of the Tulkus scheduled to visit. This story will take much more reporting of course, and a decision will have to be made at WaPo regarding whether they want to dedicate their resources to this much larger expose of KPC. It is through their sponsoring of the visas of visiting Tibetan Palyul teachers that KPC controls the lineage itself; why although the Palyul Lineage created KPC in 1988 as the Largest Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in America the lineage itself has no control whatsoever over it. If pursued, this is a huge story.
To date WaPo has not begun to did into the Financial/real estate records for KPC to see if they are indeed in compliance with their tax-exempt status. That’s a WaPo decision of course. Allegations were made by Martha Sherrill, then a WaPo reporter, over a decade ago regarding suspect use of donations, so there is an institutional interest in doing a follow up story about these more salacious allegations.
There has been some noise locally that was raised recently over the $250,000 bail out of KPC by Peter Yeung, some HHPR refused to take money from himself, and who he called a liar. It’s all very sordid, but if developed makes for fascinated reading for WaPo’s no Buddhist audience interested in seeing their tax subsidies for KPC at work,
So there are two stories being developed, and one yet to be developed. Given that the shit hit the fan only 38 days ago and the story is being reported on by the Washington Post, that isn’t a bad result form my perspective. As blogger I feel totally vindicated that WaPo agrees with me that what I have been tweeting about is newsworthy.
On the Palyul side of the story, the lineage is in utter disarray since HHPR passed away. In private they insist that HHPR renounced KPC before his death. He may well have, but made no public statements to that effect. The Heart sons haven’t a clue about what to do with KPC. They have no control over it, which is to say it is no longer a Tibetan Buddhist monastery of the Palyul lineage but something entirely different than it appears.
Efforts are being made to help the Palyul lineage to get in front of the scandal of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in America not being controlled by the lineage that created it. If you are a Tibetan Buddhist, this harms the efforts of us all to establish our respective lineages in America if it is found that individuals have profited from KPC’s tax exempt not for profit status.
To date, the Palyul lineage has been saying one thing in private and something entirely different in public. They are so disorganized, even if they wanted to issue a statement clarifying their relationship with KPC they lack the consensus to make it sadly. It’s that messed up. KPC can do whatever they want and answer to nobody. So much for the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in America,
Bill
dctendai.blogspot.com
30. Still Waiting says : January 10, 2011 at 11:49 am
[
www.accesstoinsight.org]