QuotekayoQuotesuenamThe DWB members I knew had no qualms about working for investment banks or oil companies, they craved their i-phones, alcohol, music, dancing, and often some form of tobacco product. They regularly served meat and alcohol in centres, and the level of harmful gossip was much higher than I have experienced in any other "samsaric" setting. On the face of it, there was n
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotevdesign I feel that some of Ole’s advice is aimed at people with more freedom than is available to normal mortals stuck waist-deep in samsara. TBC I'm really not sure what criteria you use to judge how deep someone is immersed in samsara. The DWB members I knew had no qualms about working for investment banks or oil companies, they craved their i-phones, alcohol, music, danc
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotevdesignHi Suenam, You raised at least a dozen different issues in your latest stream-of-consciousness effort. As mentioned before I see no point in debating sweeping, generalised statements. I will keep writing in response to more focused posts, though. All the best, I was simply summing up some issues that have been covered in detail already. The fact that they are so numerous
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotevdesign There is also something for Suenam in this video. 3.20 min : ...karma is not divine retribution, it is not fate, whatever has not happened yet can be changed. Cheers, It is one thing to say this but act differently. I for one fail to see how Ole's behaviour aims at change - it seems confrontational, antagonistic, and tries to paint a picture of things being far more ex
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

to vdesign the main gist of this thread, and indeed of other detractors, both Buddhist and otherwise, seems to be summed up in the sentence which claims that there is some real perversion of the Buddhadharma taking place by Mr Nydahl. is it significant that your numerous posts seem to sidestep this issue? it seems more significant to me that Ole's teaching seems to be rather divisiv
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteherbieZH I think the answer is much more simple: Having been a member of DWB for about 6 years and attending several of his lectures in that time I came to the conclusion that Ole is hopelessly naive and credulous. - while I'm tempted to agree with you here, I do think there is a danger of downplaying the far right movement in countries like Denmark. The same thing could be said of t
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

thanks Alchi - that is a very good point. equally, to address Ole's quote that,""The Abrahamic religions, the ones that follow our constitution, treat women well, don't blow up people ... Judaism and Christianity are fine...." 1. there have been many campaigns in Europe highlightling domestic violence - aimed at caucasian Europeans. Clearly, violence against women i
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotezara11It is such a shame that Lama Ole decides to protest agains Islam in the name of Buddhism, and shame on the disciples of Lama Ole as well. It is very embarassing to know that some people may get to know Buddhism trough this protests and manifestations against Islam, instead of the real compassionate pacific Buddhism. I agree to the fact that Islam has some dangerous practices that pro
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

We seem to live in a culture of blame and recrimination - apportioning guilt and making judgements accordingly - scaremongering and inventing demons to crusade against, this is how the majority of the media behaves - it is commonplace. It has also been quite common in the past for religions to preach forgiveness and yet act in exactly this hypocritical, judgemental and inflammatory way. Person
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotevdesignThere appear to be two issues with Ole’s contentious statements about Islam, sex, homosexuals, Africa etc. Firstly – are these statements verifiable/objective/factual/true and, secondly – is it acceptable to publicly voice these views? I will start by dissecting what Ole says about homosexualism. Whenever asked Ole proclaims to be completely heterosexual and thus having little firs
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

sorry re-post
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Thank you for those posts Zara - they seemed to disappear from Shamarpa's website rather quicky, and those letters could well explain why. "9. July 2010 email to Shamarpa Rinpoche: Dear Shamar Rinpoche, Apparently I didn’t make myself completely clear. Please add the following to your webpage. Otherwise I would have to publicly protect my name and work which probably neithe
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Thanks for your feedback Steve. - although I agree that Ole does already believe his own hype, and that his behaviour does serve to convince theses young idealists, nevertheless, Ole seems to feel the need to prove himself still, not only with his sexual conquests, but also with his other escapades. Personally I feel that Ole is lacking a mature and grounded confidence in his own claims (unsur
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

- I have a question for Outsider, as I haven't heard of any DWB members teaching in UK schools - in which countries is this happeneing? ------- also - to return to the idea of Ole using his alleged spirituality as a means to get laid... in fact, if Ole's sexual conquests were ends in themselves, this would seem to elevate their importance, and would also suggest the Ole had
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

- picking up on what SteveLpool wrote... I have witnessed times when people have tried to question Ole - but he clerverly sidesteps any attempts to pin him down. Ole tends to use the language of politicians - he speaks using broad terms which may be interpreted in many ways, and which appeal the largest possible audience because there are so many different possible interpretations. I rem
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quoterrmoderatorzara11: Does that mean that he uses his supposed "spiritual power" just to get laid? - I suspect that it is the other way round - that Ole uses getting laid as yet another proof of the manifestations of his power - (and without any clear division between sprirituality and physical virility).
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I personally believe that the greatest abuses of power within DWB are not those of Ole in bed with his followers. (This sort of behaviour is not exclusive to DWB, and at the end of the day we are talking about consensual sex between two consenting adults. What I do find telling is DWB's response to such accusations - Whereas the social norm is to hold one's hand up and apologise hum
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

from what i can make out from the first article - it seems to say that lama ole is not homophobic because he has a few gay and lesbian devotees, and it also claims that he is not racist just because he voices his concern about certain worrying trends in Islam. this is the sort of spurious "reasoning" that i found to be rife in dwb, and is a symptom of a lack of critical thoroughness
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteSteveLpool Are they so afraid of what I might reveal? Is this an acknowledgemt on their behalf that being too open will reveal some very unpleasant activity? The leaders of the Liverpool Centre control the flow of information deciding for the adults in the group what they can and cannot have access to. It seems the questions that caused the most concern were related to heirarchical s
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

- I think in this discussion it is important to seperate two different things. 1. There is the idea of teaching meditation to children, which if done correctly could have many potential benefits. As has been pointed out previously, the current DWB situation means that this would not be value neutral, which would seem to detract from any benefit for both adults and children. 2. There is
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

i think that plan may have it's shortcomings Steve - it may generate publicity for dwb and also end up attracting a lot of "undesirables" to join. as i said in one of my first posts - i think there is a danger of "taking sides" and also of marginalisation... i get the impression that some of the members of dwb are aware of what we write here, especially after your firs
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

thanks Wangdrag - i didn't mean that the end product was all good, but that i am pretty sure that they are aware of these differences. 1. - i think that the core idea of Karma is present in some form in dwb, however as you say - ole adds his own flourishes - usually to paint a certain picture that he knows will be more attractive to the people he is trying to appeal to. having said tha
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

- my own experience with dwb was that they simply went through the booklet with you - neither adding nor subtracting anything - yet at the same time, i fail to see anything there which really supports the main points of contention - for me, it was certainly not in the meditations where the problems arose - as many contributors to this thread have also stated - it was in the behaviour of certain
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

thank you for such a lucid and insightful response Steve. just to clarify that one point... as you say yourself, humans rights abuses are not limited to culture, and as far as i can see, they are not exclusively tied to values, as the example of the catholic priests - it is very easy to espouse a certain set of values in public and at the same time practice something completely different in
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

- i think that perhaps this idea of "pressuring for donations" is a bit misleading. the question seems to be about the prioritisation of fund-raising, and subsequently of expansion and acquisition. just a quick glance at the london dwb site shows 7 pages, 2 of which have their bank details on - just in case you wish to donate. dwb have a fund-raising agenda not dissimilar to cer
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

While I agree with a lot of what you write SteveLpool, there are a couple of questions that come to mind; 1) Who in DWB is in the perfect position to either encourage or discourage racism? - having spent time in Poland, I have to agree that it is much like England was in the 70's when there was widespread xenophobia born out of the fact that people were simply not used to seeing people
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotejahHere is Ole's recent comments about Islam: He says, “… I protect Christianity every day, especially because I see a big attack from Islam, a great, great danger from Islam… Nobody has ruined as much for us as the Muslims. They destroyed the Silk Road, they destroyed the whole of northern India, and historically they have cost us millions and millions and millions of people. Simply b
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Firstly, to respond to Cudabenme - what you have described seems quite accurate, and perhaps some would say "it's all good harmless fun" - but the question I'm asking myself when I read your account is - where is the Buddhism? - yes, perhaps there was some Buddhist content in the lecture, however the behaviour you describe seems to contradict that, but what seems particularly
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

while i agree with you Kate, i think it goes deeper... it is not just the idea of ole being perfect, there is also this ideology at work in the group as a whole. Buddhism could be described as an idea that one must work on the conflicts within, and that in fact all perceived conflicts are in fact internal. Fascism could be descibed as it's opposite, the idea that there is some perfect
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

remember that nothing has been proven yet. what is interesting is the way that the DW have handled the whole thing. firstly they way they took sides, which shows a lack of spiritual maturity, and revealed their innate prejudices. it sounds like something Ole would say in his talks... women are weak and vulnerable and need protecting by you fearless boys etc. secondly, the way they close
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"