shakti Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > > Also, many of his "spiritual teachings" published > in the West are allegedly copied from other > sources, and re-packaged by Westerners who know > that bland Oprahisms will sell better to the > masses than TRUE Tibetan teachings, which are > medieval in their social outlook.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Source of above quote on the demise of Buddhism in India: Further reading: Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A social History of the Tantric Movement by Ronald Davidson
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I've been researching the history of Buddhism lately, and came upon the very interesting historical note, below. It turns out that one factor contributing to Buddhism's demise in medieval India was the introduction of tantra into Buddhism, which gave rise to Vajrayana Buddhism, considered at at the time to be a degenerate form of Buddhism. The abandonment of celibacy, the lust for power
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

corboy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > > And for a peek into the lives of the serfs under > the old regime, this from historian Michael > Parenti’s Friendly Feudalism is most telling: > > > Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from > their peasant families and brought into the > monasteries to be trained as monks
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Blue Dakini Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Many years have passed since I first posted here. > During that time I have moved on from active > engagement in forums, discussion groups and > journalism highlighting the defects, abuses and > corruption that now appear to be widespread in > diaspora Tibetan Buddhism. After receiving an > e
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The bit in the beginning of the statement, where it says you'll lose everything you read if you don't take the next step, IN FACT you'll be worse off than if you'd never read the book, sounds like a chain letter that threatens dire consequences if you don't forward it to 6 friends. Frankly, the whole thing sounds like a variation of a chain letter scam.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

corboy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Misstyk has supplied important information about > opportunists in Buddhist > monk's robes. > I didn't mean that people are disguising themselves in monks' robes. I mean the real monks are the ones assaulting women! Remember, in the Buddha's time, it was important to keep monks and n
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Bodh Gaya attracts sexual predators, sadly. Spiritually-minded young tourists visiting the sacred site are easy prey, as their defenses are down, and they tend to be naive and trusting. There have been incidents over the years of Tibetan and Bhutanese monks assaulting young women making a pilgrimage to the site. Do not assume that any male outside your group of friends is safe to walk through
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

corboy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If you meet the conditions listed above, you are > currently all paid up for therapy sessions, > managing your own life well, and the therapist, > formerly > helpful, is in a pattern of busting you down... > > Take a break. > I'd like to mention that there seems to be a new trend
Forum: Clergy and Therapy Abuse

Thank you for posting such a thorough report. Here's a little more info on "Lama Jinpa" aka Asa Herschoff, a practicing homeopathic doctor: . One thing that strikes me about this story is how Tibetan Buddhism has become commercialized. It seems more and more like this or that lama, whether Asian or Western, has taken an aspect of Buddhist practice, developed it into a pr
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Here is a letter written by a former Rigpa staff member, who describes how Rigpa staff are trained to respond to the Janice Doe lawsuit, and to accusations that their guru is abusive. She discusses frankly how she came to the realization that Sogyal's brand of Buddhism puts undue emphasis on devotion, which she comes to see as a form of brainwashing. When she finds a new Tibetan Buddhist la
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

William Broad of the NY Times published an article last year in which he discusses the history and development of yoga as part of an ancient sex cult, and explains that scandals are to be expected. The original purpose of yoga was (and in India still is) to stimulate the sexual energies. His book on this topic, "The Science of Yoga", goes into more detail.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

RE: Meston--he got himself expulsed from the monastery by faking a visit to a prostitute? But monks routinely visit prostitutes. The lead monks and abbots look the other way. What sect's monastery was he in? Has anyone read his book? Does he say anything about the sexual activity in the monastery? Typically, the young boys are used for sex, but according to reports by former monks, and a pa
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

corboy, this is good news, that at least a few women filed charges with the police against sexually violent and exploitive lamas. If you can find anything more about the legal cases mentioned, please post. Others can learn from this experience. As far as "wolves in lama's robes", well, there are quite a few. Heads of lineages, some of the most respected lamas in TB have been k
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotecorboy There is no tradition in the Navy of rationalizing officer misconduct as crazy wise behavior. For that matter, there's no tradition in Western religions of rationalizing priestly misconduct as crazy wisdom. Corboy, re: Sogyal having deep theoretical knowledge, you might want to check the Sogyal thread. His Tibetan Book of Living and Dying was ghost-written by a couple of g
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotesuenamIn other cases where there are accusations of abuse such as with Kalu and Sogyal (who were both seen as being far more accomplished than Nydahl), the accusations have been about very real and quite mundane uses of coercion, threats, peer pressure, etc. which is exactly the same thing that everyone else on here has written about in regard to Nydhal. So if someone claims that somehow
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotecorboyA couple of comments from the Guardian article "Lama Sex Abuse Claims Call Buddhist Taboos into Question" Quote · There were some Tibetan lamas that first came here to the west, that taught the authentic dharma, not Lamaism. They took off the robes and got off those thrones and taught us face to face, but that was long ago. And it didn't last long. I&#
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quoteyasmin To put this in historical context though, in Anglo Saxon society at the same time, children as young as 7 could give consent to betrothal, though generally the marriage could be voided, until the girl reached the age of 12,or the boy the age of 14. At 9 years old,a girl could recieve her dead husbands dower. IMO,it is how these religions and societies behave today though, and wheth
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotekaram-mudra And of course by this way Nydahl created his own cult we are criticising here. But the reason is, that TB is a cult, not Nydahl´s bad character and his alleged wrong interpretation of TB. I think it's both. I think TB has all the elements in place for someone to use it as a cult if they want. Some teachers do, some don't. Some teachers promote guru devotion even in th
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotesuenamAgreed, but firstly, if the issue is about personality cults, sex and power, then it hardly seems that Tibetan Buddhism is the main offender in the modern world, and secondly, there is a case to be made that such things in Tibetan Buddhism are themselves a corruption. I am not claiming that the Tibetans are above such things, simply that it cannot really be taken as something exclusive
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

It's not racism to say that tantrism was incorporated into Buddhism, and eventually travelled to Tibet. That's a historical fact. Scholars write about this (See "Indian Esoteric Buddhism", by Ronald Davidson, for one. But there are many books available on this.) Davidson discusses how the phenomenon of the personality cult was one of many elements (including sex and power) th
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotesuenamif the issue of mind control is so widespread as to include advertising and politics in liberal western democracies, then what motivates you to draw an line around Tibetan Buddhism to single it out from these other forms of mind control Most importantly, what does this have to do with Nydahl? Corboy explained approx 60 pages ago how the ngondro devotional exercises set followers
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotesuenamAs 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'
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotekaram-mudra Without going here to far he learnt to control his erotic power -I saw him once sitting on the platform while my frst Phowa course and while looking at his womb I saw, he had an erection - and is now able to act as a Tantric master. The erection is one of the holy sign of those masters and the energy of it is spreading into the room, the tantric form of blessing. It is nothing
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotemark jon When it was publicly revealed what Kalu Rinpoche had been up to with sexual tantra the women who spoke out publicly made it sound very much like she was being used by him in order to achieve some kind of 'spiritual' advantage. The question I have, and perhaps you or others can answer, is concerning how this is sold to the woman. In other words, is she generally told that s
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotejohan946hi.......................................................................... Anyone have info on Geshe Kelsang Gyatso or on the New Kadampa Tradition? I recently started attending meditation classes given by one of his followers and after a brief google search I'm having doubts about this group. Thanks. There are 23 pages about NKT and the Geshe, right here. Help your
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quote~*~ k a t e ~*~To whom it may concern: I have received further communication from the UK Charity Commission. They are investigating Diamond Way Cult on 3 issues. * Illegal sale of alcohol and tobacco products within the organisation's centres, and the smuggling of such products into the UK by members. * National security/terrorism concerns regarding Ole Nydahl's hate speech and
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotecorboy In 1994 a Siberian elder told Vladimir Megre a fascinating story about the "ringing cedars" - trees respected from the Biblical times for their power to re-connect Man with the Divine. The elder told him where such a ringing cedar was growing in the taiga. Vladimir Megre set out on an expedition to find it. But his encounter with the elder's granddaughter Anastasia tr
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotesuenam The irony here is that this DWB member's idea of "how things really are" is of Nydahl being the protector and champion of western freedom in the face of the threat from evil Islam. It shows very clearly that what students of Nydahl are learning is a far cry from Buddhism. My impression of how Nydahl operates, based on what's been posted on this thread, is that he
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteMisstykQuotedariusb Not even the facts can make you to see everyhing as they really are. hmm... I thought seeing the teachers as the all-too-human individuals that they are, prone to the same craving (or worse) as everyone else was seeing things as they really are. Gurus aren't magic, they're just people. That fact may not be exciting enough for some seekers, though.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"