rigpa & sogyal rinpoche

[Stevyn]

https://thedorjeshugdengroup.wordpress. ... testimony/


April 23, 2012
One Year With Rigpa – A Testimony

The following is the testimony of a former Rigpa student together with her current perspectives on safe dharma centers.

Thirteen years ago, I left a bookshop with two books under my arm. One was The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche (SR). The other was a commentary on lamrim by HH Dalai Lama. In a daze, I got in the car and drove several times around the block. The next few nights I had very lucid sleep, as if I were aware of myself sleeping. There was no doubt in my mind that I was heading in some spiritual direction that would be significant for me.

However, I read The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying instead of the lamrim text and I am still suffering today with the psychological fallout. I still wish from the depths of my heart that I had never read it, that I had begun my Buddhist path with the lamrim text, with the sane teachings of the gradual path instead of SR’s Dzogchen. Sometimes we can say that difficulties are important because of what they teach us. Certainly I have learned much from my experiences of what I call “lama madness”—but I believe that the damage has far out-surpassed this. Definitely, the damage to others, particularly my family, has far outweighed any benefit.

I was living a pretty wholesome life when all of this started, busy homeschooling two of our five daughters, milking goats, making bread and cheese, driving my kids to music lessons and sporting events. My husband and I had made a good job of combining our two families and I believe that our marriage had a good chance at survival. Certainly, if I had started with lamrim, I would have had a wealth of tools to deal with any problems we might have encountered as our children grew up and moved away. Our two oldest had already left home to start university and the third was applying that year for schools. For myself, I believe that as my mothering roles decreased, my own spiritual needs increased. I had already begun writing some soul-searching poetry and had just started publishing those. Experiences with Rigpa were soon to put a stop to all of that, however– the marriage, the homeschooling, the goats, the poetry were all on short leave. SR was to enter my life like an atomic bomb.

I only attended teachings at Rigpa for a year. By the end of that year, I was smoking cigarettes, drinking heavily and planning suicides. But in the beginning, I was enthusiastic. There was a great air of mystique and secrecy surrounding SR that drew me in very quickly. Very quickly, my enthusiasm for Buddhism became an enthusiasm for SR. He was funny, he was aloof, you felt his presence, you felt that he noticed you. You never knew when he was going to appear or disappear– he could be an hour late for a teaching or an hour early. This kept your emotions very acute, very vigilant. There were no interviews and no question and answer sessions in the teachings. We were told to “hold our questions in our hearts,” told that we might be surprised to find them (magically) answered during the teaching. For me, this was an ominous and dangerous encouragement to look to the paranormal, to believe in SR’s psychic powers. A central theme to SR’s teaching was the theme of “master.” He frequently spoke of his past teachers not as teachers, but as “masters.” With this theme was the theme of instant enlightenment. This was how he taught Dzogchen, as a very quick and easy path to enlightenment, a path of devotion. Frequently, he taught about students suddenly seeing the nature of their own minds in a swoon of devotion.

For me, a beginner, this approach was disastrous. My initial, huge enthusiasm for Buddhism became channeled into one perspective—the lama. Though I travelled weekly the 90 miles to New York City to attend study groups, the study was all about SR, all about his book and his teachings. This approach was very harmful for me; what I needed badly at that vulnerable time in my spiritual development, was a strong grounding in the dharma itself—certainly not a grounding in SR! Such was the shallowness of these study groups that I remember once asking a senior student about a verse which referred to emptiness. Instead of giving me an introduction to emptiness, she missed that the verse was even about emptiness and gave me an obscure, convoluted explanation, indicating that she had no basic knowledge of Buddhism at all.

I attended Rigpa events regularly—and they were given frequently in the New York area during that year because it was the year SR’s son was born in Pennsylvania. Very early, I was experiencing strong paranormal experiences to do with SR. I believed that I could communicate with him psychically. Because I never had a single opportunity to speak with SR, because I could never check in with him about any of my experiences, they became my entire relationship with him. I expected, because of the strength of these experiences, and because of SR’s teachings, to become enlightened at any moment. This made for a dangerous cocktail of confusion, nothing like the great sanity of Buddha’s own teachings.

Absolutely, I would have hopped into bed with SR in an instant—regardless of my marriage, my children, my life. I would have done almost anything he asked. As it was, I started to believe that SR wanted me to become his spiritual wife and live with him in France. This delusion was so strong and convincing that I acted on it. I told my husband I was leaving him to go to France. I sent my two youngest daughters back overseas to live with their father. My family not only had to deal with my actions, but they had to deal with losing the woman I had been, with having a crazy woman in place of me. In my mind, however, I was not harming anyone. I was involved with the greater picture. I was going to become enlightened really fast and then I would send for my children, I would repair my relationship with my husband. I really believed that I was in the midst of a greater purpose.

My mental state was not aided by life in Rigpa teachings. As any Rigpa student knows, SR makes a common practice of publicly humiliating students. He will rant and rave at them during teachings and have them running like wild chickens trying to fulfill his many impossible demands. He will severely criticize and berate them in front of all attendees. Rigpa devotees say that this is a practice to diminish ego. On one blog, a Rigpa student wrote that it shows students their “better selves.”

The effect that these displays had on me as an observer is that I lost my better self—at a time when I needed it most. On one occasion, I brought my 16 year old daughter to a teaching. Afterwards, she objected quite strongly to SR’s public harsh treatment of a student. To my shame, I defended him. I said that he had a higher purpose that we could not fully understand. I had raised my daughters to be respectful, caring individuals and suddenly I was defending the public humiliation of a human being—I was calling it the behavior of a higher being! How could I expect to practice the Buddha’s Dharma with such an outlook? How could devotion make me so debased? It was no wonder that I could entertain delusions—such blind devotion was fertile ground for confusion and madness.

It is possible that in a private setting, such rough techniques could function to benefit a close student, could function something like a Zen koen at diminishing ego clinging. However, to display them publicly is shameful at best, psychologically damaging at worst. I remember passing a senior student in the restroom shortly after she had been subjected to public humiliation at a teaching. She had a cold, dark, closed expression as she passed me. There was no warmth or greeting, nothing that would resemble the Buddha’s teachings on warm heartedness. From my current perspective, these public humiliations look more like hazing—an initiation rite into the inner circle of Rigpa.

I attended a retreat at Lerab Ling towards the end of my time with Rigpa. By then, I was a mess. I was very internally focused and very much in need of help. As the time for my children’s departure neared and the reality of SR’s intentions started to become clearer, I had much mental torment. In fact, the voice of the lama inside my head had become very brutal and cruel, placing impossible demands on me. One morning, during our break from the teaching at Lerab Ling, the alarm was raised that we all needed to quickly gather in the tent. When I arrived there, SR had arrived in his singlet/undershirt and he was in a temper. He started yelling at us all for some offense that we had committed, though he was never specific about what it was. He had all his aids running around fetching his sun glasses, fetching something for him to eat, doing this and that, as if there was some great emergency, as if the place had caught fire. He sat in his undershirt, eating yogurt and blaming us for the fact that he had had no opportunity to have lunch and I sat in an abject slump, just taking it all in, all the negativity and blame, both inside and out. Indeed, it did me no good at all.

At that same retreat, I met SR once walking along a path. I was filled with a sense that this was to be our moment, he would talk to me finally and resolve all the mess, tell me what I was to do. I looked up at him with a face full of expectation ready to speak with him. However, he merely shook his head and walked past. That was about the closest I came to the great master.

When we talk of safe dharma centers, I think we are not only talking about dharma centers where the teachers don’t sexually molest students; we are talking about dharma centers that are psychologically wholesome and nurturing. In such environments, sexual abuse is less apt to occur. If we are serious about the Buddha’s teachings on patience, tolerance and loving kindness, surely the teacher’s behavior needs to reflect that. I believe that SR’s close students feel much love and compassion from him—and certainly I had experiences of warm compassion coming from him as well. However, when he shouts and insults students, where are we to hold the contradiction of his behaviors except in confusion and ignorance?

Buddha says that the root cause of all our suffering is ignorance. Modern Western psychology as well is discovering that techniques such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which use human intelligence to heal from mental afflictions, are very effective. I believe that when the lama becomes more important than the cultivation of wisdom in the students’ own minds, then there is great risk of trouble of all sorts. There’s a dumbing down that happens which causes the student to be vulnerable to all sorts of experiences. The student then becomes less capable of making sound decisions and abuse and mental illness can result.

From the perspective of SR’s behavior during teachings, it was no leap of my imagination to picture him sexually abusing women. I am not one to jump on bandwagons and witch hunts—nor would I ever simply believe these stories without verification. However, the stories are not far-fetched in the context of SR’s everyday behavior. He behaves as a master who might consider himself above simple ethical norms. There is a Tibetan saying that if you give enough room for a small needle, it will gradually make more and more room for itself. The saying is given in reference to ethical norms. If a teacher gives himself permission to shout and humiliate people in public, I imagine it would become easier for him to give way to his anger whenever he pleases. I imagine it would become easy to give way to his lust when he pleases as well.

From my viewpoint, I am curious still about how I could have discovered the sanest religion in the world only to become nearly insane. I had discovered the religion with the strongest, greatest teachings on altruism only to bring harm to those whom I loved the most. Rigpa students are very quick to say that SR cannot be held responsible for mental illness in those who attend his teachings. Indeed, it is not my intention here to prove that SR caused my paranormal experiences, nor is it my intention to prove my sanity. I could explain to a professional how my delusions were markedly different from those in traditional Schizophrenia, but those discussions are beyond the scope of this writing. I am certainly interested in that fine line between psychotic and spiritual, however, because it appears that I have gained control over my delusions without the use of meds or therapy. I have done this by leaving behind the confused religion of Lamaism and turning instead to the great wisdom of Buddhism.

Rigpa will say—and I have had Rigpa insiders say this to me on blogs—that SR cannot be held accountable for my suffering. These same students say that women can simply say no about having sex with him. These are the words of an organization, a system with lawyers and strategies. I am more concerned with the future of Buddhism in the west and the unnecessary suffering of Western students. What I say, as a psychotherapist, as a Buddhist student who has built her own sanity from the gutter up through the Buddha’s precious teachings, is that I see in SR’s approach serious risks to the safety of students.

There are two basic approaches to teaching Buddhism. There is a general approach, applicable to all students, and there is a specific approach, applicable to specific students at a specific point in their spiritual development. HH Dalai Lama, who, like SR, teaches to large numbers of students, uses the first approach. SR appears to use the second. I believe—from painful experience—that if he is going to use this specific approach, if he is going to teach a “master”- centered approach, if he is going to “work” with students publicly, then perhaps he should be more available to speak with every student in a close, meaningful, stable way—perhaps he should be more transparent and accessible as well. Perhaps there should be less of a power base to Rigpa, that impenetrable and scary face of the organization. Certainly, for myself, if SR had just taken notice that I was in trouble, if he had been available for interviews, if he had taken a little time to work with me, to speak with me and steer me clear of my confusions, much suffering for myself and my family could have been avoided. Of this, I am quite certain.

[Stevyn]

comments by readers:

Mary Finnigan says:
April 23, 2012 at 9:42 am

My sympathy for another victim of the cult of Rigpa and the abusive charlatan Sogyal Lakar. I have read many similar stories during the 20+ years I have been assembling evidence on Sogyal. I have all of them on file. They are included in an extensive dossier which comprises documents, video and audio recordings. One aspect i would like to highlight is that Sogyal has no capacity for psychic power (siddhi) or paranormal activity. He was never trained as a lama. He is simply a front man — and also a hard nosed businessman whose primary aim in life is to make money. Sogyal could have had a career as a stand up comic — it would have fed his insatiable egomania to much the same extent. Sogyal suffers from mental illness which infects people around him.

Mary Finnigan says:
April 26, 2012 at 5:56 pm

Hi Joanne, For many years I gave Sogyal the benefit of the doubt and tried to maintain a calibrated Buddhist approach to the overall Sogyal-Rigpa panorama. initially I believed he was effective at teaching beginners. Then it became clear to me that there is an absence of sincerity underlying everything connected with Sogyal and Rigpa. I went to Rigpa London a couple of times to check out my POV. I found the atmosphere oppressive, the practice shallow and I was BORED! It was like spiritual kindergarten. If this sounds arrogant on my part then I guess I have to do a mea culpa. Perhaps I have been spoiled because I have experienced lamas who have held my attention 100%, have pointed me towards revelatory insights and have created an ambiance where one can RELAX into the teachings and as a result, sit in meditation for extended periods of time. I never encountered any of this with Sogyal-Rigpa. Others obviously do (or some aspects) but it did not cook for me.

[Stevyn]

tenpel says:
April 24, 2012 at 4:37 pm

I forgot to say that a woman I know who attended SR’s teachings felt that he is using hypnosis. When I was in India last year I stumbled upon a public teaching of SR, and used the chance to observe his teaching style. And indeed, he used expressions, gestures and words to attract the audience’s total attention demanding no distractions and to utter follow his words and presence. The audience then forced each other to follow this direction by silencing down those who were not so attentive or moving here and there. This created quite a specific atmosphere which was very intense and powerful. On the other hand it allows SR to place his thoughts and understanding quite directly into the minds of his audience. When I saw and felt this, I was thinking: “This is quite dangerous, because it gives him quite a lot of power over the audience and their minds. Why he is doing this while genuine and great masters don’t do this?” Its usually the task of the hearer to pay attention and no Buddhist master I listened to has ever acted in such a way, demanding total attention from the listeners. Also if in such a situation he is putting down others, this would be by far more damaging than if the listener wouldn’t be that open.

[Stevyn]

Joanne says:
April 24, 2012 at 10:40 pm

When we talk about good people inside of Rigpa, when we talk about just letting things be, then I picture the official face of Rigpa these days, which seems to be one of complete denial, as if things will just blow over. Sometimes I think that the official business of Rigpa forgets to include real faces– forgets the fact that Mary’s file is filled with real people who suffer real pain and difficulties as a result of their experiences at Rigpa. For myself, I don’t like to complain because my survival and sanity depend on using Buddhist practices of optimism and altruism and not focusing on my own problems. But I want to say that my husband and I tried, but were unable to repair the loss of trust in our relationship. That is over. Also, I have never succeeded in finding the trust in which to build an enduring relationship with another lama. That is over for me as well. I still struggle to find a stable Buddhist practice as well. I’d love to just remind all the strategic managers of Rigpa of the faces– this isn’t about them verses Mary, this is about all the faces in her file– because I imagine that many of those stories are much more difficult than mine.

[Stevyn]

Tiger Lily says:
April 25, 2012 at 9:08 am

Well I guess “Rigpa Officials” earn their stripes in the same way as any Officials do in a despotic government, by toe-ing the Party line. I imagine that groups like UNADFI and INFORM will recognize such cultish behaviour of blind allegiance and denial straight away.
This is a very ugly side of Rigpa for which they are are being widely criticized. The disregard of the well-being of students.
Joanne your portrayal of a senior student who had been publically humiliated having a cold dark closed expression, speaks volumes on brainwashing.
How very sad that you were drawn into a group led by such an inept Teacher and suffered so much as a result. To me it verges on the criminal that there does seem to be such total disregard for those who get into difficulties and come out of the “Sogyal Process” nervous wrecks. The Rigpa response? “Oh it’s that nasty Mary Finnigan who just wants to make trouble for Rinpoche”. Or “Well so and so just didn’t understand Rinpoche’s methods.”

Mary Finnigan says:
May 4, 2012 at 3:20 pm

Several of them are indeed more difficult than yours Joanne. Please read http://behindthethangkas.wordpress.com for details — some of which are heart-rending — especially the woman who approached Sogyal in a state of deep bereavement following the death of her father. It is worth noting that every woman quoted in BTT on the subject of sexual, physical and verbal abuse became disenchanted with TB and abandoned the dharma completely. So too did the father of one of these women….who was one of Sogyal’s closest disciples and a financial benefactor, until he found out about what had happened to his daughter,

Joanne says:
April 25, 2012 at 10:34 am

Yes, and how is this ugly side of Rigpa cultivated, how are criminals born? From the very first teaching, students at Rigpa are taught to look the other way, to become numb to the feelings of others, to ignore human suffering. Very ironic in the light of Buddha’s very first words: “Commit not a single, unwholesome act.” I heard those words first from SR himself.

[Stevyn]

Joanne says:
April 25, 2012 at 11:33 am

In this country (the US), the phenomena of “hazing” has become a matter of grave concern in colleges, the military and athletic groups. Cornell University is running a campaign against hazing and on their website, they ask students to consider the following questions about initiation rites in their groups:

• Does the activity involve mental distress such as humiliation or intimidation?
• Does it involve physical abuse (e.g., sleep deprivation)?
• Is there a significant risk of injury or a question of safety?
• Would you have any reservations describing the activity to your parents or a university official?
• Is alcohol involved?
• Would you be worried if the activity was shown on the evening news?

If the answer to any of the above questions is “Yes,” the activity is probably hazing.”

A significant feature of hazing is that there are usually passive bystanders and the process involves either explicit or implicit initiation into the group. Some historical cases of hazing are quite horrifying, but as a Cornell University representative recently observed on a public radio interview, even the most mild cases of hazing can be deeply traumatizing to a vulnerable victim. His observation is that both victims, bystanders and family members can have psychological vulnerabilities, such as a history of childhood abuse or suicidal ideation, that are triggered by the hazing experience.

Would members of Rigpa feel comfortable showing SR’s public humiliation of students on the evening news? My family members were shocked to read what I wrote above. Even though they had lived through it with me, somehow the true reality had become blurred. One of my daughters commented yesterday, “Mum, he’s really mean.”

Horrible how the line between mean and kind can become so blurred.