(00:01):
I was just rereading this [Washington Post] article from a number of years ago about the Kingdom of Bhutan and the monasteries and how the boys are not safe there. I think five of them had HIV and they had to start to put sexual protection like condoms in the monasteries. There's really gruesome stories of really violent rape. It's not just what they talk about, like the thigh sex or something that they're being cute. I mean, it's like really, really violent and it's not really transparent to the public. We still believe that these monasteries, it's a privilege to offer our children there in the Tibetan, Bhutanese and the Buddhism worldwide. It's a privilege. It's like, wow, one of my children is a monk, and so that brings sort of nobility to the family because we so much regard this as a positive thing.
(01:12):
There's tons of stories, but I think each of us, I mean, me too. I knew about it since I was like 22 years old and I buried it. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to... We have something called like thought crimes in Vajrayana. You're not allowed to think impure thoughts about the tradition, a teacher, the monastic institution. It's all been conflated with your vows as a tantric Buddhist that you can't speak out, you can't talk about problems, you can't make things better, you can't expose abuse. The whole entire culture is about silence and secrecy, secret conduct and not talking about stuff that would endanger the dharma or jeopardize the teachings.
So if there's kids being abused, we have to keep it quiet because otherwise you're "hurting the dharma." But the thing is, is that this is not the dharma. As I've always said, the Buddha would be very unhappy, kind of a little bit par with Jesus in the temple with all the throwing down the tables.
(02:26):
I mean, he would be enraged to know that we have child abuse in the middle of his teachings. I don't think he wanted any of this. I'm going to be bold and speak on behalf of him that this current manifestation of child abuse and this monastic institutionalization where child are trafficked, sex trafficked, threatened, this is not the dharma. It is not secret conduct. It is not anything holy whatsoever, no way, know how.
And people have asked me, they're like... Actually, I was just thinking about it today after I read this article. I talked to my husband. I'm like, "You know what? I can't stay in the tradition. How can I possibly stay knowing that all of these blessings and money and the institutionalization is built on the fodder of these children being abused?" We're no different than Epstein. It's actually worse because kids are bought.
(03:26):
There's a human rights activist [Kapil Aryal] who is a professor at one of the universities in Kathmandu and he recently wrote an article. There was a symposium on abuse in Buddhism just this month. And he's trying to bring humanitarian human rights protocols to the monasteries and to stop because they're just not safe. I'm like, "Oh my God, how can I go and receive an empowerment knowing that there's pedophilia and teachers who do unethical things?" And it's just rampant. It's like an infestation. It's just almost like everywhere. How can I hang out and know that there's these kids that are hurt? I can't just compartmentalize it and be like, "Oh, I have some cool guru and everything's fine." So I can't function knowing that. I don't know how the rest of you guys do it as my friends, but I'm having a really hard time with it probably because I grew up as a child abuse survivor.
(04:30):
So the resonance of knowing that that's what we do, it's no different than being in some type of like Satanist sex cult. I mean, I just feel like we're like living Rosemary's Baby here. We can't sexually and physically abuse and threaten children and use that as the basis of our monastic institutions. We just absolutely can't do this anymore. It enrages me that our friends are not unified in the transparency of this situation and calling into ethics to make a change.
So I talk about stuff like on Reddit and it's just so awful. People have this super hell fire and brimstone orthodox way that people are so scared. Someone wrote on Reddit the other day, he'd taken an empowerment with Garchin Rinpoche on Zoom and he all of a sudden is like terrified that he can't leave the tradition lest he go to hell and break his samaya.
(05:37):
And he's just shaking in his boots and it's so wrong. And then I write things like, "Hey guy, I think you're going to be okay. Don't worry. Just go with your heart. Buddhism is about going deeper into the human heart and his path is his own. He's not bound by hell with chains and whips and I mean Jesus. Jesus Christ, I just can't believe this is like what we've become." And I even say something like, "Buddy, I think you're going to be okay. Just relax and go with your heart. Go with your own knowing." And people like attack me and down vote me. And they're like, "The texts are very clear in their punishment." And I'm like, "Yeah. So is it in Christianity? I think we're supposed to stone adulterers to death. So should we take every single Orthodox tenant of every religion? What are you supposed to kill someone if they don't eat fish on Friday? I mean, chop off hands of thieves? Cast people into burning pits?
I mean, come on people. Wake up. This is not the dharma. It cannot be. And if this is what it's become, then we need to change it. I don't care what scripture said what. We didn't want us to write anything down anyway. So let's start fresh and let's just go into the heart.
Sometimes I feel that if this tradition had been made by women, it may very well have been a more, sort of, feminine and loving and open path rather than this rigid dogmatic Bible thumping hatred of covert sexual stuff and exploitation of people.
(07:22):
So it's so hard for me because I mean, I'm like, how can I even go to these things? How can I even say that I'm a Tibetan Buddhist? How can I do these practices?
And I have an answer to that because I've soul searchingly assessed and I thought about leaving and I've kind of left and then I kind of came back. But this is my fundamental truth is..
I had a very simple yogi teacher who was not abusive and did not use this command and control model to harm people. I have another teacher, his son who runs nunneries and I talked to him absolutely forthrightly about my concerns about child safety because it's like in the days of cell phones, it's just going to take only a couple people getting filmed and this whole thing is going to crack. And it's cracking in other countries like Sri Lanka. I think 200 monks were accused of sexual assault.
(08:32):
So if they start raiding the monasteries in India and Nepal, things could get really bad and these people that we love and people that I care about and study with. So it's like I really think that we have to do something. I don't really know what the answer is. I just know what the issue is. And then as far as my own practice, people have said, they even just said that to me on Reddit. Why don't you just leave? Yeah. Okay. So I'll put my tail between my legs, be silenced with what I've seen and know about in our tradition with these children being unsafe and these pedophiles and just leave. They want me literally dead like they do in cults or snuffed out, silenced, shunned, excommunicated, whatever they want to do.
The thing is that I'm not going to let the corruption define my heart and my faith and my tradition. If you leave, if all the voices of sanity and ethics and wanting change and revolution leave, right then the bad ones get to define the tradition.
(09:38):
They own it. Then we have this rampant hell fire and brimstone sadistic like Buddhism, like Clockwork Orange Buddhism. I can't be based on sadistic health threats, punishment, command and control, ownership, pedophilia, child abuse and child trafficking. That can't be what our religion is. It cannot be and it is not to me. I think that's the cultural tenants that we've gone wrong in the dark age. So it doesn't matter if you call this the scriptures or the secret tantras or whatever. I don't care what you call it. If it hurts human beings and it messes up people's lives, it is not a method of liberation. It is a social control mechanism by people in power who do things to stay in power and they operate on the backs of people who are being harmed every day. This is corruption. We see it in politics. We see it in the Epstein files.
(10:42):
We're seeing it with the elites. And just because we think that we're Orientalists and we think that Tibetan, Bhutanese, Indian Buddhism is like super cool doesn't mean that that's a justification for abuse, harm and sadistic stuff to be conflated with the essence of the tradition. So that's why I'm not going to leave. It's like you guys want all the voices who've been sort of woke and see the problems to just out you go and let us continue with our creepy cesspool of yucky sadistic tenants and have only those people define the tradition. And I say, absolutely not. Again, I had a really ethical, loving, gentle, soft, simple teacher that just would sit and do the money and open to anyone who would meet him. And when you were in his presence, it was unmistakable. He was literally a being of light. And that's what I want to become.
(11:44):
I want to become the most kindest, open, benevolent, ethical person I could possibly be. And these practices, if you do them properly and you're not part of that sadistic framework, I believe they can liberate. And that liberation is so helpful and it can be of help. So why can't I become a real Buddhist, a real tantric Buddhist and have these tantric precepts to the unconditioned mind and open my heart and receive my guru's blessing and practice? And at the same time, a lot of this child abuse institutionalization and mind f*ckery that I saw in Shambala, these people crying and losing their minds and having to sign over their inheritances to the teacher. I'm just all this dark stuff. Why can't I hold what is precious in me that I found a value and not conflate my teachers who are ethical and good ones with the ones who are running the unethical institutions or doing bad things to their students?
(12:54):
So I don't want to leave because my teachers were pure and they're really valuable. My practice is pure and valuable. And then with that clarity, I see where the cultural problems are happening. So I'm not going to leave because if I leave, then I let the negative and corrupt stuff define me, my tradition, and I let them take away what's most precious. So that's why I always was like a voice of reform. It's like a family system. You don't know if there's any possibility where you can repair something within a family. Repairing it actually breaks the generational cycle. Walking away and allowing the perpetrators to go free and continue on perpetuates the cycle. I think that's where maybe it's even like the word perpetrator is perpetuating. It's like the same word. So I really think that we all have to have these very difficult conversations and help these kids.
(14:01):
I mean, it's really kind of like no different than these detention camps right now. I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. It looks like they're so cute and they're wearing these little robes and they get to make sand mandalas and study Tibetan. But what goes on behind closed doors at night and the cost is not worth it. So at the very minimum, we need to just have, first and foremost, we can't do anything unless we can talk about it. Let's talk about child safety in the monasteries. Let's talk about whether or not kids should be taken from families at that young age, how to protect them. Because if they're there now, at least let's just start with what is. And then through attrition, maybe we can reconsider whether or not small children should be the physical human fodder of these organizations. Maybe I've said before they could come in a little bit later and people could practice precepts temporarily for blocks of time.
(15:05):
But the way that they're populated now, it is not safe for the children. I beg and plead with everything in me that my friends begin to have these discussions in an authentic and transparent way. It doesn't mean we're harming the dharma. Tibetan culture and what we do with institutionalization with authoritarian power and these communities is not the dharma. It's what's something that we built. The dharma is what the Buddha said, which is practice, go inside, don't write stuff down, don't make a religion out of me. Don't create this hellish doctrine like I knew you were going to do. And please just follow my simple path of self-knowing. And then in the third turning, here's a particular special fruitional blessing that I can plant in your heart that you can train in. And you can really see the ground of what it will feel like at the end of the path.
(16:04):
And please train in that in a very tender and precious and gentle way. This is the path. All this other rash sh*t stuff that's just like gold and brocade. It's just like Joe Olstein, Tammy Baker. It's just become this giant monolith of something separate from what we think the Buddha originally wanted. So maybe it would be good.
Who's the Samaya breaker? Maybe it's not the people that speak out against poor ethics and harm.
It's the ones that are keeping to the essence of these teachings, these practices and these instructions. So in my opinion, the ones that are able to speak out against harm and not allow that because silence is not upholding the dharma. Secrecy is not on the backs of children. Then we're just like a cult and we're just exactly like the Epstein people. Let's keep everything secret. We don't want to get exposed.
(17:05):
Well, that's because we're doing bad stuff. So let's cool it and let's make this change within my lifetime. I want it to change now. And then we can all with good conscience clean up this madness and have a tradition that is really sound where we support each other's practice and we go deep and we develop qualities of true wisdom and compassion and love each other and have healthy sanghas. We have ability to talk about problems when there's problems. We have ability to care for each other in a real way. We don't block people, silence people and excommunicate people and call them all kinds of names. This is sadism. This is not Vajrayana. I don't care what was written. I know in my heart the essence of what the teachers pointed out to me and there's wisdom there and intelligence. And if I'm in that, I know that to use the exploitation of children and students by men in power is no longer sound.
(18:08):
It doesn't mean that all teachers are bad. It doesn't mean we should run away and tear everyone down. It means that we need to begin with where we're at and have conversations and ethics reviews and we need to start protecting these children tonight. Thank you so much.
https://www.globalbuddhism.org/issue/view/845
https://www.occrp.org/en/news/child-abuse-claims-sri-lankan-buddhist-monks
