Dare to know - Sapere aude

Sapere aude - Dare to know[1]

Sacrifice of Iphigenia (detail), Naples National Archaeological Museum

Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest: I was a student of the former Kalu Rinpoche (1905-1989).

The Dutch journalist Rob Hogendoorn (Open Buddhism website) published a short article “Enlightened Fleaing” on the public endorsement by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and Kalu Rinpoche in the aftermath of the controversy around the Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin. The article contains some interesting links such as a recording of the talk by Kalu Rinpoche to students of Chögyam Trungpa and the Vajra Regent and members of the Dharmadhātu center in Los Angeles on December 22th 1988. At that occasion Kalu Rinpoche was translated into English by Chökyi Nyima (Richard Barron). A short summary of questions and answers can be found in this article by Tashi Armstrong, Director of Dzogchen Meditation Center “which is dedicated to engaging the pith teachings of the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin within a retreat setting”. 

The day before, December 21st 1988
(Youtube screen capture, "how to chose an authentic teacher")

Hearing the voices of Kalu Rinpoche and Richard Barron brought back memories to me, but this time, some forty years later, the effect was very different and quite terrifying. I recommend following the link to Stuart Lachs’ article Tibetan Buddhism Enters the 21st Century: Trouble in Shangri-la for general background information about what follows. The part that particularly interests me here in Lachs’ article is the following.

“It is widely recognized that sexual abuse is to a large extent about power. That seems to be the case with the teachers discussed in this paper. Trungpa often had sex with the wives and girlfriends of students, and at the snap of a finger could have disciples forcibly stripped naked whether they agreed to it or not. A close disciple of Sogyal stated that Sogyal slept with the wives of some of his students, that is, aside from seducing other women, married or single who came to him for spiritual counseling. This is on top of the physical abuse and humiliation he dealt to his dakinis. The Sakyong we saw also seduced many young women, some involved with other men and ghosted them when he was finished with them. The Vajra Regent liked straight men who had no previous homosexual experience, in one case it was a young man less then half his age who he infected with HIV.” (Trouble in Shangri-la)

It’s the Vajra Regent’s transmission of HIV to his sexual partners, knowing he had AIDS, that had caused the turmoil in the “Vajradhatu International Buddhist Church”.

“Osel Tendzin, the 45-year-old regent of the Vajradhatu International Buddhist Church, is said to be in seclusion in La Jolla, Calif., and could not be reached for comment. Many members have urged that he resign, after a man with whom he had sex received a positive test for the AIDS virus. In December, a high priest of Tibetan Buddhism told a group of American Buddhists that there was concern that Mr. Tendzin ''might have passed this on to many, many people.'' (New York Times February 21st, 1989).

The “high priest” mentioned in the article was no doubt Kalu Rinpoche. Here are some extracts from his talk to Trungpa students on December 22th 1988.

“All of you here have as your main lama Trungpa Rinpoche. And after him your lama is the Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin. Now in the Vajrayana our main samaya is to our root lama and after this with our vajra brothers and sisters. Now, basically there are many ways of describing samaya to the root lama but in brief one would say that one must regard everything that they do with sacred vision – whatever they do as being excellent. And we must take as truth everything that they say. These two points briefly summarize the samaya that one has with the root lama.

So we must never turn away from your faith and your respect and devotion for the lama. Now once again your main root lama is Trungpa Rinpoche and the Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin is also your lama. So all of you have a very strong connection as vajra brothers and sisters. It’s important for all of you because you have this very close samaya with your teacher and with one another that there be no anger, fighting, disharmony within the sangha. And if this is the case if you are able to maintain your samaya connection with your lamas and with one another. Then it is possible for any sickness, any disturbance to be pacified and to disappear and that all of you continue your practice in great happiness and in great harmony.”

“Getting upset, getting angry at persons you feel are spreading AIDS or spreading disturbance within the sangha is only breaking samaya. There is absolutely no benefit whatsoever to doing this.

So what we have to do as to our practice is to put our trust in the three jewels to help persons who have AIDS or other sicknesses to do what we can to benefit others. If in the future the American government comes in and says these persons are spreading diseases – if they come to that particular conclusion. A person who is in that situation has to admit what has happened. We have no other means but to face up to the government authorities if they happen to investigate this particular situation, but this isn’t our role as Buddhists.”

The transmission of HIV was obviously an aggravating factor, and the direct cause of the negative media publicity. The promiscuous conduct of the teachers in itself wouldn’t have made the headlines, and would certainly not have caused a turmoil in the Vajradhatu saṅgha. See the following exchange of questions and answers.

56:08 Question: Rinpoche you have said many things in terms of proper attitude for the students towards the teacher. I am wondering what is the proper attitude for the teacher towards the students at this time and also towards the students that the teacher may have, in some way, physically, or causing them to experience so much negative emotion.

57:55 [Translator (Richard Barron) sighs] Well you know, he gives the example of Marpa and Milarepa [slight laughter in the audience]. Marpa was terrible to Milarepa. He forced him to undergo a tremendous number of hardships. His whole body back and front was one big scar. Marpa insisted and had given him the command to build a nine-story house all by himself. A tremendously difficult task that Marpa had Milarepa do. So Rinpoche says this is an example of a lama being extremely hard on his student, making a lot of difficulties for his student. He says the lama acts in various ways.

59:36 Or, for example, in the past Nāropa had a wife. He loved his wife very very much. Tilopa asked Nāropa to offer his wife to Tilopa. Nāropa did so with sacred vision (tib. dag snang) and faith and respect to his lama. Tilopa was very pleased by this particular offering and he was very happy to be with Nāropa’s wife (laughter). However, at one particular occasion they were out in public and Nāropa had a chance to see his wife again and he looked very longingly at his wife. Tilopa noticed this and got completely enraged at Nāropa and said ‘How do you dare look at this woman with desire and he beat him, so he wasn’t able to move for a few days (laughter).

1:00:45 Question: Rinpoche, when we study the stories of the teachers, we understand that the teacher has done those things with full consciousness of knowing what he is doing. In this particular case the Regent has said that he did what he did through ignorance. This does not seem the same.

[In his translation of the question, the translator refers to the stories of the 84 mahāsiddhas and the “full consciousness” is translated as clairvoyance (abhijñā, mngon shes). Ignorance is translated as avidyā, ma rig pa.]

1:02:40 Whatever the case, when we take refuge, we take refuge in the saṅgha and we take refuge in two levels of the saṅgha, both the higher, the enlightened saṅgha, those persons who have both extraordinary mental powers and full consciousness as you say, they have miracle powers, but we also take refuge in the saṅgha of ordinary persons who teach the dharma and lead us to liberation. However Rinpoche says whether in this case it’s appropriate to say that Ösel Tendzin is a member of the Enlightened saṅgha or the Saṅgha of ordinary beings, he says well, students are often unable to see the full enlightenment or the miracle powers of the other teachers. E.g in the region where Marpa lived, except for very few people of that particular region, nobody had any awareness of his complete enlightenment as well as of his miracle powers. People just referred to him as old man Marpa.”

cliquer pour aggrandir

The anecdote about Nāropa told by Kalu Rinpoche comes from Nāropa’s hagiography (mKhas grub kun gyi gtusg rgyan paN chen nA ro pa’i rnam thar ngo mtshar rmad byung), written by Lha’i btsun pa Rin chen rNam rGyal (1473 - 1557), a student of Tsangnyön Heruka (1452–1507), 500 years after Nāropa’s life (11th century). It differs from the anecdote told by Kalu Rinpoche in that Tilopa beats up the “girl”, Nāropa’s sexual consort (mudrā). Below is Guenther’s translation of the passage. I added the Tibetan terms between brackets. Mahāmudrā has to be understood here in the tantric sense of mahāmudrā.

“Again Tilopa acted [sat silent and motionless] for one year as before. When Nāropa made his maṇḍala and venerated him with folded hands, Tilopa glanced once at him. Nāropa prayed and asked for instruction. 'If you want instruction, give me your girl (shes rab ma)!' When Nāropa did so, the girl turned her back to Tilopa, looked at Nāropa, smiled and cast sidelong glances at him. Tilopa beat her (phyag rgya mo) and said: 'You do not care for me, you only care for Nāropa.' Nāropa did not lose faith in the propriety of his Guru's action, and when he sat there happily without the girl, Tilopa asked him: 'Are you happy, Nāropa?'
And Naropa answered:

Bliss is to offer the Mudrā as fee
To the Guru who is Buddha himself, unhesitatingly[2].

Tilopa said:

You are worthy of bliss eternal, Nāropa,
On the path of infinite Reality.
Look into the mirror of your mind, which is Mahāmudrā,
The mysterious home (gsang ba’i gnas) of the Ḍākinī[3].

And he gave him the instruction on the illumining Mahāmudrā transcending awareness.” (The Life and Teaching of Nāropa, Herbert V. Guenther, Shambala, 1995, p. 80)

The girl was not Nāropa’s wife, but the mudrā he found a year earlier when Tilopa told him to get a mudrā (phyag rgya ma long). But in the context of the Vajradhatu situation, “wife” certainly was more appropriate. It showed that in a classic or optimal guru-student relationship, a student would give up his/her wife/partner happily and “unhesitatingly”. The relationship between Tilopa and Nāropa is often quoted as a model for the guru-student relation, especially when things go awry.

A couple years later (1992), another “high priest” of Tibetan Buddhism conveyed to Trungpa’s students that if a lama showed sexual interest in one, it ought to be considered an honor. During a Dzogchen retreat, Gyatrul Rinpoche (born in 1925) talked to a large group about the proper conduct for students to whom a lama bodhisattva shows sexual interest:

"So if you are doing the Shambhala training, and if you have faith in the place of Shambhala and in those great enlightened beings who have manifested in this place for our welfare, then the blessings that enter your mind will be very swift, and this will help increase your own understanding of your Buddha nature. … Shambhala is not to be mistaken with Shangri-la. Everyone thinks: ‘I want to go there.’ But that’s just made up, that’s a movie…. Now this is really not my business, but I want to mention anyway, to some of the women who are the sagyum, or the consorts, of Trungpa Rinpoche, you should be very careful about your attitude. Don’t have an ordinary mind about it, thinking in an ordinary sense: ‘Oh, he slept with me, so I’m equal to him; this makes me special, because he slept with me.’ This is not the way that a sagyum of someone like this should think. It’s the sagyum’s responsibility to consider that he saw in you a karmic connection that could be cultivated. And consider that it was because of his kindness in recognizing your karma that there was an ability to cultivate that and bring that out. If you have an attitude of him with humility and devotion, then if you follow whatever teachings he gave you, because of the special aspect of your connection with him this can be of tremendous benefit to you. If you cultivate your situation, you can then go ahead and be of tremendous benefit to others. But if you fail to see the level of the connection and think of it as being only ordinary, and elevate your pride and ego, you’ve really failed in that connection. That would be like sleeping with a king-but he was not a king, he was a great bodhisattva. There’s a difference."[4]

Coming back to Kalu Rinpoche, what is more disturbing in the context of the Vajra Regent’s knowingly spreading of AIDS is preventing one of his own students from informing Vajradhatu students about the Vajra Regent’s situation. 

“In Los Angeles, Lama Ken McLeod[5], a senior student of the late Kalu Rinpoche, consulted with the Center for Disease Control and the Los Angeles Buddhist AIDS Project, then prepared to announce publicly the details of Tendzin’s illness so that those at risk could take appropriate and responsible steps. Before he could do so, senior Vajradhatu officials approached Kalu Rinpoche, then visiting in Los Angeles, and within the hour Ken McLeod was told that Rinpoche required that he not speak publicly about Tendzin. McLeod obeyed the wishes of his teacher.” (The Sun Magazine issue 162, in reaction to the essay When the Teacher fails by Stephen Butterfield)

Some Trungpa students now seem to admit that the Vajra Regent was for the least controversial, but that he is still essential to the transmission of the Trungpa and Shambhala lineage. Without him Trungpa's transmission would be lost.

“The Vajra Regent will forever remain a controversial lineage holder in the Trungpa and Shambhala lineage. However he holds a tremendously important place in the transmission of this authentic lineage. He is so important, in fact, that without thoroughly studying and integrating his oral instructions and commentaries this authentic transmission will be lost and the fresh and profound Trungpa lineage will end with our generation. That is why we continue to study and practice according to both the Vidyadhara's and Vajra Regent's instructions.” (Tashi Armstrong)

And that’s why the Vajra Regent’s rehabilitation was absolutely necessary. Who dies when the lineage live!

***

[1] “Originally used in the First Book of Letters (20 BC), by the Roman poet Horace, the phrase Sapere aude became associated with the Age of Enlightenment, during the 17th and 18th centuries, after Immanuel Kant used it in the essay, "Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?" (1784). As a philosopher, Kant claimed the phrase Sapere aude as the motto for the entire period of the Enlightenment, and used it to develop his theories of the application of reason in the public sphere of human affairs.” Wikipedia

[2] ltos med bla ma sangs rgyas la// shes rab yon phul rnal ‘byor (b)de//

[3] chos nyid klong gi lam chen du// bde yang rung gi nA ro pa// mkha’ ‘gro ma yi gsang ba’i gnas/ phyag chen sems kyi me long ltos// phyag rgya chen po ye shes gsal byed kyi gdams ngag gnang ngo/

[4] Gyatrul Rinpoche, Oral Commentary on the Natural Great Perfection by Dudjom Lingpa, given in Boulder, 1992, trans. Sangye Khandro, ed. Ian Villarreal, later published by (Ashland, Oregon: Mirror of Wisdom Publications, 2000), 58-59

[5] Ken McCleod: "In 1988, I moved away from both the teacher-center model and the minister-church model and developed a consultant-client model. This model later became the basis for Unfettered Mind." Unfettered Mind, About Ken McCleod