16 ICSA TODAY
overlooking signals of group control and believing that the
high purposes were worth the submissions.
The group goals may have been banal if we consider what
most cults offer, but Chandler fell into the trap that, to save
the world, one must purify the self first and she believed
that Chögyam Trungpa knew the truth. That meant that
submission to a lama without question was the only way to
gain ultimate spiritual freedom in this lifetime. The worst crime
a person could commit was to turn against a lama. The dire
myth was that the lama’s power could turn the treasonous
seeker to ashes, literally, and curse the seeker’s soul to a
horrible death and incarnational experience in a next life. I am
reminded of a Rolling Stones song, Play With Fire, which has
this verse: But don’t play with me, ‘cause you’re playing with fire.
The Globalist agenda of the Tibetan Buddhist movement has
been enhanced by both Western and Chinese Communist
politics. On the one hand, the exiled Dalai Lama and all
Tibetan Buddhist groups in the West are sold by celebrities
as peaceful, spiritual alternatives who can bring the globe
together through mindfulness. On the other, after devastating
the Tibetan culture, the Chinese are now rebuilding some
remaining monasteries to promote a potentially lucrative
spiritual tourism trade to Tibet, albeit one controlled by
Chinese power. Chandler warns that the Mahayana Buddhist
mindfulness is merely a friendly façade that lamas exploit—
the lama tradition is always angling to become the priest-king
of culture:
Professors with PhDs from Columbia University,
Harvard and Yale, Princeton, Stanford, or M.I.T.,
and other prestigious representatives of western
academia, have all equally proven to be as
susceptible to being mystically manipulated and
enthralled by these Tibetan lamas as the illiterate
nomads in Tibet. (p. 209)
Chandler leans on several sources to augment her positions.
She often references the Germans Victor Trimondi and Victoria
Trimondi and their book, The Shadow of the Dalai Lama:
Sexuality, Magic, and Politics of Tibetan Buddhism (2003). The
Trimondis met and befriended the Dalai Lama in the 1980s.
They translated and published writings by the Dalai Lama in
Germany. They helped the Dalai Lama to organize and speak
at international conferences with famous speakers in Austria
and Germany. However, they came to seriously question some
of the tenets of the Tantric Buddhism that the lama professed.
Eventually, the Trimondis became two of the Dalai Lama’s
harshest critics.
Neither Chandler nor the Trimondis are claiming that a global
takeover by Tibetan Buddhism is possible, but they do indicate
strongly that, as in any totalist cult, the devoted members
want to see their leader in charge of the planet. Other
criticisms include an inherent atavism, or throwback to a herd
mentality in which one male lama is dominant and females
have only subordinate roles.
Chandler cites June Campbell often to underscore Tibetan
Buddhism’s abuse of women as “empty spaces” or dakinis
with whom a lama secretly has ritual sex for his personal
spiritual gain. Campbell’s exposé, Traveller in Space, came out
in 1996. I reviewed it positively in 1996 because Campbell did
a scholarly job describing the history of Tibetan Buddhism.
Campbell used her personal experience of 4 years as the
translator and secret consort of a lama for whom she worked
to flesh out, so to speak, what has been going on in the lives of
supposedly celibate lamas.
The well-documented and lurid sexual indiscretions by
Chandler’s guru Trungpa, who died rather young at age 47
from complications with alcoholism, along with those by the
notorious lama Sogyal Rinpoche, are not exceptions in the
lama culture. Campbell makes it quite clear that the dakini,
as mistress, serves a sacred and essential purpose, but not
for herself. Too many women have been devastated by these
controlled sexual relationships with Tibetan lamas. I met for
part of a day with one of Sogyal’s young sexual slaves after she
broke away from his cult. She, like others, settled their lawsuits
for hush money under pressure from slick lawyers for the
lamas who would have made life hell in the courts for these
women had they pursued an open trial.
Chandler also mentions the children born into Western
Tibetan Buddhist cults and calls them “dharma brats.” These
kids are raised to feel very special, somewhat as the lamas
were raised. I met one of these “brats” 10 years ago when he
was 29. He was brought to the psych hospital where I work to
treat his suicidal ideation. My job was to conduct a thorough
intake interview. What I thought, from the initial report by
police, was just another case of a suicidal person turned into
an amazing story that the young man only told me after he
found out that I understood the Buddhist cultures. When he
said he was named as a child tulku, or reincarnated lama, I
knew what he meant. His depression came on strong in his
early twenties as he began to realize that the extra-special
treatment he received in Seattle by his white parents and the
Tibetan lama in charge of that group conflicted with who
The well-documented and
lurid sexual indiscretions by
Chandler’s guru Trungpa,
who died rather young at age
47 from complications with
alcoholism, along with those
by the notorious lama Sogyal
Rinpoche, are not exceptions…
overlooking signals of group control and believing that the
high purposes were worth the submissions.
The group goals may have been banal if we consider what
most cults offer, but Chandler fell into the trap that, to save
the world, one must purify the self first and she believed
that Chögyam Trungpa knew the truth. That meant that
submission to a lama without question was the only way to
gain ultimate spiritual freedom in this lifetime. The worst crime
a person could commit was to turn against a lama. The dire
myth was that the lama’s power could turn the treasonous
seeker to ashes, literally, and curse the seeker’s soul to a
horrible death and incarnational experience in a next life. I am
reminded of a Rolling Stones song, Play With Fire, which has
this verse: But don’t play with me, ‘cause you’re playing with fire.
The Globalist agenda of the Tibetan Buddhist movement has
been enhanced by both Western and Chinese Communist
politics. On the one hand, the exiled Dalai Lama and all
Tibetan Buddhist groups in the West are sold by celebrities
as peaceful, spiritual alternatives who can bring the globe
together through mindfulness. On the other, after devastating
the Tibetan culture, the Chinese are now rebuilding some
remaining monasteries to promote a potentially lucrative
spiritual tourism trade to Tibet, albeit one controlled by
Chinese power. Chandler warns that the Mahayana Buddhist
mindfulness is merely a friendly façade that lamas exploit—
the lama tradition is always angling to become the priest-king
of culture:
Professors with PhDs from Columbia University,
Harvard and Yale, Princeton, Stanford, or M.I.T.,
and other prestigious representatives of western
academia, have all equally proven to be as
susceptible to being mystically manipulated and
enthralled by these Tibetan lamas as the illiterate
nomads in Tibet. (p. 209)
Chandler leans on several sources to augment her positions.
She often references the Germans Victor Trimondi and Victoria
Trimondi and their book, The Shadow of the Dalai Lama:
Sexuality, Magic, and Politics of Tibetan Buddhism (2003). The
Trimondis met and befriended the Dalai Lama in the 1980s.
They translated and published writings by the Dalai Lama in
Germany. They helped the Dalai Lama to organize and speak
at international conferences with famous speakers in Austria
and Germany. However, they came to seriously question some
of the tenets of the Tantric Buddhism that the lama professed.
Eventually, the Trimondis became two of the Dalai Lama’s
harshest critics.
Neither Chandler nor the Trimondis are claiming that a global
takeover by Tibetan Buddhism is possible, but they do indicate
strongly that, as in any totalist cult, the devoted members
want to see their leader in charge of the planet. Other
criticisms include an inherent atavism, or throwback to a herd
mentality in which one male lama is dominant and females
have only subordinate roles.
Chandler cites June Campbell often to underscore Tibetan
Buddhism’s abuse of women as “empty spaces” or dakinis
with whom a lama secretly has ritual sex for his personal
spiritual gain. Campbell’s exposé, Traveller in Space, came out
in 1996. I reviewed it positively in 1996 because Campbell did
a scholarly job describing the history of Tibetan Buddhism.
Campbell used her personal experience of 4 years as the
translator and secret consort of a lama for whom she worked
to flesh out, so to speak, what has been going on in the lives of
supposedly celibate lamas.
The well-documented and lurid sexual indiscretions by
Chandler’s guru Trungpa, who died rather young at age 47
from complications with alcoholism, along with those by the
notorious lama Sogyal Rinpoche, are not exceptions in the
lama culture. Campbell makes it quite clear that the dakini,
as mistress, serves a sacred and essential purpose, but not
for herself. Too many women have been devastated by these
controlled sexual relationships with Tibetan lamas. I met for
part of a day with one of Sogyal’s young sexual slaves after she
broke away from his cult. She, like others, settled their lawsuits
for hush money under pressure from slick lawyers for the
lamas who would have made life hell in the courts for these
women had they pursued an open trial.
Chandler also mentions the children born into Western
Tibetan Buddhist cults and calls them “dharma brats.” These
kids are raised to feel very special, somewhat as the lamas
were raised. I met one of these “brats” 10 years ago when he
was 29. He was brought to the psych hospital where I work to
treat his suicidal ideation. My job was to conduct a thorough
intake interview. What I thought, from the initial report by
police, was just another case of a suicidal person turned into
an amazing story that the young man only told me after he
found out that I understood the Buddhist cultures. When he
said he was named as a child tulku, or reincarnated lama, I
knew what he meant. His depression came on strong in his
early twenties as he began to realize that the extra-special
treatment he received in Seattle by his white parents and the
Tibetan lama in charge of that group conflicted with who
The well-documented and
lurid sexual indiscretions by
Chandler’s guru Trungpa,
who died rather young at age
47 from complications with
alcoholism, along with those
by the notorious lama Sogyal
Rinpoche, are not exceptions…
