I’m not a survivor of Shambhala institutional abuse or betrayal, so the very structure of this AMA has me speaking out of turn. It may draw out answers that prematurely focus on repair instead of reparations. If they aren’t, the question may encourage a bias towards preservation instead of reform or dissolution. The first thing to say in response to this big question, as well as every other on this page so far, is that survivors of institutional betrayal should be at the front of the line to answer. You can read about her research into institutional betrayal here.įreyd’s preliminary findings on institutional courage are here. Thank you for referencing the work of Jennifer Freyd, which is invaluable in this context. What role does Naropa University play in all this, given that they have divorced themselves from Shambhala several years ago but still have many overlapping people involved in both Shambhala and Naropa, and that Naropa was founded by Chogyam Trungpa? ![]() Is the future of Shambhala to simply dismantle it and go elsewhere for spirituality, or as some have begun, to engage a reform movement divorced from Shambhala International and engaged in a thorough critique of its founder while continuing its methods? Question 1: Is there any future for Shambhala?ĭo you think there is any future for Shambhala after such institutional betrayal has taken place at the highest levels of the organization? My cult-related stress disorders did not inhibit my work and personal life as much as those suffered by many people I know. I am a cult survivor who has spent about a decade trying to recover and research and understand what happened to me and so many others. So for the record: I am not a dharma teacher, a meditation guide, a psychologist, psychotherapist, or an academic. But while others were doing grad school in Religious Studies departments that taught them to study cults as “New Religious Movements” instead of social dominance hierarchies, I was living in them. Why? Because I lost six formative years of my life in cults, and about a decade after that recovering from them. It’s a lot easier to attack whistleblowers than to look seriously at the foundation of your beliefs and commitments, than to begin to imagine how deep a deception might go. The yoga and Buddhism worlds are wracked by authority crises: this is not an “unfathomable” mystery, given the prevalence of cults. If you pull hard enough on this thread of fixation that high-demand group members have with credentials, you’ll wind up at an intractable knot of anxiety about whether anything they themselves have been taught is valid or useful. No amount of sadhana will make this make sense. Therefore: if I was higher on the credential hierarchy, I’d be more trustworthy as I criticized hierarchy. It makes me out as a critic of hierarchy, but suggests I can’t be trusted because I don’t have the proper credentials. ![]() It’s so strange and goofy that I’ve made it into my Facebook profile picture.Ī post shared by Regard All Dharmas As Memes meme is incoherent, as I’ve come to expect from cult apologists, who are not to be blamed for not being able to think clearly. Predictably, my credibility has already been targeted by a meme, published Saturday by #oceanoftruememing on Instagram. Shambhala members are going to have to start asking whether the former was a fiction that functioned to cover over the latter. On first glance, it’s clear that the reports offer compelling evidence for what many Shambhala survivors have been saying for about a year now: that the organization’s dubious claims to spiritual lineage are eclipsed by the shadow of intergenerational trauma and abuse. If it’s useful, I may return to these answers later to add citations from the reports. I’ve scanned them but not in enough detail to better inform my answers where appropriate. The reports from An Olive Branch were released yesterday. Opening remarks:įirstly: I’ve worked on these answers throughout the week, as they’ve come in. I’ve edited slightly and left out secondary exchanges. ![]() Here’s my opening comment, followed by the questions and answers that I worked on for about a week prior to the event. The moderators at r/ShambhalaBuddhism kindly invited me to do an AMA on March 20, 2019.
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