Symposium: Buddhism and Sexual Abuse

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There’s an important new contribution to understanding the nature of sexual abuse in Buddhism. Led by Ann Gleig, Sarah Jacoby, and Amy Paris Langenberg, the symposium collects a variety of contributions regarding the ways sexual abuse occurs in Buddhist contexts.

Specially relevant for our forum will be the account of Namal Rathnayake on his experience in Sri Lankan monasteries.

But all of the articles are essential reading, as they represent the experience of survivors as well as analysis of how abuse is enabled within Buddhist communities.

The articles are freely available as PDFs.

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Thank you for the resources, bhante.

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I should add here that the Australian Sangha Association has a longstanding policy on raising awareness regarding child abuse, of which I wrote the first version. Last year, a Sri Lankan monk in Melbourne was convicted for historical child abuse crimes, and is serving time.

https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/buddhist-monk-found-guilty-of-historical-melbourne-sex-offences/41447

A secondary charge came up relating to Australia’s Working With Children requirements.

I was approached by the Victorian police to give evidence regarding the duties and behaviors of Buddhist monks. I attended the trial by zoom. None of the footage I saw was problematic, just the usual things that a monk might do in a temple. Children were present with their families.

Ultimately the Court found him not guilty in those cases where children just happened to be present. But he was found guilty on two counts, giving a blessing to a child, and tying a holy string on a child’s wrist. Again, these are normal things that monks do, and they are perfectly legal. But the Court found that they required a Working With Children check. There was a $1000 fine for each occurrence.

This is potentially a big deal for Sangha in Australia. Suppose a monk gives a blessing chant at the beginning of a Sunday School class. There’s dozens of people there, parents and teachers, and he’s only in the room for a few minutes. But by ministering directly to children he requires a check. If he does that weekly, the potential fine is going to add up.

In any case, I was pleased that the Victorian Police reached out to me for accurate information on a monk’s lifestyle, and I’m happy that the legal process appears to have been resolved satisfactorily.

Nothing can undo the harm that is done in child abuse, but the very least we can do is to support the victims in their search for justice. The welfare of the survivors is our only priority, and we should not be tempted by the twisted logic that hiding sexual abuse is protecting Buddhism. The ones that cause harm are the perpetrators, and we must hold them to account.

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Oh, that’s concerning!!!

So, is this related to the above issue, bhante? Are they reevaluating that check requirement?

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They’re not reevaluating it, but this is probably the first case regarding a Buddhist monk that’s come to trial. So they’re setting a precedent.

The law is state-based, but as I understand it very similar across the different states, so it’s probably prudent to assume it applies everywhere.

As usual, they never really consider the Buddhist point of view when drafting these laws. So we inherit them downstream of Catholics and Anglicans, with their systemic perpetration of child abuse and institutional coverup. Anyway, regardless of the situation in other countries, here in Australia we want to show that depraved monks are not protected from the law.

Incidentally, I don’t know the details of the child abuse, but if Wijitha had sex with anyone, he’s technically no longer a monk. I had the pleasure of explaining this fine detail of monastic law to the court!

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As a lawyer, I suppose my comment is to lament how the law seems to fail to keep up with societal trends, and tends to prosecute the lowest hanging fruit while the most egregious of offenses go unrecognized and unspoken.

The real issue it seems to me is that there have been alleged “Buddhist” communities in the west where men in powerful positions used that power to manipulate and abuse their students and disciples. Trungpa is one example. The founder of Triratna ( the rotten Sangharakshita) in the UK was identified as a serial abuser of young men, some of whom attempted to take their own lives under the trauma inflicted on them by this abuse. Even in Thailand, of course, there are some rogue monks that take sexual liberties with children who are not prosecuted. Yet, Thailand does a decent job of arresting and disrobing and turning over to the police monks that are involved in abuse of women and children.

And so a probable very decent and honorable monk was charged for failing to register his involvement with children, and this ended up a court case. Kudos to you, Bhante, for your expert testimony.

I suppose I’m commenting because by and large there have been so many profligate abusers in the history of the various iterations of western “Buddhism” that deserve prosecution and life terms in jail… Meanwhile, an innocent Buddhist monk is prosecuted for failing to obtain a perfunctory license for interacting with children.

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This monk is not honourable and hopefully not a monk. He has been convicted of child abuse.

However, situations such as offering blessing string, occur all the time by upstanding good monastics at no detriment to anyone.

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Dear Ayya

Thank you for the correction. I had earlier clicked on the link regarding the other part of the story, and I failed to Account for what appears to be allegations unrelated to the registration requirement. When I went to check again on the link, it wasn’t working, but I understand from your response that the monk was convicted on other charges and is serving jail time. I’m not aware what those facts are, but I very much welcome and appreciate your correction.

I suppose my point still stands, which is that there has been numerous so-called Buddhist teachers in the west that have gone unprosecuted for what are certainly egregious sex crimes and other forms of abuse. I started out my legal career as a state prosecutor, sometimes involved in sexual abuse, crimes and domestic violence, and I took my work very seriously. Protection of women and children has always been paramount in my legal practice, and I view many of these incidents in western Buddhist history with absolute contempt.

Once again, thank you for your correction. I’m always delighted to be corrected and I appreciate that for the larger audience my approach with respect to this monk was somewhat misguided.

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I totally agree with everything else you said btw. Thanks for your professional input

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Indeed, and in the case of an organization like Shambhala, even tho the founder’s crimes are well-documented, and even though they persisted through five decades of the followers committing equally egregious crimes, somehow the organization still exists, and the teacher Chogyam Trungpa and his organization are still regarded as legitimate Buddhists by many.

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I actually had the chance to talk to someone who practiced with them in that environment, and she got very defensive about it when it was brought up, and denied that there was anything unethical or immoral about certain relationships. Her explanation was more or less that one had to be there, it was the times.. Something like that. Quite interesting.

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I was pretty stunned listening to an interview with Pema Chödrön recently where she kept name-dropping him like he was some great guru!

I actually first read seriously about Buddhism through one of his books! So, I can understand being grateful for the good someone has done for you while holding in the other hand the horror of their crimes.

I can even understand not wanting to publicly criticize your guru. But, going around proactively bringing Trungpa up and recommending his books and lionizing him to the NYT?!

After her 2020 resignation as a Shambhala acharya, I was hopeful that Pema Chödrön was finally getting unstuck. Sad to see she hasn’t.

May all beings realize the wisdom of escape! :folded_hands:

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The cycle of association is also problematic and complicated in itself. (Edit: Edited to post because it seems to have caused a misunderstanding. )

Yes, and then there are dozen if not hundreds of very unnuanced stories. Without first hand knowledge, it’s very hard to weed out the truth — but manipulative people and organisations are exceptionally skilled at holding up multiple faces.

It’s quite well documented, actually. High functioning sociopaths can tell who can be influenced in what way, and these kinds of organisations routinely interact with more innocent, easily convinced people to be their apologists.

Which is why I actually sympathise with the court decision:

There’s a story of Eihei Zenji in Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki, when the monks of his monastery were feeding deers so much that they would eat off their hands. One day, Zenji starts beating the deers with a stick until they ran away scared.

The monks ask perplexed, asking why Zenji would do such a thing.

Zenji replies “You think you’re being compassionate, but you’re just training them to be an easy prey to hunters; it’s very dangerous for them to lose their natural fear of humans.”

I don’t know if it’s pessimistic or realistic.

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It’s always funny to me how you just decided he shall be called Eihei Zenji hahaha
It’s funny basically cause it strikes me as so uncommon :rofl:

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To pile on a bit, Im still deluged on Facebook, and other forums with the creepy visage of Ram Dass who is lauded as a visionary guru, but always has struck me as a lightweight hippie who managed to attract many needy followers. He himself had his own issues, one of them being one of his colleagues needing to remove his teenage son from the household when Ram Dass was there because of Ram Dass’ wrongful proclivities and attraction toward underage males. Dass’ memory and photo is still paraded around by some western Buddhist leaders and I’ve never understood why but I also appreciate that many of these so-called Buddhist leaders simply are actively monetizing their activities and have used Buddhism to build resort properties and high-level incomes leveraging these goofy men.

Complicating this is that almost every photo of Ram Dass has in the background, his guru Neem Karoli Baba who was fairly well known as a pedophile, and when this guru would come to Indian villages, parents would hide their children given his proclivity to sexually fondling the kids during his visits. And so in my view, you have criminals engaged in criminal activity and then being protected and propped up by their co-conspirators. It’s a pretty ugly look for so-called western Buddhism.

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Thank you, Bhante, for supporting the justice system and educating them on monastic practices within community.

People become defensive (much less very defensive) for lots of reasons. I typically tread lightly with such characterizations in public.

How is it that the OP devolves into a thread with people freely castigating western Buddhist teachers?

With all due respect, Bhante, this lands for me as unfair, disrespectful, and extremely intolerant.

:folded_hands:

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? That I would be stunned?

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Correction: People castigating western Buddhist sex predators and those who support them.

I don’t see the problem here.

This is why victims are hesitant to go public. If folks are willing to support known predators openly, what chance does someone have when going public against the local favorite.

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I suppose what I’m saying is I wouldn’t expose children to the mean tone this thread has taken on. I don’t understand why, of all places, a Buddhist EBT forum would resonate with the plain meanness I deal with in daily life. I’ve said my :peace_symbol: and will stay silent on the thread going forward.

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well, she basically defended the acts committed, saying the women wanted it, it wasn’t a big deal, we don’t get it cause we weren’t in the environment. Things like that