An investigation commissioned by Shambhala International found what it characterized in a report released Sunday as two credible allegations of sexual misconduct by the leader of the Buddhist community, which was founded in Boulder and continues to have strong ties to Colorado.

That leader, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, stepped aside from his role as head of Shambhala in July after the publication of a three-part report by Buddhist Project Sunshine detailing allegations of sexual misconduct against him. In a letter to followers at the time, Mipham acknowledged that past relationships he engaged in had caused “harm.”

The nine members of Shambhala’s governing body, the Kalapa Council, resigned last summer after the allegations came to light, and an interim council hired the Canadian law firm Wickwire Holm to conduct a third-party investigation of those claims. On Sunday, the council released a 64-page report to the Shambhala community detailing Wickwire Holm’s findings.

The results of the months-long investigation — released just days after a former Shambhala teacher in Boulder was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault — found what leaders described as two credible allegations against Mipham, including one brought by a woman with ties to Boulder. The report concluded that the spiritual leader misused his power as the leader of the Buddhist community.

“There was enough consistency for the investigator to paint a picture that the Sakyong’s behavior in the 1990s and up to 2005 included frequent sexual contact with women who were his students and, thus, characterized by a power imbalance,” the Shambhala Interim Board wrote in its summary of the report.

In a statement that accompanied the report, the Canadian-based Shambhala Interim Board did not press Mipham — who remains on leave — to resign. “It is our strong wish that he expresses true sympathy and speaks from his heart on how he will proceed,” the board said.

A Shambhala spokeswoman said Sunday that Mipham “has not yet seen the report,” but that “we expect he will make a public statement in the coming days.”

The board, in its statement to journalists, said it “takes seriously the reports of misconduct and lack of care that occurred in our community,” and acknowledges that Shambhala’s reporting processes have not been adequate.

“We must work together as a community to address the conditions that create harm and create opportunities for care, equity and kindness to flourish,” the interim board said.

The report also noted that the investigation, while focused on Mipham, received 20 reports of sexual misconduct by other Shambhala leaders, including unwanted kissing and touching by men and instances of men having inappropriate relations with younger women.

“As a community, we need to look deeply at our culture,” the board wrote in the summary introducing its report. “We must dismantle the systematic structures that perpetuate harm in our community.”

Investigations in Colorado

The report’s release comes two days after a former teacher at the Boulder Shambhala Center, 71-year-old William Lloyd Karelis, was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust in a case that dates to the early 2000s. Another investigation in Colorado, by the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, was looking into “possible criminal activity” at the Shambhala Mountain Center near Red Feather Lakes.

Shambhala was founded in Boulder in 1975 by Mipham’s father, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who also founded the Buddhist-inspired Naropa University. Shambhala has since moved its headquarters to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Naropa removed Mipham from its Board of Trustees last summer, saying it found the allegations against him “credible and believable.”

Selina Bath, the Wickwire Holm attorney who led the investigation, received 100 individual allegations of a range of misconduct made against Mipham and several other teachers and Shambhala community members. Of those, 25 of those contacts didn’t respond to follow-up inquiries. And of the remaining 75, 42 “concerned matters related to potential sexual misconduct,” according to the report.

Of those 42, 10 were related to Mipham — including the two ultimately deemed to be partially or wholly credible. Bath did not pursue full investigations into all of the original claims, citing a lack of cooperation from witnesses, according to the report.

Misconduct allegations

Of the two allegations deemed credible, the first, titled “Claim No. 1,” centered around a dinner party at Mipham’s Nova Scotia residence in 2011 at which he is alleged to have drunkenly kissed a woman and groped her breasts. Mipham acknowledged those events took place but described the encounter as consensual, according to the report.

The investigator concluded she could not definitively determine the kiss and groping to be nonconsensual. But given Mipham’s position of power, it was deemed to be sexual misconduct.

“The power balance in such a situation is undeniable,” the report states.

The other claim the report characterized as credible, labeled “Claim No. 3,” included several allegations — not all of which ultimately were found credible — that Mipham made repeated sexual advances toward a female student with ties to Boulder, that he engaged in financial coercion against her and that he made ritualistic sexual advances on minors at the Shambhala Mountain Center, the organization’s retreat in Larimer County.

Mipham denied the second set of allegations outright, and the report found no evidence to support the claim about minor abuse. The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment about whether its investigation into criminal allegations at Shambhala Mountain Center is ongoing.

Claim No. 3 alleged the Sakyong tried to have sex with a female student several times and used his position of power in Shambhala to coerce large financial donations from her, according to the report. The woman also claimed to have direct knowledge of Mipham having ritualistic sex with minors at the Shambhala Mountain Center, according to the report.

The allegation of misconduct against minors was deemed not to be credible by the report. The allegation that one of the advances Mipham made toward the woman in the company of several other high-ranking men also held no credibility, according to the report.

But the report found Mipham likely made sexual advances toward the woman and pressured her to give up a townhouse she had purchased in Boulder. The confluence of the sexual advances, the woman’s devotion to Mipham and financial pressure constituted sexual harassment, according to the report.

The woman also felt pressure and guilt to stay silent about Mipham’s behavior, the report concluded.