One of my first memories of listening to Reggie teach, and feeling a ping of concern, was the introduction of Caroline. Caroline (wife #4), until then a prospective student, was replacing Lee (wife #3). She was not just Reggie’s new romantic partner but, as he set out to explain, the paragon of feminine wisdom in our Tibetan Buddhist lineage. This is what Lee had been before her, but their physical union had run its course.

Lee had been present in the community long before I got there, and though I only had a direct student/teacher relationship with Reggie, I was told that my refuge and bodhisattva vows were taken with both of them. Lee represented something important — the feminine. But I saw her struggle to find space to be who she actually was in the tightly controlled environment around Reggie.

I did get to know Lee in very small doses over the years, namely through short scheduled interviews. She occasionally, but rarely, gave talks at retreats. And then came Caroline. Lee didn’t want to go, but it was not her choice. There was drama in the transition.

We were told that we had to make a choice in terms of our spiritual allegiance — Reggie, or Lee — similar to when Reggie left Shambhala International to start Dharma Ocean, and ties were broken with Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. Some people chose to become students of Lee alone, and to her credit, she did persist as a teacher in her own right. For those of us who stayed with Reggie, our vows with Lee were a necessary collateral as Caroline took Lee’s seat. While this was the first time that I can recall, it would not be the last time that Reggie adjusted our vows to fit the changing situation.

On this day, Reggie explained that the problems with Lee stood alone and regardless of Caroline, they would have separated. This may be true, but according to Reggie he was not just making a personal choice with regard to his spousal relationship. This choice was essentially the choice of the lineage, as it continued with Reggie beyond CTR’s death. Reggie had realized that it was Caroline who was needed, to continue this lineage on. He did not say as much, of course, but Caroline’s pocketbook is deep, and that benefited him, and it benefited Dharma Ocean.

Reggie spoke of his gross limitations as a man, and the power of his female counterpart to destroy his ego, thwart his ambitions, and thereby remove obstacles in his ability to teach the dharma. This over-the-top accolade session of Caroline, who I didn’t know at all, was hauntingly similar to how Reggie had always spoken of Lee. As Caroline sat silently by, I had the thought, “He’s already taking away her power, by turning her into a caricature”.

The thought startled me, as this idea of a disempowered consort did not fit with what I understood of the wild, fierce feminine classically described as the dakini in Tibetan Buddhism. It didn’t fit with the words coming out of Reggie’s mouth right in front of me. But I let my thought go, as we were trained to do.

The thought turned out to be another small crack in the veneer that held Reggie’s cult-like community together. For me it took years, but the truth common to the entire situation gradually became clear. There is a process by which Reggie creates his “land”: he imbues those around him with extraordinary specialness. Over time, the wisdom of the glorified “other” is appropriated, distorted and they are gradually redrawn for the community — by Reggie — as deficient. Finally, they are executed, if they do not first leave on their own. The cycle is repeated over, and over, and over again.

This is not a gratuitously dramatic summation. As Reggie could sacrifice deadlines, contracts, individual students, marriages, commitments of all kinds, purportedly at the behest of CTR’s lineage, so could he sacrifice his entire body of American students, and the organization we dedicated years of our lives to build, nourish and expand. This past year, as I discussed in my post A Buddhist Reckoning, Reggie made the decision to dissolve Dharma Ocean as it has existed from its Colorado headquarters. He and Caroline walked away from hundreds of students and set their sights on Europe, where they are grooming teachers, hosting video conferences with interested students, and planning retreats. It is a fresh, open field.

As was Caroline. And Lee before her, until she wasn’t anymore.

I don’t know what Caroline thinks of Dharma Ocean’s dissolution, or any of Reggie’s behavior towards his students, because she hasn’t said anything of substance about it in any public forum. What I do see publicly is that through her silence, Caroline has served beautifully to enable Reggie’s rampant personal thoughts and agendas over any wisdom the rest of the us might hold, and over whatever qualities her own voice might convey. Over the past year particularly, Reggie ran roughshod over the entire community, with Caroline mute at the moments when she could have spoken. At crucial moments, for so many people.

Is this the wild, uncompromising feminine, or dakini as she is known in Tibetan tradition? Subservient to the guru? With no voice?

I would say, as Reggie has also said, that the wild mercy of the dakini is subservient to no one. If Caroline challenges Reggie, ever, as he loves to claim, it is not public. It is never public. So I wouldn’t know, aside from what Reggie might choose to say.