At some point NOT taking a position is equal to being complicit to criminals so in the aftermath of the #rigpa brave 8 students that found the courage to speak, we at #OKCinfo have some advice :

– Do not make the same mistake we did by not speaking earlier and by not going to the Police/Justice with a formal complaint.

– Do not equate going to the Police/Justice to « harming the Dharma », this is a false argument used by so-called Buddhist & Sangha all across the globe to keep hiding the unspeakable acts from their Guru’s, with the excuse to protect Buddhism reputation, Buddhism reputation is suffering BECAUSE of these so-called guru’s behaviors towards their students, not the other way around. Samaya is NOT broken by making a formal complaint to force a serial abuser to face his own action, quite on the contrary ! Samaya IS BROKEN by the guru’s by breaking the trust, the relation, the confidence of students by abusing them, let’s not use Buddhist logics AGAINST victims of sexual abuse.

– Buddhism does NOT replace the Laws of Men and the Judiciary. Sometimes Karma need a little bit of Help to play his role and staying in silence over grave abuse of power, sex, money etc..

– « Buddhism does not have a hierarchy » stated by countless Buddhist observers, practitioners or even Dalai-Lama translator Matthieu Ricard is a false argument : of course Buddhism have a hierarchy, just ask anyone in any Sangha all over the world how complicated it is to place different Teachers,Lama, Guru’s in the same Temple : who should be higher ? who should sit next to whom ? who will speak ? who will be teaching ?

All these questions and all this diplomacy is a living proof there is a hierarchy, there is a lineage, there is an order, there are different schools with different leaders, all together they form the different schools of thought inside the big Buddhist family. Of course the hierarchy in Buddhism is different in each country but in the West, there are different schools dominating in different countries and each of them have their own structure and autonomy, but that is not per se an argument to affirm there is no hierarchy in Buddhism.

There is a hierarchy of Importance, of Lineage, of experience, and IF this is not enough to take a position in the case of RIGPA or OKC, then perhaps Buddhism need some serious mutation to abide to some basic Human Laws such as : Integrity, Transparency, Ethics since it seems Buddhism is not enough to provide for such basic protection for students that should not be alone facing the responsibility of meeting with a predator guru under the disguise of the Perfect Teacher.

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