Then, starting in early 2018, a series of reports by a group called Buddhist Project Sunshine highlighted numerous stories of abuse in Shambhala, a large international community that follows the Tibetan Buddhist teachings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The accusation came just months after it was revealed that Lama Norlha Rinpoche, founder of New York’s Thubten Chöling Monastery, had been having sexual relationships with his students for decades.
What followed was a chain of events, fueled by the larger #MeToo movement, of Buddhist organizations coming to terms with long-held, and often well-known, secrets. But in July 2017, the influential Tibetan Buddhist lama, who founded the international Rigpa community and authored the bestselling Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, was accused of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse.
Sex in the sangha certainly didn’t start with Sogyal Rinpoche.
