Clearly then, it all can lead directly to his door. It is totally due to him that Christie McNally acquired the title "Lama", when he revealed he was in his own supposedly solitary retreat along with her for three years, at which point he started referring to her as Vajrayogini herself. He treated her as his own Lama, and they revealed their own bizarre neo-tantra "spiritual partnership" teachings to the world. He ignored the warnings of his own Gurus, and what seems appalling here is that supposedly he was Christie's Guru, yet it seems evident she stopped treating him as such absolutely in her reaction to the advice to leave the retreat grounds (and probably long before, as how could she have left him for Ian in the first place if she had pure perception of him as the perfect Guru / spiritual partner?). The totally weird perspective that he had to try to appeal to other "precious teachers" of hers to reach out to her after she went off the grid, rather than her listening to him, who she used to refer to as her perfect Guru.. just shatters all pretension that there was ever anything even remotely real in their whole act. (Likewise, when did she stop being "vajrayogini in person" to GMR? Clearly, he no longer maintains that view. He condemns weapons and violence here and now on DM campus but don't we all remember the accounts of him starting to slice his finger off with a phurba saying he thought it was his Guru, Christie's request-- as a teaching example on the same campus? Isn't this all just a natural extension of those days?) I don't see how their students can keep believing in the charade and especially their misguided view of emptiness amidst all the glaring evidence that nobody at the top is even remotely acting according to their own self-imposed "logic" anymore. This is a terrible tragedy, --but if someone died in the midst of an authentic retreat guided by a true master and according to true tantric principles-- this should be considered an optimal context to die in. A blessing. But this seems far from it, for so many reasons.Knotty Veneer wrote: Well, having read Michael Roach's statement linked to from the buddhism.about.com site I am not sure how much can be led directly at his door for this tragedy. *snip* Christie McNally does not appear to me to be the kind of person who could lead a 3 year retreat (or be indeed called "Lama").
That is what is tragic. That there are still over 30 people in the desert, trying to continue their retreats, in the midst of this total chaos and incompetent guidance? Let us all pray that these people, along with their entire mandala, find authentic teachers with authentic lineage, and develop the great fortune to embark on proper retreats in this very lifetime.