Teacher-Student Consent

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PeterC
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

Post by PeterC »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 12:28 pm I agree with most of what PeterC argues, except for this part, which suggests that a liar or con-man isn’t to be blamed:
PeterC wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 7:19 amAs a hypothetical - guy rents an expensive sports car, borrows an expensive suit and a watch, turns up at a bar claiming to be rich, and seduces a woman on that pretext. Can the woman consent? Yes of course she can. Her consent may rely on false representations that she's received, but that's her problem, not sports car guy's problem.
At that point I was talking about moral culpability - it’s clear in that hypothetical that the woman can legally consent. Of course we would always consider someone using false pretences to be in some way morally at fault: the question is whether the consentor bears any responsibility for inaction. The argument would be - liar claims that he owns the sports car. If the ownership of the sports car was essential to the consentor’s consent, consentor should verify ownership in some way.

To take a more extreme example. Requestor says he doesn’t want to use a condom. Consentor asks if he has an STD, requestor says no. Is it consentor’s moral responsibility if the requestor is lying? Our intuition would be that requestor bears some moral responsibility if he is lying. But if this was an essential component of consent, the consentor could require additional evidence before consenting (test results, getting to know him better, etc.).

But in any case, it is clear that both legally and morally the consentor can give consent in those cases. Which brings us to your broader point…
A very good point was raised, which is that a person must be able to give consent. They must be mentally competent and emotionally stable. And I think a key issue here that people often go to spiritual teachers precisely because they may be in an emotionally unstable, or vulnerable state of mind. In that case, it should be argued that true consent is not possible.

“Consent” and “willing consent” are two different things. I once heard an attorney explain that ‘consent’ under duress could still be legally regarded as willing consent. In other words, if I tell you to do what I want or I’m going to hurt you, and you say okay, that’s consent. But it’s not willing consent.
This analysis would be jurisdiction-specific. But legal consent is largely a categorical issue. Some people are not able to give consent, whatever they say or do. Someone in jail custody cannot consent to sex with a warder (in common law jurisdictions at least).

There are situations where the requestor has the ability to coerce the consentor - for instance a manager who controls a subordinate’s compensation or career, or a teacher who gives the consentor grades. Those situations are however not crimes of sexual abuse or rape - they are either labor law offences, or handled by non-judicial systems (university or company disciplinary procedures, medical ethics boards, etc.). That is - consentor can consent but requestor is not, as a condition of employment or licensing, permitted to make the request or engage in that behavior.
This relates to the point I mentioned earlier, that coercion generally involves facing some kind of negative consequences for not complying with a demand. If a teacher tells the student that not offering sex will land them in vajra hell, or that giving sex is some kind of ultimate generosity that guarantees buddhahood or some other bullshit, this is no different than a boss telling an employee that they will either be fired or get a promotion depending on whether there is sex or not.

But as PeterC points out, each case needs to be examined (to see if this is what happened), and also whether the alleged victim was in a clear state of mind or not. Otherwise, arguing that a teacher-student relationship automatically makes the student vulnerable requires reasons for why that automatically makes a student vulnerable.
So let’s return to the hypotheticals, Justice Breyer, and I think this is where it becomes interesting.

Let’s take the allegations that a senior lama coerced a nun into sex. If the lama had been a professor and the nun a student, the university might have fired him. If the lama had been a doctor and the nun a patient, he might have lost his license. But there is no lama licensing board. The lama clearly had power over the nun, and abused that, but there are no formal consequences.

At this point people start to say - sanghas must have codes of ethics! Teachers must be subject to a disciplinary committee! But it doesn’t work like that; and in some systems (notably vajrayana), it can’t work like that, for reasons we’re all familiar with. The problem has to be solved at a different level. People shouldn’t take vows from teachers until they have confidence in that teacher. People should walk away from teachers they have doubts about. Sanghas should not support teachers they have issues with. Lots of lamas have given clear and practical advice on this. But what you can’t do is take a modern American disciplinary system and impose it on the student/teacher relationship. It doesn’t work.

And if teachers break the law, people should report them and support police investigations. If you have evidence that justifies that, it should be the first port of call, not some BS conciliation process run by a friendly lawyer on behalf of the sangha’s leaders so that everyone can “heal”. If a lama thinks he can maintain equal taste / rest in rigpa / whatever during sex (for the benefit of a student, of course), then it should be easy for him to do the same through a short prison sentence.
Of course, reward/punishment coercion is possible for many reasons. There are a lot of power struggles in Buddhist institutions. Being in a teacher’s “inner circle” will have its privileges. And in Vajrayana there is the narrative that the pupil must do whatever the master says, which is largely based on legends such as the relationship between Marpa and Milarepa. If a teacher interprets this in a modern-day context for his own advantage, yeah, that’s definitely a problem.
Vajrayana commitments bind the student, yes, but one can always conclude that the teacher was not a qualified vajra master and therefore no samaya exists. That was a persuasive argument with Lakhar at least. But this does not transcend legal responsibilities. And if the teacher says “don’t talk to the police”, well, see above.

(Apologies for the long reply)
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

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Knotty Veneer wrote: Tue Aug 02, 2022 8:52 pm I think we all resist any idea of regulating teacher/student relationships to some degree or another.
We have good precedent for it in my opinion. In my experience in workplaces rules like this historically have not actually stopped such relationships, but 1) driven them underground, and 2) act mainly with as legal cover for organizations to wash their hands of situations, or to claim they have done their part.
I think some of the reason for this lies in the stories we all tell ourselves about our spiritual practice - most notably that our practice, our teacher and our spiritual community are somehow beyond the scope of mundane activity and relationships, and we don't want to admit that the messy world of normal human foolishness, insincerity, and even sexual predation can be found there too.
That’s definitely not my reason for skepticism, rather I have worked at enough institutions to suspect that such regulation of relationships often serves no purpose other than organizational cover, and ultimately does not stop such relationships from happening.
We need our teacher to be beyond reproach and our practice world a pure land of wisdom and the best of intentions. To put any kind of mundane limit on that would kill the fantasy.
My objection is the opposite of this kind of fantasy. I would counter that it is also possible to have a fantasy about how we can structure organizations so that “inappropriate” relationships never happen, rather than mitigating damage when they do.
I do believe that Sanghas should have a code of conduct for ALL members. The real deal crazy wisdom guys will not be impeded, only the phony sex pests who prey on the naive. Even if the current leader is a saint, the next might not be. I don't think there is anything to lose doing this except the fantasy of our 'pure' spirituality. And the loss of that is no bad thing either
Like I said, people are doing that, we will see if it has any affect beyond driving such relationships underground further, where they can ironically develop into something even worse. That is, providing they the code of conduct even overtly bars relationships between teacher and student, etc.

I also think that the ‘institutional cover’ issue mentioned earlier might in some cases take people’s eyes off the larger issues. Simply trying to prohibit certain types of relationships does not directly address misogyny, lack of critical teacher examination, and and other harder to reach but very entrenched factors at play.

People signing a code of conduct or similar is a ritual of a certain type in our society, I would argue that it reflects another type of fantasy to believe it could do something like stop abuse from happening, or mitigate the damage when it does.

https://www.ethics.org/resources/free-t ... f-conduct/

The purpose of codes of conduct and such is mainly legalistic - as the link says, compliance, marketing, risk mitigation (for the institutions, not individuals).

Buddhists arguably already have codes of conduct, having some official one simply regulates people’s behavior in a way that preferences institutional norms that make sense in workplaces, but doesn’t necessarily in other types of spaces. I’m not saying such things are entirely meaningless, but I’m skeptical it
of them addressing the real issues.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

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This entire forum continuously tells people to "ask their teacher" for every single question they might have. This referral that is repeated ad nauseam here directly plays into first establishing the teacher as some kind of "special person" and then in a second step in keeping up abusive relationship between teacher and student.

In my view it's about time that we understand spiritual teachers to be none other than coaches, essentially. There is no magic sauce here, just because we are dealing with things like "enlightenment" and the like. A teacher is not only supposed to be a good teacher, but s/he is supposed to have some elusive realization that nobody except a fully realized buddha can judge, and of course nobody knows who a fully realized buddha is. So, by this very logic a teacher's authority is established not by qualities such as learning and qualities in teaching but first and foremost by some transcendental, elusive realization that nobody has ever seen or touched, and that we all must believe is there, because, well, because <reason>.

Worse: People absolutely worship the idea that their teacher does indeed have a secret sauce. It's a narcissistic projection, of course, that is continuously re-instantiated by organisations that purposely keep high ranking teachers off the reaches of regular students. In this way, the projection onto the teacher can be kept up.

So, you see. Is your teacher showing bad conduct? Go ask your teacher. He will tell you something about good conduct for sure. After all, he is "realized", which equates to "being always right".

The cycle of arguments is quite sickening to me, to be frank.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

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fckw wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:02 pm This entire forum continuously tells people to "ask their teacher" for every single question they might have. This referral that is repeated ad nauseam here directly plays into first establishing the teacher as some kind of "special person" and then in a second step in keeping up abusive relationship between teacher and student.

In my view it's about time that we understand spiritual teachers to be none other than coaches, essentially. There is no magic sauce here, just because we are dealing with things like "enlightenment" and the like. A teacher is not only supposed to be a good teacher, but s/he is supposed to have some elusive realization that nobody except a fully realized buddha can judge, and of course nobody knows who a fully realized buddha is. So, by this very logic a teacher's authority is established not by qualities such as learning and qualities in teaching but first and foremost by some transcendental, elusive realization that nobody has ever seen or touched, and that we all must believe is there, because, well, because <reason>.

Worse: People absolutely worship the idea that their teacher does indeed have a secret sauce. It's a narcissistic projection, of course, that is continuously re-instantiated by organisations that purposely keep high ranking teachers off the reaches of regular students. In this way, the projection onto the teacher can be kept up.

So, you see. Is your teacher showing bad conduct? Go ask your teacher. He will tell you something about good conduct for sure. After all, he is "realized", which equates to "being always right".

The cycle of arguments is quite sickening to me, to be frank.
I haven’t seen anyone say anything like that in this thread. It could certainly be fodder for a larger discussion about the role of the teacher in Vajrayana though. As far as basic ethical questions, I personally have never felt a teacher is necessary to answer those.

As to ‘secret sauce’, well, we either subscribe to the notion that there are people considerably more advanced than ourselves, who can lead us to similar results, or we don’t. If we don’t, it might be best just to learn from books, but even those have to be written and/spoken, and we are in the same position, whether a teacher or The Buddha himself. I mean, how can DIY spirituality even function?

Still, go to a public teaching and quite often the “q&a” portion can be 80% people dwelling on things like basic ethics/conduct questions. I don’t know what that says about Dharma education, teachers, etc. but it seems significant.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

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"In my view it's about time that we understand spiritual teachers to be none other than coaches, essentially. There is no magic sauce here, just because we are dealing with things like "enlightenment" and the like."

Sorry to say, IMHO, you are so incredibly wrong about this. If this is you idea of the Teacher within Vajrayana, then you might as well not practice Vajrayana.
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PeterC
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

Post by PeterC »

fckw wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:02 pm Worse: People absolutely worship the idea that their teacher does indeed have a secret sauce. It's a narcissistic projection, of course, that is continuously re-instantiated by organisations that purposely keep high ranking teachers off the reaches of regular students. In this way, the projection onto the teacher can be kept up.
In addition to PC's comment above - the problem is, some teachers do indeed have the secret sauce. Inexperienced students - early students or ones who simply haven't connected with a good teacher - have bad judgement about whether a teacher does or doesn't, or might mistake performance for substance, and this is a root cause of the problems. And yes, sanghas tend to do stupid stuff, this has always been the case. But anyone who's been around for a while can easily list out multiple teachers who do, and it's absolutely not narcissistic projection.
So, you see. Is your teacher showing bad conduct? Go ask your teacher. He will tell you something about good conduct for sure. After all, he is "realized", which equates to "being always right".
This is always true, and this was the advice of multiple senior lamas in response to the lakhar and mukpo scandals - if you have an issue with what the lama is doing, talk to the lama, or the sangha, or just walk away.
The cycle of arguments is quite sickening to me, to be frank.
In many traditions, the teacher is not just a coach. There will always be unqualified and abusive teachers. So this is a problem that we just have to deal with in a pragmatic way, unfortunately, whether you like it or not.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

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pemachophel wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:29 pm "In my view it's about time that we understand spiritual teachers to be none other than coaches, essentially. There is no magic sauce here, just because we are dealing with things like "enlightenment" and the like."

Sorry to say, IMHO, you are so incredibly wrong about this. If this is you idea of the Teacher within Vajrayana, then you might as well not practice Vajrayana.
Yeah, I know students of Vajrayana dislike this point. But if you think about it: As long as we believe teachers to have "something" that is entirely elusive and cannot be verified by us (i.e. some sort of realization only buddhas can recognize rather than just good teaching skills) then this will ALWAYS be used as an argument to justify any sort of abusive behavior by any Vajrayana teacher. This very argument always opens up the possibility that sexual abuse or violence on the side of the teacher could potentially be something that we "don't understand just right now, but that is for the greater good".

Exactly like when Padmasambhava killed all men in an entire village and then mated with all women. Imagine a real-life, not a mythical fantasy teacher doing that. Students of Vajrayana have a problem here: They are supposed to take Padmasambhava's deeds not as a mythical fantasy story like a fairy tale that teaches not through authority of facts but of psychological symbols, but regard their own teacher essentially as an emanation of some figure similar to Padmasambhava. It's not exactly precisely defined, but if you just hear the title of books such as "Words of my Perfect Teacher" then the teacher is, well, perfect. But if your teacher shows abusive conduct then you have to make a choice: Either you rationalize his/her behaviour as being for the greater good and just not understood by ordinary people who are just too unenlightened so they simply don't get it, or you see it as exactly what it is: misconduct, bad, abusive behavior. Every single cult that has ever existed uses this rationalization technique, just watch a few documentaries, it is repeating over and over and over again. Teacher is being abusive? It's your fault, and you are just too unenlightened to understand.

So, the believe that your teacher owns a transcendental realization that others don't have plays directly in the upkeeping of abuse within Vajrayana. If you subscribe to that then you are co-responsible for keeping up a culture that keeps justifying the deeds of teachers by argument of transcendental, elusive, non-tangible realization that normal mortals just won't get.

(Psychologically speaking, this is a narcissistic projection. By means of believing there is some secret magic sauce to whose source you are closer than anyone else except some co-fellow students you of course put yourself in a special situation that directly plays into your own narcissistic believes. As long as you don't work through those the whole carousel keeps turning.)

You see, this is a very problematic core tenet of Vajrayana. I for myself decided to simply stop subscribing to it. And that allows me to see teachers not as mythical figures that cannot do wrong but as coaches that have all signs of regular flawed human beings. If I don't like one coach, I hire another one. Simple as that. I don't need to have expectations that my spiritual coach truly needs to have more realization than me, s/he just needs to be able to teach me how to get it myself.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

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PeterC wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:15 am
fckw wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:02 pm Worse: People absolutely worship the idea that their teacher does indeed have a secret sauce. It's a narcissistic projection, of course, that is continuously re-instantiated by organisations that purposely keep high ranking teachers off the reaches of regular students. In this way, the projection onto the teacher can be kept up.
In addition to PC's comment above - the problem is, some teachers do indeed have the secret sauce. Inexperienced students - early students or ones who simply haven't connected with a good teacher - have bad judgement about whether a teacher does or doesn't, or might mistake performance for substance, and this is a root cause of the problems. And yes, sanghas tend to do stupid stuff, this has always been the case. But anyone who's been around for a while can easily list out multiple teachers who do, and it's absolutely not narcissistic projection.
What you are saying is simply: The fault is not with the teacher but with the inexperienced students. But why the teacher even allows inexperienced students to study things that they are too inexperienced with - that your argument does not explain.
So, you see. Is your teacher showing bad conduct? Go ask your teacher. He will tell you something about good conduct for sure. After all, he is "realized", which equates to "being always right".
This is always true, and this was the advice of multiple senior lamas in response to the lakhar and mukpo scandals - if you have an issue with what the lama is doing, talk to the lama, or the sangha, or just walk away.
That sounds great for a medieval society. In a postmodern society the advice should be: Get legal advice, and then sue the teacher if it is legally punishable.
The cycle of arguments is quite sickening to me, to be frank.
In many traditions, the teacher is not just a coach. There will always be unqualified and abusive teachers. So this is a problem that we just have to deal with in a pragmatic way, unfortunately, whether you like it or not.
No, now you are sweeping over my argument. My argument is that Vajrayana encourages the upkeeping of abusive behavior by postulating some transcendent, elusive, non-tangible realization of the teacher. This is a core problem. In Western philosophy we have done quite a good job in getting rid of those methaphysical religious tenets that, at closer inspection, could not be kept up. It's like believing that the pope is any closer to God than anyone else. Once you subscribe to the believe then of course the pope is somehow not anymore a completely ordinary human being, he is somehow elevated, somehow special. If he does bad things, then they are not anymore ordinary bad things, but they are somehow informed by his proximity to God. In Vajrayana, you replace God with realization and the pope with your teacher, and then you get exactly the same argument. It's really not just a matter of unqualified and abusive teachers that exist unfortunately everywhere.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 9:45 pm As to ‘secret sauce’, well, we either subscribe to the notion that there are people considerably more advanced than ourselves, who can lead us to similar results, or we don’t. If we don’t, it might be best just to learn from books, but even those have to be written and/spoken, and we are in the same position, whether a teacher or The Buddha himself. I mean, how can DIY spirituality even function?
You are not distinguishing between "being better at teaching something to someone" and "owning a secret realization that enables one". These are two entirely different things. At any school we don't believe a teacher "owns a secret realization of maths or grammar", but for any reason in Vajrayana we subscribe to the idea that a teacher "owns a secret realization" and only by the power or authority of that is capable of revealing to transmit the secret realization to others. Ironically, at the same time we claim that "nothing is being transmitted" from student to teacher during DI. If nothing is transmitted, then why does the teacher need any secret realization at all? It would be entirely sufficient to read aloud a text written by someone who had some more clarity on those things that oneself, but that's about it. Obviously, the actual work of removing the clouds would require some skills by the teacher, so much is true, but the DI could be given by anyone equipped with a dzogchen text.

Students of Vajrayana like to make this dance about being special, but at the same time claiming they don't do it.

It's quite ridiculous, and once you observed it you can no longer un-observe it. You see it everywhere.

And, by the way, don't trust teachers or translators! They will of course tell you they are more close to a secret sauce than anyone else. After all, that's how they earn their money and where they derive their status from. The psychological investment into believing one is special if one is a student of Vajrayana is actually bigger than Mount Meru itself. And as long as that's going on, abusive behaviour by teachers will be rationalized and covered up.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

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I’m not even bothering with that personally, maybe someone else will.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

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fckw wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 7:47 am And, by the way, don't trust teachers or translators!
I have poor memory, but this has to be one of the oddest things I have read on this forum.

And it makes me sad that you feel this way.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

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fckw wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 7:36 am
PeterC wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:15 am
fckw wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:02 pm Worse: People absolutely worship the idea that their teacher does indeed have a secret sauce. It's a narcissistic projection, of course, that is continuously re-instantiated by organisations that purposely keep high ranking teachers off the reaches of regular students. In this way, the projection onto the teacher can be kept up.
In addition to PC's comment above - the problem is, some teachers do indeed have the secret sauce. Inexperienced students - early students or ones who simply haven't connected with a good teacher - have bad judgement about whether a teacher does or doesn't, or might mistake performance for substance, and this is a root cause of the problems. And yes, sanghas tend to do stupid stuff, this has always been the case. But anyone who's been around for a while can easily list out multiple teachers who do, and it's absolutely not narcissistic projection.
What you are saying is simply: The fault is not with the teacher but with the inexperienced students. But why the teacher even allows inexperienced students to study things that they are too inexperienced with - that your argument does not explain.
No, I'm saying that this will always happen, because there have always been abusive and/or unqualified teachers. (In my view an abusive teacher is de facto unqualified except in a vanishingly small number of special cases.) I'm acknowledging that at least when it comes to the vajrayana, this is a difficult point, and that's why it needs to be discussed openly.
So, you see. Is your teacher showing bad conduct? Go ask your teacher. He will tell you something about good conduct for sure. After all, he is "realized", which equates to "being always right".
This is always true, and this was the advice of multiple senior lamas in response to the lakhar and mukpo scandals - if you have an issue with what the lama is doing, talk to the lama, or the sangha, or just walk away.
That sounds great for a medieval society. In a postmodern society the advice should be: Get legal advice, and then sue the teacher if it is legally punishable.
I have said above that an abused student (and a sangha that discovers this) should absolutely go to the police if there is any hint of illegal activity. Whether you could bring a civil suit is a different question and varies a lot more by jurisdiction, and there's always a cost-benefit decision in civil litigation that's specific to the facts. But what is illegal is quite consistent.
The cycle of arguments is quite sickening to me, to be frank.
In many traditions, the teacher is not just a coach. There will always be unqualified and abusive teachers. So this is a problem that we just have to deal with in a pragmatic way, unfortunately, whether you like it or not.
No, now you are sweeping over my argument. My argument is that Vajrayana encourages the upkeeping of abusive behavior by postulating some transcendent, elusive, non-tangible realization of the teacher. This is a core problem. In Western philosophy we have done quite a good job in getting rid of those methaphysical religious tenets that, at closer inspection, could not be kept up. It's like believing that the pope is any closer to God than anyone else. Once you subscribe to the believe then of course the pope is somehow not anymore a completely ordinary human being, he is somehow elevated, somehow special. If he does bad things, then they are not anymore ordinary bad things, but they are somehow informed by his proximity to God. In Vajrayana, you replace God with realization and the pope with your teacher, and then you get exactly the same argument. It's really not just a matter of unqualified and abusive teachers that exist unfortunately everywhere.
That's not a correct characterization of the vajrayana. You will find many respected teachers, including HHDL, who say publicly that a student can and should leave an abusive teacher, and abusive teachers should be held responsible for their actions. There are various rationales for this, I'll provide two by way of example. First, abusive behavior could indicate that the teacher was never qualified to act as a guru in the first place. Second, the student/guru relationship is a private one and does not negate or supersede public/legal obligations for the teacher: a policeman does not have samaya with a lama (unless he's also their student, but then he shouldn't be on the case).

Plenty of vajrayana students walk away from teachers they consider unqualified. It's far from uncommon. And while you may not like the vajrayana, it is worth bearing in mind that the student enters into a relationship with the teacher of their own free will. What I think is an widespread problem is that students often have a very poor understanding of the student/teacher relationship, not just before receiving empowerment, but often for years after: and that misunderstanding is often compounded by some very conservative lamas who make ill-considered statements to the effect that there will be terrible consequences if a student leaves a teacher for any reason, etc.

I also think you mischaracterize papal infallibility. That applies only to pronouncements ex cathedra, and is related to dogma, not conduct. And every pope has a confessor - recognizing that popes can and do sin. But we're not catholics. We maintain pure perception of the guru as a method of training and practice. You will never hear a lama say that they are, in fact, a Buddha. That would be an irrefutable red flag.

Finally - and apologies for the long reply - we are in the Tibetan Buddhism forum, so if your issue is more generally that you just don't agree with the vajrayana, that's not really a discussion that can go anywhere here.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

Post by fckw »

PeterC wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 8:48 am That's not a correct characterization of the vajrayana. You will find many respected teachers, including HHDL, who say publicly that a student can and should leave an abusive teacher, and abusive teachers should be held responsible for their actions. There are various rationales for this, I'll provide two by way of example. First, abusive behavior could indicate that the teacher was never qualified to act as a guru in the first place. Second, the student/guru relationship is a private one and does not negate or supersede public/legal obligations for the teacher: a policeman does not have samaya with a lama (unless he's also their student, but then he shouldn't be on the case).

Plenty of vajrayana students walk away from teachers they consider unqualified. It's far from uncommon. And while you may not like the vajrayana, it is worth bearing in mind that the student enters into a relationship with the teacher of their own free will. What I think is an widespread problem is that students often have a very poor understanding of the student/teacher relationship, not just before receiving empowerment, but often for years after: and that misunderstanding is often compounded by some very conservative lamas who make ill-considered statements to the effect that there will be terrible consequences if a student leaves a teacher for any reason, etc.
You are not addressing the core of my argument: Which is that the postulate of a "realization" of a teacher, which can by definition not be verified by the student, directly plays into attempts to cover up all sorts of abusive behavior. Whether or not teachers are abusive, and how teachers and students deal with it, all of that is a different argument. It is, in short, the metaphysical fundations of Vajrayana that are - to some degree - problematic. And I know very well that the willingness of the established Vajrayana organisations to review these metaphysical foundations is very, very low.
I also think you mischaracterize papal infallibility. That applies only to pronouncements ex cathedra, and is related to dogma, not conduct. And every pope has a confessor - recognizing that popes can and do sin. But we're not catholics. We maintain pure perception of the guru as a method of training and practice. You will never hear a lama say that they are, in fact, a Buddha. That would be an irrefutable red flag.
Which leads to the inherently silly situation that we are told to see our teacher as a buddha, but the teacher is not allowed to announce himself to be a buddha. It's one of those ridiculous absurdities to observe people in sanghas who are trying to keep up with this contradiction. They talk around the bush, they hint at things, they cling to teachers having magical abilities, and demonstrate all sorts of - I'm sorry to say - infantile behaviors that is often even encouraged by organisations.

Of course, I know that seeing your teacher with pure perception is supposed to be one form of training, and I know from my own experience that there are some very good reasons for this type of training. It actually has effects on you.

But what I'm also saying is that, when it comes to abusive behavior, then this sort of teaching actually does support the continuation and upkeeping of abusive behavior in Vajrayana sanghas. If we would skip this teaching, then not only would we take something central out of Vajrayana, it would also make abusive behavior by the teacher harder, because we would intellectually have a framework that tells us that the teacher is by no means infallible and that it's not a matter of impure perception if the teacher shows bad conduct.
Finally - and apologies for the long reply - we are in the Tibetan Buddhism forum, so if your issue is more generally that you just don't agree with the vajrayana, that's not really a discussion that can go anywhere here.
The problem exists fundamentally in all religious communities. But some have built-in specific balances and checks that are quite intelligent, which so far Vajrayana has rather been reluctant to adopt. In Vajrayana traditions for example often the guru is not just your spiritual teacher, but also the ultimate authority on financials within the organisation. There is no counter-balance. In many Zen-traditions there seems to be a split between the spiritual duties and the worldly/financial duties, and the positions are actually occupied by two distinct persons. Abuse of financial means, for example, becomes definitely harder in this way, but by no means impossible.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

Post by fckw »

Dharmaswede wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 8:29 am
fckw wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 7:47 am And, by the way, don't trust teachers or translators!
I have poor memory, but this has to be one of the oddest things I have read on this forum.

And it makes me sad that you feel this way.
Well, yeah, I am holding some unusual views about Tibetan Buddhism and Vajrayana. To be frank, I believe in its current form it won't survive in the long-run without some major revisions. Call it a yet another turning of the wheel, if you wish so, wouldn't be the first one.

In my view, being any sort of spiritual teacher should be seen as simply a profession and corresponding standardized training. Not a calling, not a matter of reincarnation, not a matter of "realization" that is, by how the term is defined, unverifiable by anyone.
Last edited by fckw on Fri Aug 05, 2022 11:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
Knotty Veneer
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

Post by Knotty Veneer »

I think putting rules in place to try to prevent misuse of power by teachers/sangha leaders etc. is a more difficult ask for TBist groups. When SFZC, for example, responded to the alleged misconduct of Richard Baker (Baker allegedly had an extramarital affair with another Sangha member's wife, IIRC) it did not have the constrictions of a guru-centered system. It was able to introduce co-Abbots, limit their tenure so no one or clique could take over the center, and added complaints and mediation procedures to its constitution etc.

When this happened Suzuki Roshi had already died, and I wonder if he had proved to have feet of clay, or simply as time went on, would they have introduced something similar? Is this something that centers can only do when they experience a scandal?

What made life easier for SFZC was they did not view Richard Baker as someone to whom ordinary rules did not necessarily apply. The problem for TBist groups is the Guru is given that power. So TBist groups are less likely to bring in SFZC-style rules and this is a problem for them. SFZC (as did the Triratna Buddhist Community - but that's a whole different can of worms) overcame their leadership scandals because their head was not a single point of failure in the system. In TBist groups if the guru goes bad then the whole thing is poisoned and is prone to collapse. Shambhala will never really recover from its scandal unless Mukpo Jr. is sidelined (and even then... the whole idea of a spiritual monarchy is so dodgy IMHO). Rigpa too I don't think will re-emerge fully from its problems.

And, then of course there's the allegations around Karmapa Ogyen Trinley. If these prove to be true (and, alas, that's looking likely), the Karma Kagyu lineage is deeply compromised - and this will no doubt affect the other TBist lineages too.

So what can TBist groups do? Whether they want to put safeguarding measures in place or not - they will have to do something. The scandals will keep happening and, especially after the passing of HHDL XIV, it will be ever more difficult, in the West at least, to maintain the faith and respect they currently enjoy. What the solution is though, I don't know.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

Post by Kim O'Hara »

Knotty Veneer wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 11:41 am I think putting rules in place to try to prevent misuse of power by teachers/sangha leaders etc. is a more difficult ask for TBist groups. When SFZC, for example, responded to the alleged misconduct of Richard Baker ...
So what can TBist groups do? Whether they want to put safeguarding measures in place or not - they will have to do something. The scandals will keep happening and, especially after the passing of HHDL XIV, it will be ever more difficult, in the West at least, to maintain the faith and respect they currently enjoy. What the solution is though, I don't know.
This is pretty much a direct extension of what fckw is saying and I think both of you are generally correct: TB is likely to have endless problems in the West unless or until it manages to find some way of accommodating its core traditions to broader Western standards.
The choice is between placing itself above (or outside) the law, or not. A religious group which places itself above the law begins to look like a cult any time problems are brought to light, and that's not fair to TB, but the guru who places himself (or is placed by the organisation) as supreme authority over his students thereby places himself above the law.
TB is certainly between a rock and a hard place.
And it's mainly a historical accident: if the Chinese had not invaded Tibet and forced the disapora, Tibetan vajrayana would not have spread in the West as it has done but would have largely stayed in the monasteries. There, most of the problems we see here could be contained or avoided by the hierarchy.

:namaste:
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

Post by Knotty Veneer »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 12:27 pm
This is pretty much a direct extension of what fckw is saying and I think both of you are generally correct: TB is likely to have endless problems in the West unless or until it manages to find some way of accommodating its core traditions to broader Western standards.
The choice is between placing itself above (or outside) the law, or not. A religious group which places itself above the law begins to look like a cult any time problems are brought to light, and that's not fair to TB, but the guru who places himself (or is placed by the organisation) as supreme authority over his students thereby places himself above the law.
TB is certainly between a rock and a hard place.
And it's mainly a historical accident: if the Chinese had not invaded Tibet and forced the disapora, Tibetan vajrayana would not have spread in the West as it has done but would have largely stayed in the monasteries. There, most of the problems we see here could be contained or avoided by the hierarchy.

:namaste:
Kim
The other issue that TBism I think especially needs to address is the nature of the scandals. From what I have seen in scandals in Zen, Theravadin and Western Buddhist groups is generally (though admittedly not exclusively) they fall into the category of failures of integrity: not keeping vows, saying one thing and doing the opposite, that kinda thing.

Alas, it appears again because of the emphasis on the role of the guru, TBist scandals seems to involve issues of consent in addition to the above. The ability to refuse consent is short-circuited by the belief that the abuser is incapable of wrongdoing and even to think such a thing is a wrong view. To my mind that makes the scandals that affect TBist groups more unpleasant and therefore more serious (not to downplay any wrongdoing in Sanghas).
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

Post by PeterC »

fckw wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 11:31 am You are not addressing the core of my argument: Which is that the postulate of a "realization" of a teacher, which can by definition not be verified by the student, directly plays into attempts to cover up all sorts of abusive behavior. Whether or not teachers are abusive, and how teachers and students deal with it, all of that is a different argument. It is, in short, the metaphysical fundations of Vajrayana that are - to some degree - problematic. And I know very well that the willingness of the established Vajrayana organisations to review these metaphysical foundations is very, very low.
This feels like a fallacy. Every liar you met in Scotland was Scottish: therefore being Scottish should be reason to suspect someone of being a liar.

You also seem to conclude that the student cannot question the teacher’s realization. Of course they can. You make far too much of the role of the vajrayana in this regard. And Tibetans are quite happy to tell you if they think someone is a fraud - though generally they are respectful enough of the role of the lama that they won’t criticize too publicly.
I also think you mischaracterize papal infallibility. That applies only to pronouncements ex cathedra, and is related to dogma, not conduct. And every pope has a confessor - recognizing that popes can and do sin. But we're not catholics. We maintain pure perception of the guru as a method of training and practice. You will never hear a lama say that they are, in fact, a Buddha. That would be an irrefutable red flag.
Which leads to the inherently silly situation that we are told to see our teacher as a buddha, but the teacher is not allowed to announce himself to be a buddha. It's one of those ridiculous absurdities to observe people in sanghas who are trying to keep up with this contradiction. They talk around the bush, they hint at things, they cling to teachers having magical abilities, and demonstrate all sorts of - I'm sorry to say - infantile behaviors that is often even encouraged by organisations.

Of course, I know that seeing your teacher with pure perception is supposed to be one form of training, and I know from my own experience that there are some very good reasons for this type of training. It actually has effects on you.

But what I'm also saying is that, when it comes to abusive behavior, then this sort of teaching actually does support the continuation and upkeeping of abusive behavior in Vajrayana sanghas. If we would skip this teaching, then not only would we take something central out of Vajrayana, it would also make abusive behavior by the teacher harder, because we would intellectually have a framework that tells us that the teacher is by no means infallible and that it's not a matter of impure perception if the teacher shows bad conduct.
It only supports the continuation of bad behavior if bad behavior goes unchallenged. So we have to challenge it. Read the threads on Mukpo and Lakhar again for what that looks like.

Honestly a lot of your comments seem to reflect a dislike of how people behave in sanghas, and you won’t get any argument from me on that front, I have as little to do with sanghas organizations as possible. But you have to separate that from the institution of the vajrayana, which is about the relationship between the teacher and the student.

And before anyone starts talking about the Sangha as an object of refuge - that’s the Arya sangha, not the email group mismanaging their finances.
Finally - and apologies for the long reply - we are in the Tibetan Buddhism forum, so if your issue is more generally that you just don't agree with the vajrayana, that's not really a discussion that can go anywhere here.
The problem exists fundamentally in all religious communities. But some have built-in specific balances and checks that are quite intelligent, which so far Vajrayana has rather been reluctant to adopt. In Vajrayana traditions for example often the guru is not just your spiritual teacher, but also the ultimate authority on financials within the organisation. There is no counter-balance. In many Zen-traditions there seems to be a split between the spiritual duties and the worldly/financial duties, and the positions are actually occupied by two distinct persons. Abuse of financial means, for example, becomes definitely harder in this way, but by no means impossible.
I have never seen a sangha where the guru had any sort of grasp of the financials. I would be a bit worried if they did as that’s something they’re totally unqualified to handle.

I agree that a lot of dysfunctionality in sanghas comes down to people trying to second guess the lamas wishes on mundane matters and/or manipulate the outcome of decisions involving the lama. This is one of many reasons I don’t get closely associated with these organizations.

There are, btw, plenty of scandals and cases of mismanagement in zen organizations too. And catholic churches and probably AA groups for all I know. I think you make a valid point about mismanagement of Tibetan groups. It is common. I don’t think it’s entirely, or even largely a question of the vajrayana. I think there are other cultural factors, such as the lesser degree of formal organization structure compared to southeast or East Asian primarily monastic sanghas. But this is getting some way away from the question of sexual abuse.

At the end of the day it’s not up to us whether or how the vajrayana or any other lineage survives, except to the extent that we practice and support them. As regards abuse, though, we have a personal moral obligation to take action when we see it, and to encourage others to do the same, and that is the same whether one practices sutrayana or vajrayana. I personally take the view that a qualified teacher won’t behave abusively (with perhaps one very rare exception), and if they do, they’re almost certainly not a qualified teacher, so it’s pretty black and white.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

Post by PeterC »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 12:27 pm The choice is between placing itself above (or outside) the law, or not. A religious group which places itself above the law begins to look like a cult any time problems are brought to light, and that's not fair to TB, but the guru who places himself (or is placed by the organisation) as supreme authority over his students thereby places himself above the law.
No, that’s not the right way to describe it. By what authority does any teacher place themselves above the law? A lama who breaks the law breaks the law. A sangha member who observes and does not report is complicit. Except perhaps in Bhutan, no sangha or lama can “choose” to be above the law.
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Re: Teacher-Student Consent

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Most lamas don’t take on more than a few, if any, students at intimate level of “master-pupil” relationship being discussed here. Most lamas don’t even have “students”. Yet Vajrayana students come to teachers with all of their life problems and emotional upheavals, and even very trivial concerns like what color car to buy, and they expect deep answers or whatever, because they have projected this imaginary concept which is largely fed by movies and legends.

And the reason why finding a teacher who will basically be your life (and later, death) coach is so rare is because it’s a huge responsibility not to be taken lightly. It’s not that they won’t do it. They basically have a Bodhisattva commitment to do it. The issue is, there is a lot of strong medicine involved and if the student isn’t willing to take it, to do the prostrations or the practices or the retreats or whatever, and to do what the lama tells them to, then it’s just a complete waste of time for both of them. That’s why you have this role of the “perfect teacher” the way it is. At some point you have to just trust that it’s okay to jump outside of your ego-comfort zone.

There is also a ridiculous amount of “superficial devotion” out there, students gushing over their teachers like 6th grade girls at a boy-band concert. Plus, western pop-culture (including the dharma publishing industry) turns lamas into new-age celebrities.

I think all of this is what contributes more to the “opening up” of abuse possibilities. Years ago I used to stay at a sort of hippie flop house near Greenwich Village in NYC. As it turn out, there was a very small hole where some wood had rotted away on some exterior trim, and one summer, a nearby building was demolished, and a bunch of suddenly-dislocated rats managed to find this hole and they infested our living space. It was awful. So, we can ask whether Vajrayana Buddhism, in particular, has this kind of hole in it, that allows rats to get in, that allows bad lamas access to vulnerable people. I don’t think so.

There is access in every institution. For as much as we are supposed to trust doctors, police, food preparers, there is always an opportunity for people to poison us, spit in our food, shoot us.

We don’t have consent-forms in Buddhism like they do in hospitals. But the issue isn’t so much that problems will occur, but that we have systems in place for recognizing problems, addressing them, and fixing them.
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