"Project Sunshine: Final ReportA Firebird Year Initiative To Bring Light And HealingTo Sexualized Violence Embedded Within The Shambhala Community
February 27, 2017 – February 15, 2018
Respectfully offered by Andrea M. Winn, MEd, MCS
Contents Welcome...................................................................................................................................................4 Developing A Contemplative Spiritual Framework ..................................................................4 An Invitation For How To Read The Report.................................................................................5 Kitchen Table Discussions .................................................................................................................6 What is Project Sunshine?..................................................................................................................6 Why I Started Project Sunshine .................................................................................................................7 Vision ..................................................................................................................................................................8 Mission ...............................................................................................................................................................8 Values..................................................................................................................................................................8 Goals....................................................................................................................................................................9 Project Sunshine had five phases over the time span of one year .................................................9 1. Build emotional safety, skills and resiliency..................................................................................................9 2. Document abuse stories ...................................................................................................................................... 10 3. Form a strong activist group ............................................................................................................................. 10 4. Envision the change we want............................................................................................................................ 11 5. Launch a Shambhala abuse-awareness campaign in 2018 .................................................................. 11 Statements From Community Leaders .......................................................................................11 Sangyum Agness Au..................................................................................................................................... 11 Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown ............................................................................................................... 12 Community Elder, Judy Lief...................................................................................................................... 12 Minister Adam Lobel – statement not submitted.............................................................................. 14 Minister Jane Arthur – statement not submitted.............................................................................. 14 Anonymous Stories and Impact Statements from Survivors ..............................................14 Story & Impact Statement #1................................................................................................................... 14 Story & Impact Statement #2................................................................................................................... 15 Story & Impact Statement #3................................................................................................................... 16 Story & Impact Statement #4................................................................................................................... 17 Story & Impact Statement #5................................................................................................................... 18 Reflective Learning From Project Sunshine..............................................................................19 General reflections...................................................................................................................................... 19 Raising questions about the Conduct and Care Process ................................................................. 22 Attending to those who have been abused.......................................................................................... 23 Attending to the perpetrators ................................................................................................................. 24 Next Steps .............................................................................................................................................26 The importance of good self-care........................................................................................................... 26 Explore ways to talk with others about your thoughts and experience ................................... 27 Identify the needs of various groups connected with this issue.................................................. 27 Next steps for Project Sunshine .............................................................................................................. 28 3 Let's talk – New buds & beginnings: A forum to discuss Project Sunshine............................... 28 Concluding Wishes ............................................................................................................................29 Appendix 1: HORIZON ANALYSIS: Method of Reflection on Readings..............................30 Appendix 2: Example Horizon Analysis of Dzongsar Khentse Rinpoche's essay regarding Sogyal Rinpoche's community ..................................................................................31 Appendix 3: Impact Of Violation On Members*.......................................................................35 Appendix 4: Impact Of Violation On Communities* ...............................................................36 Appendix 5: Project Sunshine Shambhala Abuse Awareness Campaign ........................37 Appendix 6: Abuse-Free Shambhala Vision Session Proposal............................................38
....
Anonymous Stories and Impact Statements from Survivors Story & Impact Statement
#1 I grew up in the Shambhala community. I was sexually abused by several men. The greatest impact came from one, who I will call John. When I was a teenager, I did my first serving shift with a primary teacher in the teacher’s residence. John was close with the family and living in the same house. I had to pass by his room every time I did something for the principle I was serving. John kept stopping me at his door to talk with him. Then, one time he asked me to come in the room and shut the door. He was sitting under the covers of his bed and removed the covers and I saw he was naked on the bottom half. He had me sit by him on the bed and told me to kiss his penis. I was young, a girl, and I wanted to respect him and “be nice”. I was profoundly confused. A friend of mine years later was physically attacked by John, and five of us dharma brats came to my friend saying we had been abused by John. This is when I learned his child abuse was wide spread. The rape counsellor I was seeing said that if five of us came forward, there were likely many more who had been abused by him since it is rare for anyone to speak about child abuse. I spoke about my experience of child abuse in my local community. The leadership held secret meetings and sent me a threatening email telling me to stop speaking about the abuse. My experience of abuse in the Shambhala community has impacted my life over the decades. Every intimate relationship I’ve been in has been a high intensity nightmare. I 15 want to be close with someone, but I am terrified. It’s like I don’t have the ground within me to build healthy trust. Having been both sexually abused and demonized by my community when I spoke about it, I have had no community connection for over 15 years. I’ve resorted to living very alone. For instance, recently I had a bad pneumonia and nearly died. I had no one in my life to visit me in the hospital, except for one Christian man who saw it as his Christian duty to visit me twice. It’s hard to admit this, but my intense loneliness hits me at night. I stuff myself with food and watch TV until late. I am quite sad about this. My rape counsellor says this profound loneliness is part of the cost. I love the Vidyadhara and I am deeply committed to Shambhala. At the same time, having been abused by many leaders in the community tears at the fabric of my being. The psychological pressure has been overwhelming. It has been hard to establish a life and also hard to have a meaningful or safe relationship with meditation.
Story & Impact Statement #2
I was married to an emotionally and verbally abusive husband who was a senior teacher in the Shambhala community. It was very hard to finally realize I had no choice but to end the marriage. I tried every way I could to keep it private and not upset the community or expose my husband, because that somehow seemed the right thing to do. It became necessary for me to seek help from Shambhala when the next Scorpion Seal retreat was approaching (year 6 for me), because I needed to do the program so that I could continue on my spiritual path. I asked for help from a number of people: first my husband himself, who declined to step aside, then the local centre Health & Wellbeing officers, then the Desung, then the President of Shambhala, who finally referred me to the acharyas. I was asking to be able to attend the Scorpion Seal retreat, and I was asking my husband, as a senior teacher, to graciously staff it elsewhere, without blame. (I had program credit at this particular centre and couldn’t afford to pay tuition and travel somewhere else, while my exhusband was paid to attend wherever he went.) A person in the Office of Social Wellbeing was assigned to facilitate this situation. She wanted me to attend the program with my husband present, and she said arrangements would be made so I would never see my husband and that they would 'protect' me from him. I knew that it would be impossible for me to feel safe in such a small and intense group retreat setting, and I made it clear that I could not do the retreat in an atmosphere like this. Shambhala at all levels, including the acharya group, labeled me as the problem when I couldn’t consent to do the retreat with him with their ‘protection,’ and they declined to assist me at that point. In short, the wellbeing of my ex-husband, the perpetrator, was given a greater value than mine. So, adding to the trauma I was experiencing from the years of abuse and upending my life by leaving the marriage, I was unable to continue on my practice path and stay with my closest sangha 16 who had been going through the retreat together. I felt that I was not believed, not valued, not cared for, and simply thrown away to allow the status quo to continue. Furthermore, this official met with my husband (we were in the process of a divorce through all of this) and she told him that I had filed a complaint against him, which was untrue and threatened to derail our delicate divorce negotiations. I felt deeply betrayed by this official's actions. The atmosphere resulting from all of this was toxic, with all but my close friends either ignoring the issue when they saw me or actually avoiding me. The silence from every level of the organization spoke volumes about the “culture of blindness” pervading and poisoning the societal aspect of Shambhala. I eventually decided to leave my home and community in Canada, which was triggering and painful for me, and I now live in the city where I am originally from in the United States. No one from any level of the Shambhala hierarchy has ever contacted me since then to offer any kindness or guidance about my spiritual path or to inquire about my well-being. After being a highly contributing member of this community for over forty years, fulfilling roles at various levels, including secretary to the Sakyong at one time, this has been a profoundly devastating experience that has broken my heart and completely changed my life.
Story & Impact Statement #3
I was staffing a Shambhala Level 5 around 15 years ago. The visiting teacher was particularly exciting, and I was caught off guard in her Saturday evening talk. She said people in therapy just moan and groan, and she said it several times. She said it yet again in the question and answer period, and I raised my hand. When she called on me I said, “I find your statements about people in therapy insensitive. I was sexually abused throughout my childhood in the Shambhala community, as were most of the children, and I got a lot from therapy that the Shambhala teachings never helped me with. I wonder if this kind of insensitivity is why the adults allowed so much sexual abuse to happen to us kids.” The teacher sat fully upright as a warrior, and there was a pregnant silence. Then she replied, “Maybe you will teach us that sensitivity.” Despite her response, the local leadership was terrified. I had been a dedicated leader for years in this community, and the council chose to meet secretly about me. Of note, three of my best friends and my Meditation Instructor were part of these meetings. The council then sent me an email telling me to: (1) stop doing any teaching, (2) step down as leader of the small Shambhala LGBT sub-community I had started, and (3) stop talking about inappropriate things. 17 Over the next 6 months I met with two visiting teachers - an Acharya and a senior ranking Kasung officer - explaining what was happening and asking for their help. Both refused to help. I felt at that point that I had no choice but to leave the Shambhala community. Years later I bumped into one of the participants of that Level 5. He said he missed seeing me around. I said that the leadership had gotten upset about my talking about the childhood sex abuse problem because it could negatively affect newer students. He replied that his experience was quite the opposite; when he heard us talking openly and respectfully about the abuse, it heartened him and made him see us as a healthy community. It is hard to succinctly describe the impact these abuses have had on me. The original sexual abuse has made it very hard to feel safe in my body. As an adult, I felt profoundly betrayed by my good friends and Meditation Instructor, people who I trusted. I believed they felt connected with me and loyal to me in a way that could weather an upheaval. I stopped trusting people through this and have socially isolated myself for over 15 years. Although I am intensely lonely, I seem unable to form intimate connections because I am terrified of experiencing a betrayal like this again. Even with no sangha, I am a diehard practitioner and have continued my Vajrayogini and werma practices on my own all these years. I’ve been limping along at a snail’s pace, lacking the vibrancy that comes from participating in programs, having an MI, and being part of a sangha. Inside, I feel like a very long, cold winter with no hope of the warmth of the spring.
Story & Impact Statement #4
I am a gender queer person, who uses the pronouns “they” and “he”; I was socialized as a male. I'm a survivor of clergy victimization from my experiences in the Catholic Church where I was groomed and raped as a young teen by 2 different priests over a period of years. After years of recovery and therapy, I entered Shambhala as an adult thinking that was all “behind me”. I became a dedicated Scorpion Seal practitioner. I had heard stories about sexual misconduct in Shambhala. I had heard that a senior teacher had raped men. I felt concerned. For over a decade I experienced a few incidences of sexual violence from both men and women in Shambhala. The greatest impact came from a male sangha member who sexually violated me on retreats and trainings. He exposed his entire naked body to me and asked me “Do you like what you see” he told me that I would have to use his “dick” to unlock the community computer, He would make regular references to his “balls” and “ass”, and made homophobic comments to me by calling me a “Sissy”. He had a pattern of acting out on retreats and trainings. Complaints had been made against him. I had even mentioned his behaviors to my therapist, who was a sangha member, but nothing 18 seemed to change and it all got really confusing. I eventually wrote a letter to the community leaders that included an Acharya, Shastris and Kasung. The accused was finally suspended from leadership. He tried to justify and defend his behaviors. He was then immediately allowed to be a Kasung at Children’s Day, and I realized I needed support outside the community. I obtained an outside sexual assault advocate and non-sangha - therapist to support me in the process. I spoke to a lawyer who wanted to “sue the socks off" of Karuna Training and Shambhala. I was not interested in pursuing a lawsuit. The community leadership seemed confused on how to address the issue skillfully. They put together a panel to work with the accused. I felt concerned about a spiritual organization like Shambhala trying to assess and treat someone with issues of sexual pathology. It seemed outside the scope of our local center to do this. I think the accused needed a professional psychosexual evaluation and outside treatment program. My outside advocate helped me in obtaining a temporary sexual assault protection order and filing a police report. The impact has been painful on many different levels. I have experienced a reoccurrence of PTSD symptoms from past abuse. I have wanted to leave the sangha. Even though he did not touch me, his assaults felt like a rape. I have experienced anxiety, mistrust of sangha, fear, guilt and isolation. Due to the stress of speaking out about the sexual violence, I got in a bike wreck and broke my arm. The treatment is expensive. I have felt overwhelmed at times and also enraged at the denial of certain community members. I also have felt supported by some of the sangha and empowered by my outside advocate, and new therapist.
Story & Impact Statement #5
What happened to me is that I was sexually assaulted during a gathering at the home of a friend and fellow sangha member, who I will call Mary. For reason(s) never revealed to me she refused to give me the name of the man who assaulted me. She also indicated that perhaps I was fabricating being assaulted. Mary is a Meditation Instructor, Kasung, Programme Coordinator, and gives out information regarding end of life planning at my local Shambhala Centre. I made a number of attempts to obtain the name of the man who assaulted me. After a mediation session with the local Desung, Mary threatened me that if she gave me the man’s name and I went to the police, she and I would likely no longer be friends. Eventually I went to the police without the identity of the man and made a statement. Only after Mary was questioned and the man charged did I learn his identity. After the inhumane way Mary has treated me, I ended our friendship. 19 Care and Conduct have said that there was no disciplinary action they would take toward Mary since she was not in an official Shambhala role (At an event or at the centre) during the assault, or when she denied me the name and indicated that I was lying about the sexual assault. My husband has been a great support to me through this ordeal, and points out that we are in our Shambhala role 100% of the time. I do wonder what will happen if someone else reveals to Mary they were assaulted. As a representative for Shambhala, how will she treat them? Now I seek an apology from Mary for not telling me the name of the man who sexually assaulted me, and for indicating I was lying about being assaulted (let alone her comment, if I was to go to the police she would end our friendship ). I spoke with the Regional Commander in Halifax today by phone. He said Mary feels she has nothing to apologize for. Presently, I do not feel comfortable to attend programmes and practise sessions at the Halifax Centre. I wonder about continuing my role as a Kasung/Shabchi. I have in the past attended programmes, but when Mary is attending or coordinating, it takes too large of a toll on me being fake and pretending everything is OK. I feel heartbroken."
February 27, 2017 – February 15, 2018
Respectfully offered by Andrea M. Winn, MEd, MCS
Contents Welcome...................................................................................................................................................4 Developing A Contemplative Spiritual Framework ..................................................................4 An Invitation For How To Read The Report.................................................................................5 Kitchen Table Discussions .................................................................................................................6 What is Project Sunshine?..................................................................................................................6 Why I Started Project Sunshine .................................................................................................................7 Vision ..................................................................................................................................................................8 Mission ...............................................................................................................................................................8 Values..................................................................................................................................................................8 Goals....................................................................................................................................................................9 Project Sunshine had five phases over the time span of one year .................................................9 1. Build emotional safety, skills and resiliency..................................................................................................9 2. Document abuse stories ...................................................................................................................................... 10 3. Form a strong activist group ............................................................................................................................. 10 4. Envision the change we want............................................................................................................................ 11 5. Launch a Shambhala abuse-awareness campaign in 2018 .................................................................. 11 Statements From Community Leaders .......................................................................................11 Sangyum Agness Au..................................................................................................................................... 11 Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown ............................................................................................................... 12 Community Elder, Judy Lief...................................................................................................................... 12 Minister Adam Lobel – statement not submitted.............................................................................. 14 Minister Jane Arthur – statement not submitted.............................................................................. 14 Anonymous Stories and Impact Statements from Survivors ..............................................14 Story & Impact Statement #1................................................................................................................... 14 Story & Impact Statement #2................................................................................................................... 15 Story & Impact Statement #3................................................................................................................... 16 Story & Impact Statement #4................................................................................................................... 17 Story & Impact Statement #5................................................................................................................... 18 Reflective Learning From Project Sunshine..............................................................................19 General reflections...................................................................................................................................... 19 Raising questions about the Conduct and Care Process ................................................................. 22 Attending to those who have been abused.......................................................................................... 23 Attending to the perpetrators ................................................................................................................. 24 Next Steps .............................................................................................................................................26 The importance of good self-care........................................................................................................... 26 Explore ways to talk with others about your thoughts and experience ................................... 27 Identify the needs of various groups connected with this issue.................................................. 27 Next steps for Project Sunshine .............................................................................................................. 28 3 Let's talk – New buds & beginnings: A forum to discuss Project Sunshine............................... 28 Concluding Wishes ............................................................................................................................29 Appendix 1: HORIZON ANALYSIS: Method of Reflection on Readings..............................30 Appendix 2: Example Horizon Analysis of Dzongsar Khentse Rinpoche's essay regarding Sogyal Rinpoche's community ..................................................................................31 Appendix 3: Impact Of Violation On Members*.......................................................................35 Appendix 4: Impact Of Violation On Communities* ...............................................................36 Appendix 5: Project Sunshine Shambhala Abuse Awareness Campaign ........................37 Appendix 6: Abuse-Free Shambhala Vision Session Proposal............................................38
....
Anonymous Stories and Impact Statements from Survivors Story & Impact Statement
#1 I grew up in the Shambhala community. I was sexually abused by several men. The greatest impact came from one, who I will call John. When I was a teenager, I did my first serving shift with a primary teacher in the teacher’s residence. John was close with the family and living in the same house. I had to pass by his room every time I did something for the principle I was serving. John kept stopping me at his door to talk with him. Then, one time he asked me to come in the room and shut the door. He was sitting under the covers of his bed and removed the covers and I saw he was naked on the bottom half. He had me sit by him on the bed and told me to kiss his penis. I was young, a girl, and I wanted to respect him and “be nice”. I was profoundly confused. A friend of mine years later was physically attacked by John, and five of us dharma brats came to my friend saying we had been abused by John. This is when I learned his child abuse was wide spread. The rape counsellor I was seeing said that if five of us came forward, there were likely many more who had been abused by him since it is rare for anyone to speak about child abuse. I spoke about my experience of child abuse in my local community. The leadership held secret meetings and sent me a threatening email telling me to stop speaking about the abuse. My experience of abuse in the Shambhala community has impacted my life over the decades. Every intimate relationship I’ve been in has been a high intensity nightmare. I 15 want to be close with someone, but I am terrified. It’s like I don’t have the ground within me to build healthy trust. Having been both sexually abused and demonized by my community when I spoke about it, I have had no community connection for over 15 years. I’ve resorted to living very alone. For instance, recently I had a bad pneumonia and nearly died. I had no one in my life to visit me in the hospital, except for one Christian man who saw it as his Christian duty to visit me twice. It’s hard to admit this, but my intense loneliness hits me at night. I stuff myself with food and watch TV until late. I am quite sad about this. My rape counsellor says this profound loneliness is part of the cost. I love the Vidyadhara and I am deeply committed to Shambhala. At the same time, having been abused by many leaders in the community tears at the fabric of my being. The psychological pressure has been overwhelming. It has been hard to establish a life and also hard to have a meaningful or safe relationship with meditation.
Story & Impact Statement #2
I was married to an emotionally and verbally abusive husband who was a senior teacher in the Shambhala community. It was very hard to finally realize I had no choice but to end the marriage. I tried every way I could to keep it private and not upset the community or expose my husband, because that somehow seemed the right thing to do. It became necessary for me to seek help from Shambhala when the next Scorpion Seal retreat was approaching (year 6 for me), because I needed to do the program so that I could continue on my spiritual path. I asked for help from a number of people: first my husband himself, who declined to step aside, then the local centre Health & Wellbeing officers, then the Desung, then the President of Shambhala, who finally referred me to the acharyas. I was asking to be able to attend the Scorpion Seal retreat, and I was asking my husband, as a senior teacher, to graciously staff it elsewhere, without blame. (I had program credit at this particular centre and couldn’t afford to pay tuition and travel somewhere else, while my exhusband was paid to attend wherever he went.) A person in the Office of Social Wellbeing was assigned to facilitate this situation. She wanted me to attend the program with my husband present, and she said arrangements would be made so I would never see my husband and that they would 'protect' me from him. I knew that it would be impossible for me to feel safe in such a small and intense group retreat setting, and I made it clear that I could not do the retreat in an atmosphere like this. Shambhala at all levels, including the acharya group, labeled me as the problem when I couldn’t consent to do the retreat with him with their ‘protection,’ and they declined to assist me at that point. In short, the wellbeing of my ex-husband, the perpetrator, was given a greater value than mine. So, adding to the trauma I was experiencing from the years of abuse and upending my life by leaving the marriage, I was unable to continue on my practice path and stay with my closest sangha 16 who had been going through the retreat together. I felt that I was not believed, not valued, not cared for, and simply thrown away to allow the status quo to continue. Furthermore, this official met with my husband (we were in the process of a divorce through all of this) and she told him that I had filed a complaint against him, which was untrue and threatened to derail our delicate divorce negotiations. I felt deeply betrayed by this official's actions. The atmosphere resulting from all of this was toxic, with all but my close friends either ignoring the issue when they saw me or actually avoiding me. The silence from every level of the organization spoke volumes about the “culture of blindness” pervading and poisoning the societal aspect of Shambhala. I eventually decided to leave my home and community in Canada, which was triggering and painful for me, and I now live in the city where I am originally from in the United States. No one from any level of the Shambhala hierarchy has ever contacted me since then to offer any kindness or guidance about my spiritual path or to inquire about my well-being. After being a highly contributing member of this community for over forty years, fulfilling roles at various levels, including secretary to the Sakyong at one time, this has been a profoundly devastating experience that has broken my heart and completely changed my life.
Story & Impact Statement #3
I was staffing a Shambhala Level 5 around 15 years ago. The visiting teacher was particularly exciting, and I was caught off guard in her Saturday evening talk. She said people in therapy just moan and groan, and she said it several times. She said it yet again in the question and answer period, and I raised my hand. When she called on me I said, “I find your statements about people in therapy insensitive. I was sexually abused throughout my childhood in the Shambhala community, as were most of the children, and I got a lot from therapy that the Shambhala teachings never helped me with. I wonder if this kind of insensitivity is why the adults allowed so much sexual abuse to happen to us kids.” The teacher sat fully upright as a warrior, and there was a pregnant silence. Then she replied, “Maybe you will teach us that sensitivity.” Despite her response, the local leadership was terrified. I had been a dedicated leader for years in this community, and the council chose to meet secretly about me. Of note, three of my best friends and my Meditation Instructor were part of these meetings. The council then sent me an email telling me to: (1) stop doing any teaching, (2) step down as leader of the small Shambhala LGBT sub-community I had started, and (3) stop talking about inappropriate things. 17 Over the next 6 months I met with two visiting teachers - an Acharya and a senior ranking Kasung officer - explaining what was happening and asking for their help. Both refused to help. I felt at that point that I had no choice but to leave the Shambhala community. Years later I bumped into one of the participants of that Level 5. He said he missed seeing me around. I said that the leadership had gotten upset about my talking about the childhood sex abuse problem because it could negatively affect newer students. He replied that his experience was quite the opposite; when he heard us talking openly and respectfully about the abuse, it heartened him and made him see us as a healthy community. It is hard to succinctly describe the impact these abuses have had on me. The original sexual abuse has made it very hard to feel safe in my body. As an adult, I felt profoundly betrayed by my good friends and Meditation Instructor, people who I trusted. I believed they felt connected with me and loyal to me in a way that could weather an upheaval. I stopped trusting people through this and have socially isolated myself for over 15 years. Although I am intensely lonely, I seem unable to form intimate connections because I am terrified of experiencing a betrayal like this again. Even with no sangha, I am a diehard practitioner and have continued my Vajrayogini and werma practices on my own all these years. I’ve been limping along at a snail’s pace, lacking the vibrancy that comes from participating in programs, having an MI, and being part of a sangha. Inside, I feel like a very long, cold winter with no hope of the warmth of the spring.
Story & Impact Statement #4
I am a gender queer person, who uses the pronouns “they” and “he”; I was socialized as a male. I'm a survivor of clergy victimization from my experiences in the Catholic Church where I was groomed and raped as a young teen by 2 different priests over a period of years. After years of recovery and therapy, I entered Shambhala as an adult thinking that was all “behind me”. I became a dedicated Scorpion Seal practitioner. I had heard stories about sexual misconduct in Shambhala. I had heard that a senior teacher had raped men. I felt concerned. For over a decade I experienced a few incidences of sexual violence from both men and women in Shambhala. The greatest impact came from a male sangha member who sexually violated me on retreats and trainings. He exposed his entire naked body to me and asked me “Do you like what you see” he told me that I would have to use his “dick” to unlock the community computer, He would make regular references to his “balls” and “ass”, and made homophobic comments to me by calling me a “Sissy”. He had a pattern of acting out on retreats and trainings. Complaints had been made against him. I had even mentioned his behaviors to my therapist, who was a sangha member, but nothing 18 seemed to change and it all got really confusing. I eventually wrote a letter to the community leaders that included an Acharya, Shastris and Kasung. The accused was finally suspended from leadership. He tried to justify and defend his behaviors. He was then immediately allowed to be a Kasung at Children’s Day, and I realized I needed support outside the community. I obtained an outside sexual assault advocate and non-sangha - therapist to support me in the process. I spoke to a lawyer who wanted to “sue the socks off" of Karuna Training and Shambhala. I was not interested in pursuing a lawsuit. The community leadership seemed confused on how to address the issue skillfully. They put together a panel to work with the accused. I felt concerned about a spiritual organization like Shambhala trying to assess and treat someone with issues of sexual pathology. It seemed outside the scope of our local center to do this. I think the accused needed a professional psychosexual evaluation and outside treatment program. My outside advocate helped me in obtaining a temporary sexual assault protection order and filing a police report. The impact has been painful on many different levels. I have experienced a reoccurrence of PTSD symptoms from past abuse. I have wanted to leave the sangha. Even though he did not touch me, his assaults felt like a rape. I have experienced anxiety, mistrust of sangha, fear, guilt and isolation. Due to the stress of speaking out about the sexual violence, I got in a bike wreck and broke my arm. The treatment is expensive. I have felt overwhelmed at times and also enraged at the denial of certain community members. I also have felt supported by some of the sangha and empowered by my outside advocate, and new therapist.
Story & Impact Statement #5
What happened to me is that I was sexually assaulted during a gathering at the home of a friend and fellow sangha member, who I will call Mary. For reason(s) never revealed to me she refused to give me the name of the man who assaulted me. She also indicated that perhaps I was fabricating being assaulted. Mary is a Meditation Instructor, Kasung, Programme Coordinator, and gives out information regarding end of life planning at my local Shambhala Centre. I made a number of attempts to obtain the name of the man who assaulted me. After a mediation session with the local Desung, Mary threatened me that if she gave me the man’s name and I went to the police, she and I would likely no longer be friends. Eventually I went to the police without the identity of the man and made a statement. Only after Mary was questioned and the man charged did I learn his identity. After the inhumane way Mary has treated me, I ended our friendship. 19 Care and Conduct have said that there was no disciplinary action they would take toward Mary since she was not in an official Shambhala role (At an event or at the centre) during the assault, or when she denied me the name and indicated that I was lying about the sexual assault. My husband has been a great support to me through this ordeal, and points out that we are in our Shambhala role 100% of the time. I do wonder what will happen if someone else reveals to Mary they were assaulted. As a representative for Shambhala, how will she treat them? Now I seek an apology from Mary for not telling me the name of the man who sexually assaulted me, and for indicating I was lying about being assaulted (let alone her comment, if I was to go to the police she would end our friendship ). I spoke with the Regional Commander in Halifax today by phone. He said Mary feels she has nothing to apologize for. Presently, I do not feel comfortable to attend programmes and practise sessions at the Halifax Centre. I wonder about continuing my role as a Kasung/Shabchi. I have in the past attended programmes, but when Mary is attending or coordinating, it takes too large of a toll on me being fake and pretending everything is OK. I feel heartbroken."
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