https://www.reddit.com/r/ShambhalaBuddhism/comments/aynmo9/sorry_im_back_my_letter_to_the_mipham/
Your Majesty,
(one last time for old times sake)
You were supposed to help. You said you were here to help. Not only that, you said that you were one of the only ones in the whole universe who could truly help.
I was 21 years old when I met you. I was alone, vulnerable, and flush with inheritance money from my mother’s death. I hope you are enjoying it since most of that cash went to you or one of your shitty organizations.
I gave my entire adult life to your lies. I worked for 6.5 years for your organization under conditions that are most likely illegal. I spent money in the high five-figures on Naropa, and in order to sit in windowless tents for ten hours a day in sweltering heat while I listened to a recording of one of your slaves reading a really crappy book that you clearly made up by googling the etymology of words. By then I was realizing that you are full of shit.
Riddle me this enlightened master: how can you have spent so many years claiming to be enlightened and now expect me to have sympathy for your pathetic, flawed humanity? You broke all of your vows the minute you tried to have it both ways. I know that you fooled most of your Acharya slaves in the same way that you fooled yourself, so I can’t really blame them. If they had seen how truly pathetic you are, the way that I did, they might have realized that you are a fraud.
I keep saying slave because that is what you called me, to my face. Remember that night you apparently assaulted that woman in Chile? No? Of course you don’t. You were shitfaced. You had no control of yourself and were not resting in the state of unborn awareness. Let me remind you of a few details.
When we arrived back at the apartment we did not have the keys. As we stood at the door you told Kevin to “break the door down” I remember my feeling of terror as he calmly told you that it would be crossing a line.
So, while we waited for the keys to arrive you berated the two of us for around 45 minutes. To this day it was one of the most horrible nights of my life. Here is the funny part: When the keys arrived Kevin went upstairs and opened the door so that you could walk right in, and your stupid, petty drunk ass stood there and said “I don’t understand, it was locked and now it is wide open” That is some next level enlightenment if I ever did see it.
I kept your petty, greedy little secret for fifteen years. I got tired of your lies. Something about me still holds out hope that you will too. You are not, I believe, a monster. You are an irresponsible shithead who had a bad situation and failed to take the MANY opportunities you had to change things. There was a time when I and so many others tried to be a friend to you. It seems you prefered fancy vacations and lounge chairs. I wouldn’t blame you had you obtained those things through honest work, but you just kept lying to yourself and everyone else.
Today is my birthday. I have spent most of the day curled up in a ball crying. Much of that time has been spent thinking of you.
While I feel a certain amount of relief from having finally dispensed with the burden of carrying your many secrets, I feel you need someone to be truthful with you. Whatever you may think, no one has for a long time.
So, here is the scoop, Mipham. You are not a guru. You are not enlightened. You are not even socially functional. You wrote a book on conversation after 20 years of not having to have one.
I know why you faked it. I just wish you would stop. We had a few tender moments over my time with you, you can’t hide that shit from me, Mukpo. You have been afraid since the day you sat down on that throne.
You got a bad deal. You were forced into a dumb, deceptive cult that your clever, abusive father started. At times I think you even believed it was your job to save the world. I don’t think that you really cared if we got there, you just wanted to look like you are trying. You lied to yourself as much as you lied to all of us.
You can bullshit people more if you want, but I know the truth. You never wanted to be a Sakyong. You never wanted to be a guru. You did this shit out of some twisted obligation. The reason why I understand it is that I did the same thing. It would take way too long to illustrate the many ways that I rationalized your behavior. You don’t have to do it anymore, and you shouldn’t.
I hate to break it to you, but you aren’t helping anyone. The wisdom you offered us could be summarized in a pamphlet. You are not Profound. There is no benefit to those people as they slave away at land centers destroying their health for illegal amounts of pay. I told you that once while I lived at Shambhala Mountain. You looked the other way and changed the subject.
It is so odd to me that I could watch you for so many years avoiding any genuine human connection while ensuring that you got your rocks off in every conceivable way, and still take you as a teacher who was showing me how to face “things as they are”. It is a joke to me now.
There was a talk that you gave during one of the Sangha events with Pema. It was a rare post-2000 question and answer session. Someone asked a question about eating meat and you went on and on about how you couldn’t just proclaim that we should all be vegetarians because people had to arrive at the compassionate decision in their own way. This is what is called lying by omission. You let that woman believe that you don’t chow down on giant pieces of meat. But those of us who know you know that you prefer your meat on a bone. You are a liar, all you have to do is stop.
You deceived me, you deceived so many others. You stole my youth and the wealth of my family. You stole that money and energy by fraud. I say this because you and I both know it to be true. You are not enlightened, you are not even functional in society. It is not completely your fault, but you avoided and continue to avoid every chance you have had to make things right. You teach courage, and you are a coward.
The thing that I would like to see is for you to finally come clean.
Apologize for all that you have done and make it right with the people you have harmed. That includes me, the women you abused, and so many other staff members, kusung, directors and teachers. You have a lot of work to do.
If you were to make genuine retribution for all the terrible things you have done, the sangha might not want you to teach anymore but they might be willing to forgive you. They might even let you keep some of the money that you stole from us through your lies. We might even let you walk away.
Let’s be clear. You have no clue what it means to actually live in the world. Your seemingly impossible endeavors stemmed not from an enlightened vision, but a complete lack of knowledge of how the world works. Remember the Kalapa Center?
The fact is, you need to get a real job and live like an actual person before you have any right to condescend to your “students”. You should retire, move into a small cottage and go to therapy. I bet people would let you keep enough of the stolen money if you committed to that. No more thrones, no more servants. Wash your own dishes. Then see how hard it is to maintain a practice in real life. If you had known that before, then demands that you made of your students would have been far more appropriate. As it stands, you literally have nothing of value to offer those who are suffering. You cause more harm than good by a long shot.
You deceived me. You betrayed my trust and that of many others. Had you not been so dishonest in the way that you presented yourself in public, had you taken any of the many offers of genuine friendship that you received from myself and many others, had you been honest enough with the community about your lack of certainty and your own very real neuroses, had you told us that you were a fucked up, confused guy who held some pretty potent wisdom, had you told us up front that daddy needs blue velvet, had you been a “warrior of the heart” something you once wrote to me as advice, then possibly you could have avoided the insecurity and rage that caused you to do the horrible things that you did.
I understand that you tried to convince yourself that you had healed by projecting it to the rest of us. I have done the exact same thing. But you did it on an enormous scale and the only way for you to heal is to stop faking it.
You are the only one who can tell the truth now. Think about what a great book it would be. You could finally tell the truth. You could admit your abuse.
I know what a relief the truth has been for me. You could admit that your manipulations of your staff had nothing to do with their benefit. You could admit that you don’t need that many pairs of shoes, i-pads, and the ridiculously wasteful lifestyle. You could tell the true story of how you went from an insecure throat-clearing mess to a somewhat powerful teacher, to a wealth obsessed entitled brat.
You could tell us why, when everything was given to you you still felt the need to take things by force. You could explain why you treated the people who loved you the most like total shit. You could admit that it was not in fact for their benefit. You have so much to teach us about trauma and how it leads to aggression and disconnect. You could be a warrior, but you would have to stop pretending to be a guru.
I know that you have a heart. I know that you care. I am pretty sure that you convinced yourself of your own crap, at least part of the time. I also think that you care very deeply for your father and for the Shambhala doctrine. I am not sure if that is in your best interests, but the point is that I know you were trying for at least some of the time. At least when I met you, you worked pretty hard. From what I understand, these days not so much.
You are now trapped in a room with two doors. One is to keep lying. The other is to tell the truth. Some of your students may be trying to rationalize this. Some will do it. They have too many sunken costs and so much identity caught up in the enlightened society project that it will be hard for them to get away from it.
The thing is, you don’t have the first clue about history, economics, business, or any kind of science. You never had any business “Creating Enlightened Society” or making it possible.
I took you seriously, so I started to try to understand those things. After looking at how your organization was run, I came to the conclusion that enlightened society could not possibly have been the goal. Either that or you are a fucking idiot.
Some might think that those of us who blew the whistle on your deceit have somehow broken samaya, or the kasung vows, or the super extra continuity kusung samaya that apparently has you and I bound for eternity. But here’s the thing: every logical way one looks at this has you being a fraud. Unless you saw this coming, in which case, kudos.
Your bond to your students is a two way street. A proper guru would not accept an improper student. Even if we were spies, as the piper said, your omniscience should have prevented that. But you see, your samaya was bullshit, and so was ours.
I appreciate that you released those students who wish to be released. It is the only decent thing that you have done through this whole ordeal. For those who were afraid to leave, you gave them some solace. I wish you had given proper solace to your victims.
As far as the kasung oath goes. I am following it even to this very moment. The fact is, just like any other victim of abuse, I still feel sympathy for you. When I finally told the truth and broke confidentiality I was committing my final act of protection. Protecting them from you, and you from yourself. I will keep doing so out from under your oppressive yolk.
So Boss, I hope that you will make the right decision. The protection that I offer is the advice that a friend would give you. A real friend, the kind that you always rejected, would tell you to tell the explicit truth, make amends, and focus on healing your deep wounds. I doubt that you will do it, but I have to try.
I am one of many who you stole from with your deceit. You have taken my youth, my wealth and my physical and mental health in order to further your acquisition project. You have hurt many more as badly and worse than you have hurt me. I am broke, broken and middle aged. Perhaps you could tell me how this will benefit me after I die. At this point the only teaching I see is that I should not trust those who would claim to be specially appointed to teach, yet cannot give a straight answer to a single question. Was that the teaching? Maybe I can use it for the rest of my life to attain some true wisdom.
This is just how I feel. Extend that to the thousands of hearts you have broken. I will carry that weight with you. I told your lies and kept your secrets too, so their broken hearts are on me as well.
Time to put on your big boy pants Ösel. Step down always and forever. Write your tell all memoir, the one that has the truth in it. It will sell a lot better than the crap you have put out recently. Sell everything and compensate your victims. You can use the book money to fund your rehab. But most of all, work as a waiter or bagging groceries for a few years so that you can understand what the humility that you preached for so long actually looks like.
If you did all of those things I could maybe respect you again and might even forgive you.
If you keep this up though, that is on you.
Keep in mind that your biggest mistake was training those of us you abused better than anyone else. We know you. We know your strategies because you taught them to us and we helped you develop them. We know you think you can wait this out by playing the long game.
Diana and your Acharya slaves will try to salvage as much of the sinking ship as possible, then you all just wait until we forget.
You are operating like a anachronistic politician who has not yet grocked the power of the internet. We are not going to forget. I recommend you choose warriorship. It is time to man up.
Say it. Say it out loud and clear. “I was forced into this and it made me an asshole. Now I apologize and here is the truth that I owe you.” You might even be able to purify your negative karma.
Okay, that’s it for me. I am going to try to salvage the last hour of my birthday with some hope that I will be able to afford the therapy that it will take to overcome the damage that you personally did to me, and that I can move forward with what is left of my life. I hope you will have the courage to do the same.
I continue my search for wisdom. I hope that you will begin yours.
Yours in the name of Truth, Justice, And the American Way,
Craig Morman
Preta
