New French documentary and book about sexual abuse in Tibetan Buddhism, in France

Bouddhism, la loi du silence (Buddhism, the law of silence)

by Elodie Emery, Wandrille Lanos 

https://www.editions-jclattes.fr/livre/bouddhisme-la-loi-du-silence-9782709669948/?fbclid=IwAR2AtRWQi63C5F2DlHBDh65zOeWOm4M8YIWqD0JUW63yikUSqdSDUWh8UdI

Video

https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/095177-000-A/bouddhisme-la-loi-du-silence/?fbclid=IwAR3m7m1a4u6XMwPz7REhyFeAmSuI3Rtjhkz1OFuZ8jFQNLaNeegYtuAE2Rk

Buddhism, the law of silence

• • Blinded by its enthusiasm, the West would have almost forgotten it: Buddhism is a religion, with its dogmas, its promises of salvation and its threats of hell. To hope to reach enlightenment, the equivalent of grace in Christianity, the disciples of Tibetan Buddhism owe obedience and devotion to a master.

    Including when he humiliates, strikes. Or rape.

    During an eleven-year investigation, Élodie Emery and Wandrille Lanos collected the testimonies of thirty-two victims. They reveal here a system that covered, for 50 years, Buddhist masters dubbed by the Dalai Lama. Some are the subject of legal proceedings. Most are still in operation.

    
    
• Sexual abuse, mental manipulation and embezzlement: Tibetan Buddhism is shaken by serious scandals. A detailed story that lifts the veil on the unspiritual underside of a religion venerated in Europe. 

  His name is Ricardo Mendes and, very young, he lived through hell in a Buddhist community in Castellane, far from the ideal of wisdom advocated by its founder, Robert Spatz. Now in search of justice and having become a civil party in a lawsuit, Ricardo tells how the Belgian lama encouraged his disciples to abandon their offspring to him, leaving him the field free. Bodily abuse, deprivation of food and freedom or rape suffered by the girls were the daily lot of children without protection. However, these abuses are not exceptional: since Tibetan Buddhism established itself as a fashionable phenomenon in the 1960s, particularly in Europe, sexual and financial scandals have multiplied, while its masters in exile have prospered. International Icon, The Tibetan book of life and death, however, ends up being denounced by many victims for its immoderate taste for luxury, its violent authoritarianism and its sexual excesses. He thus symbolizes what the Dalai Lama lip service to " ethical problems "...

  In the back rooms of monasteries

  " People take charisma for a spiritual quality. " Thanks to his revelations and the quality of its speakers, this edifying documentary helps to open up the Western gaze " blue flower" on the exotic Tibetan Buddhism. He recalls in particular that this religion requires total devotion from the student, who must certify to his master to keep the secrecy on the initiations to which he must submit: an ideal soil to cover with a abuse of all kinds is silenced. Research conducted by journalist Élodie Emery and documentary filmmaker Wandrille Lanos refines the perception of this spirituality which is adorned with so many virtues, including poverty. Because Buddhism, a veritable multinational, unfolds with its gondola ends, its by-products (including meditation), its subsidiaries (Buddhist centers for the wealthy public), its communication strategies and agencies specializing in crisis management.including researchers and abused followers who tell behind the scenes, this detailed account lifts the veil on the impostures of Buddhism, so prized in the West for... its quest for inner peace.