Moving Toward a More Student Centered Structure After the Wake of #Metoo

I came into Eastern thought when I was 16 years old. I was reading the books from all of the world religions, including the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I had felt that there’s something within us that is profound and vast, and that endures, despite the impermanence of one short lifetime. When I read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Bardo Thödol, it occurred to me that there was a level of detail and sophistication that resonated with my own internal experience of the vast, sacred, interconnected matrix of life. The teachings of the Buddha are called- the Dharma.

I wound up going to a Tibetan Buddhist-inspired college called the Naropa University, and going deeper into Buddhist studies and Buddhist psychology, and I have a degree from there. After some time, I joined the parent organization which centered around a supposed enlightened teacher. I found great solace in such a vast community. It felt like I had a new family and so many friends and a shared common goal of enlightenment, and if we trained and developed ourselves, we could actually use this life to be of benefit to others.

Gurus and Spiritual Teachers

I really value that altruistic intention, and the method that they talked about for you to develop is to have a very close intimate connection with a guru and to receive his blessing. Having received his blessing through something called the “spiritual transmission or an empowerment” specifically in Tibetan tantric Buddhism otherwise known as Vajrayana, it plants a seed within you of the actual enlightened mind that traced back to the moment that the Buddha attained enlightenment.

This is considered to expedite your spiritual process and progress such that we say that you would be capable of attaining enlightenment in only one lifetime. In this tradition, the relationship with the guru is an essential component, and the guru has a very exalted, respected and revered role. So much so, that we even build our teachers, what some see as an ostentatious throne, donned with colorful brocade, jewels and gold and are told to regard them as completely enlightened. In the Hindu tradition, they also revere the guru similarly.

I was attracted to the Indo-Tibetan Dharma because I found something very real in it, something that helped me understand: mind, life, suffering, impermanence, compassion, attachment, our purpose and the possibility of changing the way we relate to our own minds. The supportive community is known as the sangha and that provides an invaluable fellowship where we can practice together, sustain the teachings of a particular teacher and provide a format of institution that can endure intergenerationally.

Teachers are… Human

However, as we all know, if you deify any person as exalted, enlightened, Buddha, spokesperson for The Divine or God~ who has of course, human flaws and foibles~ if this person is given complete autocratic spiritual control over their community, there can be very serious problems. We’ve all heard the term “power can corrupt and absolute power can corrupt absolutely.”

This has led way to many different types of problems, especially as the eastern thought has begun to take root in the West, namely Europe in North America. We have found time and time again that spiritual teachers are in fact, human and are still subject to the temptations of: unbridled sexual access to students, money, power, selfishness, control, sectarianism all hallmarked with the students’ indoctrinated inability to question- lest they be deemed heretical or outcast or indeed, vow breakers.

If this type of misconduct was happening behind closed doors or if teachers that were supposed to be celibate, and broke their celibacy vows, the communities then had to operate in secrecy out of devotion for the spiritual teacher. A lot of unkindness, sexual exploitation and harm to students happens behind the scenes without any vehicle or format for discussion, transparency or accountability. Creating communities around unquestioning autocratic values oftentimes is the basic structure of how cults and “high demand/control groups” are formed and in most cases, are simply not healthy.

#Metoo Guru

In 2006, Activist Tarana Burke founded the #MeToo movement to help survivors of sexual violence find healing, particularly young women of color. At that point people felt comfortable publicly expressing the hurt and harm in their communities and a landslide of colorful and painful stories arose about students in spiritual communities being hurt in many different ways. I was part of one of the larger Buddhist groups that took a hit, exposing “secret” abusive sexual and exploitative conduct. The community was hemorrhaging pain, tears and confusion for many, many years. Many if not most members left.

I’ve seriously considered leaving because of some of these structural issues, but it has become an inextricable part of me, my social connections, values and world view. I still believe there is extraordinary wisdom in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, which is precisely why I feel such a strong responsibility to speak about what has happened to ensure that our waning tradition can listen, make ethical and structural changes~ for it to have any chance to endure into the next generations.

I am writing this from the perspective of a survivor of what is called Religious Trauma Syndrome or RTS. Once you have experienced the devastation of what happens when a spiritual community places loyalty, reputation, hierarchy, or the protection of a teacher above the well-being of students, women and children who are harmed, we cannot simply pretend that the structure is working because the teachings themselves are theoretically profound.

We must begin asking harder questions about how those teachings are transmitted, who holds power, who is protected, who is believed, who is blamed? What happens when the person who is supposed to be guiding you, indeed with the deepest betrayal, becomes the person you need protection… from?

The Dharma Came West and Autocratic Power Structures Came With It

That is why I believe Indo-Tibetan Guru Centered Spirituality/Buddhism has reached an important, pivotal moment in its history in the West. The question is whether these institutions are willing to evolve enough to survive the collision between an ancient culture of spiritual hierarchy and a modern Western post #metoo culture that increasingly expects if not mandates: consent, equality, transparency, psychological safety, child protection, and institutional accountability. 

This tension was recognized decades ago. In 1993, a group of Western Buddhist teachers met with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala and discussed precisely these kinds of questions, including the relationship between Buddhist teachings and Western culture, ethical conduct, teacher misconduct, gender, sexuality, and the responsibilities of teachers. This conference resulted in collective recognition that Buddhism must be transformed as it entered western cultures, and that we needed to begin to discriminate between the essential teachings of Buddhism and the cultural forms and feudal, social structures in both India and Tibet that developed around them.

After that conference, we had the opportunity to consider a much larger, fundamental institutional transformation, but regretfully that didn’t happen. To this day, most of the western Buddhist centers still retain the ancient assumptions about Guru-centered authority and the traditional command and control model even in contrast to western democratic values of: sexual ethics, transparency, general community and workplace organizational development, ethical norms, mores and national laws.

The Problem Is Not Devotion

I do not believe guru devotion is the root problem. I’ve said before I had an incredibly simple Yogi teacher, who was not an autocrat, just loving, open and intensely spiritually potent. Devotion can be one of the most beautiful aspects of Buddhist practice when it arises from trust, discernment, gratitude, and genuine equal respect that we in fact all possess the same “Buddha nature.” I would never want to reduce something so meaningful, heartfelt and profound to a simple critique of Tibetan cultural hierarchy.

The problem begins when devotion is interpreted as blind obedience, when open and forthright questioning and any critical thinking becomes a sign of spiritual failure, or when a teacher’s authority becomes so absolute that students no longer feel free to question conduct or methods, or refuse requests. In contrast, the more authority someone has, actually the more humility, authenticity, accountability and sound ethics that person should have. They must live the ethics and compassion that they represent and preach.

Spiritual authority should require greater transparency, not immunity from scrutiny. Unfortunately, we see as a facet of human nature that people who are often given so much power, are not able to maintain proper ethics in these communities, often resulting in hurt and exploitation of students. It can also be true that people with grandiosity and narcissism can seek out exalted roles of becoming teachers, or taking on titles, roles as a spiritual emissary of a guru, but having fundamentally selfish, unkind and nefarious motives.

Many People Did Not Leave the Dharma~ They Left the Institution

This has been the hardest part for me as a survivor of religious trauma syndrome, and the fall of my treasured spiritual community. In fact, I went in to formal counseling with cult experts, and my therapist told me that “in two decades of her doing counseling for people, leaving a cult, an unhealthy religion or a high demand group~ she’d never seen anyone other than me want to still stay in the tradition and reform it from within.” She said most people once they become “woke” to the power dynamics and the scandals and the sexual assault which tends to be ubiquitous, they leave and disavow their connection. I feel that if I leave, then I would be abandoning what was fundamentally wholesome and beautiful in the tradition and then also abandoning the many women, students and children that are still hurt within its constructs and turning away from those voices.

I feel like I have become disillusioned with certain aspects of Buddhist organizational structure without becoming disillusioned with the essence of Buddhism itself. Many of us have had to find a way to separate the pure Dharma they loved from the institution, community and teacher that betrayed and harmed them so deeply. We may still carry a deep connection to the heart of the teachings while recognizing that the institution and community through which we encountered them is simply not safe.

When I first started to blog and journal~ people said to me “well if you don’t like it, just leave”- kind of the non-listening callousness of “don’t let the door hit you in the…” Victim blaming by telling a survivor that speaking out, leaving a particular community or teacher means abandoning the Dharma, breaking their vows, that they are heretical, demonic or going to “Vajra hell” only deepens the wound, because it turns an institutional failure into a spiritual threat. This is a real issue from some of the insider friends that I know of they stay because they’re afraid to leave.

A healthy Buddhist or any genuine spiritual tradition would be able to say, “You are allowed to have a voice, to be heard, cared for, you are not disposable- and if we refuse to listen and change, you can leave us and still be Buddhist and there is no punishment for doing so.” Unfortunately, the communities don’t operate with this type of healthy structure so a person has to find their own inner ethics otherwise known as agency, autonomy or a locus of control.

Samaya Cannot Become a Weapon

There is a special type of vow in what’s called the Third Turning, which is Tantric or Tibetan Buddhism-called samaya. This is a very personal, secret vow that binds you to the teacher at the time of empowerment where you actually vow to do “whatever the teacher says” and you have 14 Root precepts to follow which entail binding oneself to purity but also never being able to speak out publicly in an authentic way about problems that may arise with the teacher or the community. The problem arises when these spiritual commitments are interpreted or used in a way that makes us afraid to report abuse, establish boundaries, seek outside help, or leave a harmful situation.

No spiritual commitment should require a person to tolerate abuse: sexual, financial or physical exploitation, or misconstrue these actions as “teaching methods.” No vow should require someone to conceal harm, criminal behavior, protect an institution’s reputation, or remain in a relationship that is causing serious harm. A spiritual practice that is supposed to lead toward open wisdom and deep compassion should never be transformed into a mechanism for controlling the person who practices it. My teacher once told me that many Lamas use this vow [unethically] to keep their community together [and remain in power and control], but that’s not the essence of the meaning of the vow.

The Teacher Cannot Be the Sole Institutional Power

I believe one of our fundamental structural changes needed in these Indo-Tibetan Buddhist communities is the separation between the primary teacher and the Board of Directors, which can co-create and control how the communities function. In national monarchies, we discuss the difference between an autocratic absolute monarch or King versus a constitutional monarch. A constitutional monarchy is a system of government where a king, queen, or emperor acts as the head of state while their powers are limited by a constitution, leaving actual law-making authority to an elected council or legislature.  The more centralized the institution becomes around one charismatic teacher, the more difficult if not impossible it becomes, for students and board members to challenge that person when something goes wrong.

We already have examples of Vajrayana organizations moving toward more explicit structures of accountability. A large community called Rigpa’s current Code of Conduct says that it combines contemporary secular and Buddhist ethical standards, requires people in formal roles to sign the code and receive ethics training, and provides a grievance process for reporting concerns. Rigpa also states that its code applies to teachers, instructors, visiting teachers, boards, employees, contractors, and volunteers, which is a significant recognition that ethical responsibility has to extend beyond the person sitting on the teaching throne. I am however concerned about the waiver for Vajrayana students that may indeed enable mistreatment under doctrinal loopholes.

Tara Mandala, another large mostly female organization, provides another written example of this evolution. Its current policies include a Code of Conduct, Leadership Values, Communications Agreement, and Residential Agreement, and its governance structure places this responsibility with a Board of Trustees and executive leadership rather than relying solely on guru-based spiritual authority. These examples matter because they demonstrate that a Vajrayana community can remain explicitly rooted in the tradition while also creating more modern institutional structures designed to protect students. Regretfully, there still have been reports of hurt students as these authoritarian power dynamics can still enable the mistreatment of students behind closed doors.

Accountability Is Not Western Contamination

There is sometimes a fear that bringing Western concepts such as sexual consent, psychological safety, institutional oversight, and gender equality into Indo-Tibetan Guru Centered Spirituality/Buddhist communities somehow contaminates the purity of the original tradition. I understand where that fear comes from because cultural appropriation is a legitimate concern, and Buddhism should not be casually reshaped according to every changing time period and social expression. At the same time, refusing to examine harmful power structures simply because they are traditional… is not preservation of the Dharma.

Buddhism has always moved across cultures. It has changed languages, institutions, artistic forms, philosophical expressions, rituals, and social structures as it moved from India into Tibet and then into other parts of Asia and the world. The question should therefore not be whether Buddhism can change, because historically it already has, but whether we can distinguish what is essential to the Dharma from structures that have simply been inherited.

A Vision Forward

I am asking Western Vajrayana communities to acknowledge that the transmission of Buddhism into the West is not finished, it’s a work in progress. The Lamas and teachings came here, but the institutions are still learning how to exist within a culture that has very different expectations around: transparency, problem solving, individual rights, consent, gender, sexuality, children, money, leadership, and accountability. One cultural example is that the teachers lovers used to be a highly regarded revered position, called a spiritual consort; now women who have been lovers of their teacher, consider themselves “survivors.” Having an authoritarian teacher changes the nature of adult consent.

Many are asking  us all to understand that discernment is not betrayal. You can love your teacher and still have boundaries and say no. You can respect your lineage and still ask questions, and you can take your vows seriously without surrendering your right to safety. A mature Vajrayana community would actually encourage open dialogue and discernment because wisdom without discernment is not wisdom at all. In other words, if a problem is presented to a teacher, his response will be generally “don’t respond, stay silent, or let the student leave” or even so much as say something like the student is “possessed by a demon, mentally unwell” or blame them as having some type of obstacle. The community, rather than adhere to that silence and abandonment method, should respect and listen to the voices of hurt students and survivors.

What Makes a Healthy Spiritual Community?

I feel incredibly fortunate to have been part of another Tibetan Buddhist community for more than 30 years in tandem with the one that fell, with a compassionate and deeply realized teacher. The kindness and gentleness that can grow around a teacher like that are rare, especially at a time when many Buddhist communities are struggling with questions about power, leadership, trust, and belonging. Protecting that kindness means paying attention not only to the teachings themselves, but also to the relationships and structures that allow a sangha to remain healthy.

Students Are Not Disposable

One of the most important qualities of a healthy sangha is that students genuinely feel valued as human beings. People come to the Dharma as “refugees” with different histories, personalities, levels of experience, and different ways of relating to spiritual practice. A healthy community recognizes that students are not simply fodder to be used- attendees, donors (jindaks), practitioners, or names on a membership list, but real people whose lives, experience and relationships matter.

Every community will experience misunderstandings, disagreements, personality differences, and moments when someone feels hurt. Those things are not necessarily signs that a community has failed, because conflict is an inevitable part of being human. What matters is whether there is a compassionate pathway for addressing those difficulties without making people feel disposable or silenced, when something becomes uncomfortable.

Silence Is Not Always Resolution

Silence has an important place in Buddhist practice, and allowing difficult emotions or situations to settle before responding can sometimes be profoundly skillful. There are moments when saying less creates space for wisdom, reflection, and understanding to arise. Silence becomes more complicated, however, when it is used to avoid a necessary conversation or when someone who has been hurt is simply left without any meaningful acknowledgment.

In many Indo-Tibetan Buddhist communities, there can be a strong preference for allowing difficult situations to settle rather than engaging in direct relational processing. That approach may sometimes prevent unnecessary escalation, but it can also leave students confused about what happened or wondering whether they still belong. When there is no opportunity to speak honestly and respectfully about what has occurred, silence can unintentionally become estrangement rather than resolution. Students leave.

Dialogue Over Estrangement

A healthy sangha needs some kind of pathway for people to come back into relationship after conflict. That does not mean everyone has to agree, become friends, or continue every relationship exactly as it was before. It means that when appropriate, there should be room for people to communicate honestly, listen to one another, acknowledge hurt, and find a way forward that reduces unnecessary suffering.

A community does not become stronger by pretending that conflict does not exist. It becomes stronger when people develop the capacity to meet conflict without immediately turning it into blame, punishment, rejection, ghosting , blocking, ignoring or permanent estrangement. The ability to repair relationships called relational resolution can itself become an essential important form of genuine Dharma practice.

Titles Should Not Become Hierarchies of Human Worth

Indo-Tibetan Buddhism has a rich tradition of teachers, Gurus, lamas, monks, Khenpos, Geshes, Swamis, Acharyas, lineage holders, and other forms of spiritual authority. These roles can provide tremendous benefit when they are held with humility, responsibility, and genuine warmth and concern for students. The existence of spiritual hierarchy, however, does not mean that some human beings should be treated as more worthy of dignity, respect, or a voice than others.

I recently had a painful incident at a beloved Yoga Center where the “Swami” told me that their yoga teacher training program was too rigorous for me with my age and level of fitness after a previous serious yoga injury. I told her that I was hurt and asked for some type of suggestions as to how to complete the training that I started a few years ago. After a short, respectful conversation, she actually hung up on me mid-sentence. I called over to the main Guru’s wife and explained I’ve been hung up on and rejected and discussed whether or not the Yoga community had accessibility accommodations. The Guru’s wife offered a false apology one of the dismissive non-apologies called “I’m sorry you felt that way,” and vehemently defended the hanging up and the Swami’s evolved character. She proceeded to retaliate against me personally, and I was disposed of after many years, as if I had no value. I even filed a Code of Conduct report with the Yoga Alliance, and after the report, there was no action taken, just silence. That’s how some unhealthy Guru-based operations run when survivors are brave enough to bring up hurt and mistreatment and ask for accountability. Silence.

Titles can create powerful dynamics within a spiritual community. A titled person or “Dharma expert” may unintentionally be given greater authority than the situation actually requires. A healthy community can respect someone’s experience and position while still remembering that everyone in the room is a human being worthy of being heard.  Knowledge and experience are valuable, but constantly positioning oneself as the person who knows more can make it difficult for other people to speak openly or at all, and can make others feel diminished. A sangha becomes more welcoming when people can participate as human beings rather than feeling that they must defer to whoever appears to have the greatest spiritual credentials.

A healthy sangha should make it possible for someone in power to say, “I don’t know,” “I may have been wrong,” or “I can understand why that hurt you, I’m truly sorry” and reflect on ways to improve. These are called the Four Powers. Those statements of regret and humanness do not diminish a teacher or senior practitioner. They demonstrate the kind of humility and openness that can make spiritual communities safer and more real and trustworthy.

Bringing Indo-Tibetan Wisdom and Western Relational Understanding Together

I do not believe that creating healthier Buddhist communities requires rejecting Indo-Tibetan Buddhist culture or tradition. Tibetan Buddhism contains centuries of profound wisdom about compassion, devotion, discipline, ethics, meditation, and the transformation of suffering. Those teachings can continue to provide an extraordinary foundation for practitioners in the West.

At the same time, Western Buddhist communities are developing within a different social and psychological environment than traditional Tibetan monasteries and communities. We now have a much greater vocabulary for understanding trauma, attachment, boundaries, power dynamics, psychological safety, and indeed… relational repair. Bringing this understanding into conversation with Buddhist wisdom can strengthen the communities we are trying to build and sustain.

The goal should not be to replace Dharma with modern psychology. The goal is to recognize that human beings bring histories, relationships, nervous systems and culture into their spiritual practice. A mature Western sangha can honor the depth of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist traditions while also developing healthier ways of communicating, resolving conflict, sharing authority, and caring for its members.

Creating a Sangha People Can Stay In

Ultimately, I think one of the most important questions for a Buddhist community is very simple: Do people feel that they can remain part of the community when something becomes difficult? A healthy sangha will inevitably have disagreements and imperfect relationships: social climbing, pride, jealousy, hurt, misconduct etc., because it is made up of human beings on the path rather than fully enlightened beings. The measure of its health is not the absence of conflict or hurt, but the capacity to meet disagreements with compassion, honesty, humility, and responsibility. We do not excommunicate, dispose of, or demonize students, unless they have been abusive and will not correct their behavior.

The Indo-Tibetan Culture That Might Endure in the West

I still believe that Indo-Tibetan Spirituality/ Buddhism has something extraordinary to offer the West. I believe its teachings on mind, compassion, emptiness, interdependence, death, impermanence, and awakening can continue to transform people’s lives, and I believe there are teachers who embody these teachings with tremendous warmth and  integrity.

The #MeToo era gave us an opportunity that is painful but potentially transformative. It showed us that silence is not harmony, that loyalty is not consent, that a cult of charisma is not character, and that spiritual attainment does not make a human being incapable of causing harm. Perhaps the next stage of Vajrayana’s transmission into the West is not about making Buddhism more Western. Perhaps it is about making Western Buddhist institutions mature enough to carry an ancient tradition responsibly with an ability to change. As I’ve said before in my previous writings, I tried to introduce my husband and daughter into the tradition, but my husband said that he “didn’t like the outer expression of the guru devotion, the thrones and the sycophancy, the power dynamics” and he said frankly, “your friends seem quite narcissistic.” Ouch.

I do not want Indo-Tibetan Buddhism/ Vajrayana to disappear. I want it to become safer and helping us to evolve out of suffering, not make more of it. I want survivors to know that they can still value the Dharma and connect to the essence of practice. I want students to know that devotion does not require surrendering their voice, bodies, money or critical thinking. I want teachers to understand that accountability is a form of ethical health and compassion. I want Buddhist communities to become places where people can practice deeply without having to abandon their own boundaries and be silent, trapped or submissive in order to belong. I want us to stop using vows and threats of spiritual punishment as a method of silence and control.  Most of all, I want the next generation to inherit the wisdom of the essence of the real, original, precious meaning of Vajrayana without inheriting the silence and cultural trappings that has surrounded its institutions. That is the future of healthy community that I believe is possible and the future I believe is worth staying and fighting for. I have faith in what we can create.

Warmly,

Dawn Boiani-Sandberg

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Western Buddhist Community Code of Conduct

A simple, signable ethical commitment for teachers, leaders, staff, volunteers, and community members.

Preamble

The Buddhadharma is grounded in non-harming, compassion, wisdom, and ethical conduct. No spiritual title, lineage position, realization, vow, or relationship of devotion places any person above the law or above basic standards of human safety and dignity.

1. Safety and Respect

• No physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, or spiritual abuse is acceptable.
• No intimidation, coercion, harassment, retaliation, grooming, or exploitation is acceptable.
• No harmful conduct may be justified as special training, wrathful practice, advanced teaching, compassion, or a test of devotion.

2. Sexual and Romantic Boundaries

Because teachers and senior leaders hold substantial spiritual and institutional power, sexual or romantic relationships with students under their authority are prohibited. No student should ever be led to believe that sexual, romantic, or personal access is required for teachings, advancement, initiation, belonging, or spiritual favor.

3. Money and Power

• Community finances must be transparent and subject to independent oversight.
• Personal and organizational funds must not be improperly commingled.
• Students must never be pressured, manipulated, or promised spiritual benefits in exchange for money, gifts, labor, housing, or personal loyalty.

4. Vows Do Not Require Silence

Samaya and other spiritual commitments never require a person to endure, conceal, excuse, or participate in abuse, criminal conduct, financial misconduct, or exploitation. A student may seek help, leave a community, consult outside professionals, contact authorities, or speak truthfully about harmful conduct without being threatened with spiritual punishment.

5. No Silencing Through NDAs or Defamation Threats

The community will not use non-disclosure agreements, confidentiality provisions, financial settlements, or threats of defamation or disparagement to silence people reporting abuse or misconduct, subject to applicable law. Nothing in this Code prevents lawful confidentiality for ordinary administrative matters or protects knowingly false statements.

6. Independent Reporting and Accountability

• Complaints involving teachers or senior leaders must have a reporting path outside the accused person’s inner circle.
• Serious allegations must be handled through an independent process with appropriate safeguarding, documentation, and due process.
• The board must have authority to restrict or suspend a teacher or leader from duties when necessary to protect the community while an investigation is conducted.
• Allegations involving children or conduct that may constitute a crime must be handled in accordance with applicable mandatory-reporting and law-enforcement requirements.

7. Governance The community will maintain accountable governance rather than concentrating unchecked spiritual, financial, and organizational power in one teacher or inner circle. Boards and leaders are responsible to the community, applicable law, and this Code, and they may not retaliate against people who raise good-faith concerns.

Acknowledgment

I have read this Code of Conduct. I understand that spiritual authority does not exempt anyone from ethical responsibility, accountability, or the law. I agree to uphold these standards and to support a culture in which people can raise concerns without fear of retaliation.

Name

____________________________________________

Role

____________________________________________

Signature____________________________________________

Organization / Sangha____________________________________________

Date

____________________________________________

Template note: This plain-language Code is intended as a community ethics document. Organizations should have local counsel review provisions concerning reporting, confidentiality, employment, privacy, and defamation before adopting it as a binding legal policy.

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Suggested Reading:

Western Buddhist Teachers’ Statement and Related Discussion

Rigpa Code of Conduct and Shared Values

Tara Mandala Code of Conduct and Other Policies

https://viewonbuddhism.org/controversy-controversial-teacher-group-center-questionable.html

https://tsoknyirinpoche.org/about/about-us/code-of-conduct/

Photo by ArtHouse Studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-group-of-people-meditating-on-a-beach-7363326/