Triratna – Worse than We Thought

This article was posted on the Guardian’s site Sunday, detailing acts of sexual misconduct in the Triratna Buddhist organisation much broader than initially revealed in the 1990’s. I’ve written about this before, when talking about Triratna and their former leader, Sangharakshita, but it seems that the issues extend beyond just his own transgressions, and that they have in some ways been obfuscated by the group. The meaning of Sangharakshita, ‘one who is protected by the spiritual community,’ is looking rather apropos, it seems.

Sangharakshita, otherwise known as Dennis Lingwood

The latest revelations come as reports by both current and former members interrogate the extent of abuse and the lack of appetite to tackle the issue effectively. It seems that “more than one in 10…claim to have experienced or observed sexual misconduct while in the order.” This is both in the UK and abroad, naming Sangharakshita and other high-level members, and, crucially, against both men and women, whereas the initial allegations pertained only to men.

Included at the end of the article is an excerpt from one of Triratna’s own, internal documents from the 1970’s, a theoretical precis on the need for separation on the part of new adherents from their original families. Obviously, this has been selectively edited, but material like “The young man has to realise that he must submit and become totally passive to that which will liberate him from the domination of his mother” and “Many ‘mummy’s boys’ have a fear of passivity in a homosexual relationship even though that is what they may naturally want,” are difficult to read as anything but efforts at grooming.

The article references the hedonistic nature of the early and mid-period Triratna spaces, describing them as “more reminiscent of a San Francisco gay bath-house than a Buddhist retreat.” This gets me to the crux of my worry – what is it about these organisations that leads to this abuse, which we see again and again, whatever the stripe of religion? Is there something in the hierarchical structure that protects abusers? What makes purportedly spiritual life so attractive to people likely to abuse? When I read it initially, it didn’t seem so distressing, but when Alan Watts says “…the sexuality of the bodhisattva is limited only by his own sense of good taste and by the customs of whatever secular society may be his home,” in his work Psychotherapy East & West, is this part of the issue, the belief that, having attained some personal revelation, the onus becomes more about what the individual chooses, rather than the restrictions of society?

I’m more than a dozen episodes deep in to Prof. John Vervaeke’s ongoing video series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, which, amongst other things, focusses on the ways in which historical paths of wisdom, including Buddhism, can be used to address thoroughly modern problems. The way Vervaeke weaves these strands together with the findings of current cognitive science results in a compelling argument, but I continue to be assailed by doubts. I’ve felt these for a while, initially about the character of supposed sages (such as the previously mentioned Alan Watts, who struggled with alcoholism – an affliction shared with the originator of the Shambhala school of Buddhism, Chogyam Trungpa) but the fresh revelations about Triratna point to yet another aspect. If, indeed, we have access to the tools to surpass the worst parts of us, to better ourselves and the world, and have had them for literal millennia, why are we here, in this shitty place, today? How do we reconcile the high-octane theoretical and abstract material that we see presented in arguments such as Prof. Vervaeke’s, with the lack of uptake in the material world? Does this in any way undercut the validity of these approaches, the fact that they haven’t yet achieved their emancipatory potential, that, worse, the people who purport to practice and safeguard them are continually found to act in antithetical ways?

I honestly don’t know the answers to these questions.
I recall Erich Fromm writing in To Have or to Be? that, in all likelihood, our civilization was doomed to destroy itself – even more prescient with the environmental crisis we find ourselves in, when he was only concerned by the possibility of nuclear war (still on the table, of course). However, Fromm also argued that we have at least the sliver of possibility if we radically reorient ourselves. It may be that the paths of wisdom Vervaeke is presenting are still our best bet, alongside and combined with a massive shift in how we organise our world. Beats the alternative of doing nothing, I guess.