I’m an Ex-Christian Who Walked into a Buddhist Cult
Seven years ago I left religion for good. Right before that time I was so knee-deep in religion that I had attended two churches. Afterward, I felt an all-consuming void that was once filled by God. My life up until that point revolved around church activities: Sundays were for service and for brunch with members of the congregation, Tuesday was for prayer night, and Friday was reserved for bible study. I lived in a Christian bubble.
With this void in mind I felt an overwhelming loneliness. I started looking into Buddhist groups as an alternative and went to various meetings. My father’s side of the family is Buddhist and I had some limited experience with them. I attended meetings in Korean, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Western Buddhist organizations. Nothing really stuck so I stopped attending.
This year I got COVID and was forced to stay home for weeks coughing non-stop. An email arrived in my inbox that month about a free compassion course led by the Dalai Lama’s translator Thupten Jinpa. I signed up. During that time I started re-reading The Art of Happiness, which is a book based on conversations between Dr. Howard Cutler, who is a psychiatrist, and the Dalai Lama. The concept of compassion and the absence of sin in Buddhism was intriguing.
Eventually I googled meditation centers in my city and found out about a place called Kadampa. I signed up for their mailing list and was alerted later on to the fact that they were holding a class on the Science of Happiness. The package for a set of classes was affordable, and it was on a Monday night. I went to three classes where they all started the same: There was a little talk by the teacher, some meditation, the rest of the talk, and then some discussion with whoever you were sitting next to. The first talk was, I thought, reasonable. The teacher more or less said that you had so many thoughts in your head that were racing around. If you meditated regularly those thoughts would settle, you would develop inner peace, and therefore become happy. This seemed very attractive to me with my rampant anxiety. In the third class the teacher announced that Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, the founder of Kadampa, had passed away.
I thought it was odd that Geshe Kelsang’s photo was front and center of the classroom. I thought it was odd that the teacher constantly quoted from this man’s books and ONLY his books. He never brought in outside sources. It was as if Geshe Kelsang had been elevated to god-like status. He never mentioned what Buddha taught. This was bothersome, and I felt flashbacks to my time at church.
One day, a few days after class, I googled Geshe Kelsang and found his obituary in Tricycle, a Buddhist publication. It mentioned that he had denounced the Dalai Lama over disagreement over worshiping Dorje Shugden, a diety. Some of the Kadampa members had even protested the Dalai Lama’s appearances. That led me to do some more research. It turned out that the Kadampa protestors had ties to China, who were using them to undermine the Dalai Lama’s authority. There were testimonies online from ex-members of Kadampa who detailed stories of abuse.
Kadampa was a cult. I had unknowingly stepped into a cult.
In my desire to clear my mind and learn how to meditate for better mental health, I had walked into a pit of vipers. It was so alluring to me too. The calm, aesthetically pleasing downtown center that I strolled into, the friendly, diverse faces, and the built-in community. I actually felt safe there, but this was all a facade.
Suffice it to say I never walked back into Kadampa again. I did not feel safe there or with any of the other followers. But it made me wonder why organizations like this exist. Kadampa was one of many meditation centers and so-called Buddhist groups that were actual cults. (Shambhala is another one that I had visited years ago). I had left Christianity for very valid reasons, but then walked into another organization that felt very much like some of the churches I had attended over the years.
Having experienced various churches and now a Buddhist cult, it is startling to see the parallels: They prey on people who are vulnerable: children, those who are having financial difficulties, those going through tough times such as divorce, etc. They have seemingly harmless recruitment events where they lure people in. In the case of one church I went to, they had a series of talks on various aspects of Christianity, which might be difficult for a skeptic to believe in. There is, of course, the fact that they elevate a person, usually almost always a man, to the level of the divine and take his words as the ultimate truth. Of course, it is almost always a privilege and sign that you are special to be sitting in this church/temple/center listening to information that will save your life. And there’s always some sort of hierarchy with no accountability and transparency that lends itself to abuse.
I think the nature of religion is sad and destructive, and we have to call it out for what they are: they are businesses selling palatable spirituality targeting people when they are down and out. In the case of one church I went to, it was Evangelical and right-wing as they come with typical conservative Christian features, but the image they projected was of a diverse, loving, progressive church even though that was not what they actually were.
I still feel this nagging sense of emptiness sometimes especially since I am going through several difficult personal issues in my life. I have no higher power to lean on and no avenue for asking for miraculous help outside of myself. Many people are in my situation. We are all out there looking for some path that is THE path and THE answer to all of our impossible questions. But wherever I turn, I am met with some sort of cult-like organization that is out to exploit others like me. So for now, I practice meditation in my own home away from people. I read books on various philosophies, and I am cobbling together some sort of direction for my life. Honestly this is hard to do without some community, but I would rather avoid the control and manipulation that is a part of so many religions.
