Triratna Buddhist Community: Accepting a Dark History

I recently became involved with a local Triratna centre. There I have felt nothing but warmth; welcoming and friendly in every aspect. It’s a place I could see myself getting more involved with. However, I’m extraordinarily hesitant — many of you who read this will already be familiar with why, but for those who aren’t, allow me to summarise.

Nearly twenty years ago today, it came to light that the founder of the order, Dennis Lingwood, known as Sangharakshita in the community, along with some other senior order members, had been sexually abusing some vulnerable followers of the order. In one such case, the abuse has been cited as a component of a former follower’s decision to commit suicide.

The Guardian Exposes Triratna

All this came to light with a shocking Guardian article (linked here from the Ex-Cult Resource Centre), published in October 1997.

“It bore all the characteristics of a cult,” admitted Dharmachari Subhuti, a senior order member who was often regarded as Sangharakshita’s right-hand man. Subhuti’s honesty and admissions within the Guardian article are commended. However, whilst he’s not accused of a crime himself, even he is a key contributor to the teachings and the environment where these acts were allowed to occur.

The views expressed by the teachings of Sangharakshita and others on sexuality and feminism are at best bizarre, and at worst, damaging. In the article, they have been accused of being misogynist, with a locker-room culture of aggressive male bonding.

My conclusion to some of these events is that Sangharakshita along with the senior order members who perpetrated these abhorrent acts, will need to go through extraordinary lengths in order to rebuild trust and respect. During this time, they failed as Buddhists, substituting honesty and virtue with immorality.

Organisational Dilemma

For the organisation, at the time of the article’s publication, there existed a catch 22 for the admission of Sangharakshita’s guilt. On one hand, if they admitted that his actions were intentional and premeditated, then his teachings would have been potentially invalidated — since they are then proven not to promote moral and ‘Buddhist’ behaviour. On the other hand, if he was unaware of his abuse of authority in this way, i.e. he didn’t realise the impact of his actions, then this also is not Buddhist, since a considerable amount of Buddhist teachings are concerned with overcoming ignorance with awareness and understanding the bigger picture of our actions.

What was stopping Triratna from outright vilifying Sangharakshita, is that his teachings form a cornerstone to the entire order. If they vilified him, then there would have been a substantial risk that the organisation would be thrown into jeopardy. I explore this not to condone the behaviour, but rather, to add colour to the organisation’s actions that directly succeeded the Guardian’s article.

I’ve purposefully avoided much criticism of the order itself and focused on the individuals — I’ll detail my reasons for this below. In short, the events in question were institutionally enabled bearing striking similarities to the Catholic church’s own historical issues, however I don’t believe that the Triratna of today is the same organisation as the FWBO of yesteryear.

The problem, from the perspective of the order itself as an organisation, is that there existed a damaging culture where these abuses were allowed to happen. So solutions have since been focused on this culture, and how awareness of this dark history can grow — thereby minimising the risk that history would repeat itself.

Repairing a Damaging Culture

The organisation has published a biography-of-sorts of the founding of the order. This official order biography includes the accounts of these abuses. As a new member you are encouraged to read and explore this story, to learn both the good and bad. They do not shy away from this story, hide it, gloss it over, or add a public relations spin to it. The positive outcome of it’s inclusion within the Triratna Story, is as noted by the author Vajragupta right in the preface of the publication, “the Guardian article began a period of intense self-questioning and soul-searching for many involved in the FWBO.”

In a recent Young Person’s meetup within my local centre, the subject was brought up, discussed openly and honestly with the attendees by the mitras. There was no sense of shying away from the gravity of the events, and there was a great respect for the integrity of the victims. The message that came from the discussion was that they understood the pain that the organisation has caused in these past years, and that if that was too much to bear for potential new followers they’d understand if another order was more appropriate. In short, they would rather lose a potential order member, than inflict suffering by indecision on the part of the member themselves.

This new attitude in some degree is a valiant attempt at breaking down this culture. Awareness and education ensure that, to as much as they can control, this will never happen again.

Triratna’s Respectful Path

These changes for obvious reasons, don’t affect the teachings themselves. In my local centre, there is a wall full of books written by Sangharakshita, that detail his teachings. As we have already explored, a small amount of these teachings are worrying at best.

Other than this obvious nod to the founder, what I have experienced at the centre, is a strong focus on the greater historical Buddhist thought — the Pali canon, verses from the Dhammapada, independent Buddhist thinkers. On top of this, there is a clear encouragement within the order to form your own opinions. Speaking with the members of the organisation, it becomes clear that even the senior members at the centre have a wide breadth of knowledge and beliefs. Sangharakshita’s teachings are referenced, and spoken about in sessions, but we are invited to form our own judgement of his teachings, in the same way as they would approach the views of other independent Buddhist voices. Furthermore, and to the organisation’s credit, the questionable teachings that were brought to light by the Guardian article are all but gone.

As a full order member, this fact may very well be different, however, as a new attendee, I’ve not encountered an instance where Sangharakshita’s path is treated as the only path. His teachings form a part of the organisation, and his influence is bright, but in my admittedly brief experience, involving myself further in the organisation does not mean involving myself completely in Sangharakshita’s teachings; all forms of Buddhism are openly accepted and taught.

Responsibility

There is a certain degree of responsibility for the events, that the organisation has yet to bear. The victims (in the case of the deceased, his family) have yet to feel a sense of justice and closure for what was committed against them. However, my experiences of the local Triratna centre is that there has been an extraordinary and clear effort from the top to break down this damaging culture, and spread awareness of this dark history. That shows a maturity within — they have recognised the problem, and over a number of years have been enacting a series of changes to fix it.

Is the solution to this problem perfect? No. Though I would argue that the order as a whole is moving in the right direction. The events are metaphorically worn on the sleeves of the order members for all to see.

Reconciliation

To this, I have made the decision that based upon all I have researched, and all that I have experienced, that I am comfortable getting further involved with this order. What I will never be comfortable with however, is that worrying set of teachings of Sangharakshita and his co-offenders; I must now resolve to treat any teachings from those mouths with a far deeper degree of scepticism that I would otherwise offer.

Despite the obvious tainting of the Dhamma, the Triratna Sangha, as experienced in my local centre, is comprised of a fundamentally warm and accepting group of people. Even as a new follower, unsure of the ritual and unsteady on my Dhamma footing, I was welcomed with open arms. Each new person I meet adds to the wonderful picture that’s painted with each visit. It’s a truly beautiful place that I really want to spend more time at.

I could not commit myself to this order without reconciling the dissonance that I had in my mind about the group’s history.

The Road Ahead

So as we look to the road ahead, I do hope that the order moves to further this effort and heals the wounds created by their founder, his co-offenders and the culture they created. I have the firm hope that given the platform created for this debate within the organisation that I am able to become part of a new generation of members, who entered into it with a full awareness of the dark past — and in turn, then use that to fuel a brighter future.