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Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of Sogyal Rinpoche
This book is the story of how a penniless Tibetan refugee with fierce ambition managed to establish himself in the West as a renowned Buddhist lama and hoodwink thousands of people, including show business luminaries, tycoons and politicians, for more than 30 years.
Sogyal Lakar left his birthplace in eastern Tibet aged eight when his family fled the Chinese invasion to seek refuge in India. Arriving in England in the early 1970s, he brought with him traditional ideas and attitudes rooted in a culture whose spiritual sophisticated was coupled with near-feudal social norms.
His transition was spectacularly successful. Sogyal Rinpoche, as he became known, was a charismatic multi-millionaire, credited as the author of a best-selling book. He starred in a Hollywood movie and his Rigpa Fellowship attracted followers across the globe. At the peak of his fame he was the most powerful and best-known Tibetan holy man after the Dalai Lama.
But, as revealed here, it turns out that Sogyal was a charlatan who was never trained as a lama. He stands accused of financial and sexual misconduct, physical violence and fabricated credentials. Now seriously ill, he is a fugitive rumoured to be in Thailand beyond the reach of police and civil investigations.
This book does not sensationalise the perverse behaviour that caused profound suffering to scores of devotees. Based on interviews with victims and eyewitnesses, together with detailed research and first-hand experience, it echoes the feminist perspective highlighted by the Me Too and Times Up movements. It is also a story about the culture clash that occurs when the misogyny of old Tibet is greeted with na�ve acceptance and adulation by spiritual seekers in the West.
Sogyal Lakar left his birthplace in eastern Tibet aged eight when his family fled the Chinese invasion to seek refuge in India. Arriving in England in the early 1970s, he brought with him traditional ideas and attitudes rooted in a culture whose spiritual sophisticated was coupled with near-feudal social norms.
His transition was spectacularly successful. Sogyal Rinpoche, as he became known, was a charismatic multi-millionaire, credited as the author of a best-selling book. He starred in a Hollywood movie and his Rigpa Fellowship attracted followers across the globe. At the peak of his fame he was the most powerful and best-known Tibetan holy man after the Dalai Lama.
But, as revealed here, it turns out that Sogyal was a charlatan who was never trained as a lama. He stands accused of financial and sexual misconduct, physical violence and fabricated credentials. Now seriously ill, he is a fugitive rumoured to be in Thailand beyond the reach of police and civil investigations.
This book does not sensationalise the perverse behaviour that caused profound suffering to scores of devotees. Based on interviews with victims and eyewitnesses, together with detailed research and first-hand experience, it echoes the feminist perspective highlighted by the Me Too and Times Up movements. It is also a story about the culture clash that occurs when the misogyny of old Tibet is greeted with na�ve acceptance and adulation by spiritual seekers in the West.
204 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 2, 2024
I decided to write a review here on Goodreads since nobody else has yet. I read the 2021 revised and updated version, as an e-book.
Having followed the controversial career of Sogyal Lakar Rinpoche for years, I was already familiar with much of the information in the book. I read the independent investigative report that was released about Rigpa, the group he founded, in 2018. And I’ve long been a regular reader of both coauthors’ blogs, and admire their work. They both do an excellent job of dispelling many of the myths surrounding Tibetan Buddhism, and shedding light on its problematic aspects. I believe they both operate out of a place of concern for Tibetan Buddhism, and believe that it cannot survive unless it throws off the remnants of its feudal past. As a practicing Tibetan Buddhist, I find their work to be a great service to Buddhism as a whole. Growth can sometimes be painful, but legitimate grievances must be aired and listened to before things can improve.
As they state in the introduction: “The complete oral tradition of Tibetan Buddhism is on a knife edge between survival and fragmentation. As with all esoteric traditions, its effectiveness depends on transmission from teacher to disciple. Almost all the great lineage holders who were trained in Tibet are dead. The younger generation of tulkus have yet to prove their stature. If this formidable heritage is lost, it will be a tragedy of epic proportions.” I wholeheartedly concur.
It is a sad fact that Tibetan Buddhism, with its emphasis on the guru model, is uniquely ripe for abuse. From the book: “There are two taboos in Buddhist organizations – both of which have merit and both of which can be used as manipulative tools. One of them is an injunction against gossip, effective when trying to establish a calm mental state but also useful to prevent the circulation of critical comment. The second is samaya, the indestructible bond of loyalty that is one of the key tenets of Tibetan Buddhism. It supports the relationship between teacher and neophyte but can be deployed unscrupulously as a threat – break your samaya and attract dire consequences.” Teachers such as Chogyam Trungpa and Sogyal Lakar are textbook cases of this sort of abuse. Both men exploited Western students’ interest in the Dharma, led rock star lifestyles, and abused hundreds of people. Students did nothing to stop this for fear of breaking their samaya.
On to the book itself…
The book begins by tracing Sogyal Lakar’s origins, and his eventual journey to the West. After a few chapters it switches to coauthor Mary Finnigan telling the firsthand story of her life as hippie/countercultural type in the early 1970s when the first Tibetan Buddhist teachers began arriving in England. She was involved in helping Sogyal get established early on and saw firsthand hints of his abusive tendencies that would later spiral out of control after he started his own organization, Rigpa. It details how he met the various students who would become his biggest enablers. “From the start, the embryo that grew into a global cult was fertilized by Sogyal’s rampant ambition and nurtured by acolytes who knew beyond doubt that he was not the real deal.”
Subsequent chapters detail Sogyal’s rise to Buddhist celebrity status, and the growth of Rigpa. As his fame rose, so did his gluttonous, sybaritic lifestyle, and his abusive tendencies. Both physical abuse of his students became commonplace, as well as grooming young, vulnerable women for sex. Detailed accounts are provided of his physical and sexual abuse and these are difficult to read.
About halfway through the book, when it begins detailing the backlash against Sogyal’s behavior by his own students and by the young women he abused, the book unfortunately gets quite disorganized. Many of the chapters appear to be almost copy/pasted from Mary Finnigan’s blog; at one point there is even underlined text to indicate a hyperlink, that the editors forgot to remove. The subsequent chapters are very repetitive and discuss the same events over and over. The book will shift abruptly from neutral third-person narrative to Mary Finnigan inserting her own firsthand narrative, then back again. It’s a bit difficult to follow. There are also large swathes of the book where details are recounted but no sources are cited.
In 2019, Sogyal Lakar died. He had been publicly disgraced, but never brought to justice for his crimes. He still had thousands of followers who lived in denial about the allegations against him. The book then details the turmoil that his Rigpa organization has faced since his passing, and it doesn’t look good for them.
I shudder to think about Sogyal’s future rebirths, considering the damage he did to so many people, and his exploitation of the Dharma for his own disgusting agenda. I feel that the irreparable damage he did is summed up well in this excerpt from a letter from his former students: “Often when we sit down to meditate and practice, we feel polluted with trauma from our experience with [Sogyal]; some of us relate to the Vajrayana with deep suspicion; and some of us are at work rebuilding from scratch the foundations of our study and practice, recognizing that [Sogyal’s] manipulation was intermingled with all that we were taught… the effect of [his] methods is that our relationship with the Dharma has been tainted.”
I would give this book 5 stars, but I can’t due to its poor editing. The second half of the book is just too jumbled and hastily thrown together to overlook. I am glad that the authors had the courage to call out Sogyal Rinpoche’s enablers by name – including bigwigs such as Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and the Dalai Lama. “The fact remains that [the Dalai Lama] knew about Sogyal’s depravity for decades before he was finally forced to condemn it.”
Near the end of the book, Finnigan discusses her own journey and disillusionment with the problems of Tibetan Buddhism. “I no longer regarded the lamas as infallible. I criticized them as human beings, with human strengths and human weaknesses. As men who could not resist the temptations of the flesh – and as a boys’ club keenly aware of the need to protect their own interests… I decided to focus my attention on Sogyal Lakar. Partly to atone for the fact that I failed miserably at the level of discriminating wisdom when I helped him at the start of his career.” Mary, you’ve done a service to the Buddhist community, and I thank you for your courage and dogged determination. We need more people like you.
Read this book as a cautionary tale about those who would exploit the guru-student relationship and exploit the teachings of Buddha. I also highly recommend coauthor Rob Hogendoorn’s blog openbuddhism.org.
Having followed the controversial career of Sogyal Lakar Rinpoche for years, I was already familiar with much of the information in the book. I read the independent investigative report that was released about Rigpa, the group he founded, in 2018. And I’ve long been a regular reader of both coauthors’ blogs, and admire their work. They both do an excellent job of dispelling many of the myths surrounding Tibetan Buddhism, and shedding light on its problematic aspects. I believe they both operate out of a place of concern for Tibetan Buddhism, and believe that it cannot survive unless it throws off the remnants of its feudal past. As a practicing Tibetan Buddhist, I find their work to be a great service to Buddhism as a whole. Growth can sometimes be painful, but legitimate grievances must be aired and listened to before things can improve.
As they state in the introduction: “The complete oral tradition of Tibetan Buddhism is on a knife edge between survival and fragmentation. As with all esoteric traditions, its effectiveness depends on transmission from teacher to disciple. Almost all the great lineage holders who were trained in Tibet are dead. The younger generation of tulkus have yet to prove their stature. If this formidable heritage is lost, it will be a tragedy of epic proportions.” I wholeheartedly concur.
It is a sad fact that Tibetan Buddhism, with its emphasis on the guru model, is uniquely ripe for abuse. From the book: “There are two taboos in Buddhist organizations – both of which have merit and both of which can be used as manipulative tools. One of them is an injunction against gossip, effective when trying to establish a calm mental state but also useful to prevent the circulation of critical comment. The second is samaya, the indestructible bond of loyalty that is one of the key tenets of Tibetan Buddhism. It supports the relationship between teacher and neophyte but can be deployed unscrupulously as a threat – break your samaya and attract dire consequences.” Teachers such as Chogyam Trungpa and Sogyal Lakar are textbook cases of this sort of abuse. Both men exploited Western students’ interest in the Dharma, led rock star lifestyles, and abused hundreds of people. Students did nothing to stop this for fear of breaking their samaya.
On to the book itself…
The book begins by tracing Sogyal Lakar’s origins, and his eventual journey to the West. After a few chapters it switches to coauthor Mary Finnigan telling the firsthand story of her life as hippie/countercultural type in the early 1970s when the first Tibetan Buddhist teachers began arriving in England. She was involved in helping Sogyal get established early on and saw firsthand hints of his abusive tendencies that would later spiral out of control after he started his own organization, Rigpa. It details how he met the various students who would become his biggest enablers. “From the start, the embryo that grew into a global cult was fertilized by Sogyal’s rampant ambition and nurtured by acolytes who knew beyond doubt that he was not the real deal.”
Subsequent chapters detail Sogyal’s rise to Buddhist celebrity status, and the growth of Rigpa. As his fame rose, so did his gluttonous, sybaritic lifestyle, and his abusive tendencies. Both physical abuse of his students became commonplace, as well as grooming young, vulnerable women for sex. Detailed accounts are provided of his physical and sexual abuse and these are difficult to read.
About halfway through the book, when it begins detailing the backlash against Sogyal’s behavior by his own students and by the young women he abused, the book unfortunately gets quite disorganized. Many of the chapters appear to be almost copy/pasted from Mary Finnigan’s blog; at one point there is even underlined text to indicate a hyperlink, that the editors forgot to remove. The subsequent chapters are very repetitive and discuss the same events over and over. The book will shift abruptly from neutral third-person narrative to Mary Finnigan inserting her own firsthand narrative, then back again. It’s a bit difficult to follow. There are also large swathes of the book where details are recounted but no sources are cited.
In 2019, Sogyal Lakar died. He had been publicly disgraced, but never brought to justice for his crimes. He still had thousands of followers who lived in denial about the allegations against him. The book then details the turmoil that his Rigpa organization has faced since his passing, and it doesn’t look good for them.
I shudder to think about Sogyal’s future rebirths, considering the damage he did to so many people, and his exploitation of the Dharma for his own disgusting agenda. I feel that the irreparable damage he did is summed up well in this excerpt from a letter from his former students: “Often when we sit down to meditate and practice, we feel polluted with trauma from our experience with [Sogyal]; some of us relate to the Vajrayana with deep suspicion; and some of us are at work rebuilding from scratch the foundations of our study and practice, recognizing that [Sogyal’s] manipulation was intermingled with all that we were taught… the effect of [his] methods is that our relationship with the Dharma has been tainted.”
I would give this book 5 stars, but I can’t due to its poor editing. The second half of the book is just too jumbled and hastily thrown together to overlook. I am glad that the authors had the courage to call out Sogyal Rinpoche’s enablers by name – including bigwigs such as Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and the Dalai Lama. “The fact remains that [the Dalai Lama] knew about Sogyal’s depravity for decades before he was finally forced to condemn it.”
Near the end of the book, Finnigan discusses her own journey and disillusionment with the problems of Tibetan Buddhism. “I no longer regarded the lamas as infallible. I criticized them as human beings, with human strengths and human weaknesses. As men who could not resist the temptations of the flesh – and as a boys’ club keenly aware of the need to protect their own interests… I decided to focus my attention on Sogyal Lakar. Partly to atone for the fact that I failed miserably at the level of discriminating wisdom when I helped him at the start of his career.” Mary, you’ve done a service to the Buddhist community, and I thank you for your courage and dogged determination. We need more people like you.
Read this book as a cautionary tale about those who would exploit the guru-student relationship and exploit the teachings of Buddha. I also highly recommend coauthor Rob Hogendoorn’s blog openbuddhism.org.
April 2, 2025
Well researched and written. Fascinating and persuasive look into what can go wrong in Vajrayana (Tibetan) Buddhism.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews