Tibetan fun

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Rednaxela, modified 6 Years ago at 4/5/17 3:36 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/10/16 1:10 PM

Tibetan fun

Posts: 158 Join Date: 12/23/11 Recent Posts
My wife experienced overpowering emotions at a Giving & Taking retreat at the Kadampa Meditation Center Canada in Toronto in early May which led to a confused state of attachment. The Centre provided insufficient support to us in the ensuing drama and refused to acknowledge that a charismatic teacher could be implicated. We had previously both been customers of the Centre, attending a number of its Sunday talks with our young daughters in the winter and spring of 2016.

my wife mostly denied any physical infidelity though has said things like "i was never unfaithful before i met xxx," and there was definitely emotional betrayal. The retreat finished at 11am on a Sunday morning and thought the centre is no more than approx. 1hr. from the centre, she was out of contact until 6pm when i found her sitting in a car in the driveway, holding her head in her hands. I asked how the retreat ended and she said, "badly."
That night, as I was driving my mother home ~30miles to the opposite of the city, she called frantically: " I know, [he's] my child from a former lifetime." She was much too excited and called me again as i took the return drive from my mother's place then later, as we talked about the story and wondered if she's acheived some state of awakening. Hours later she was desperate to leave me and our girls and reunite with the good-looking teacher.

I was initially accepting of her fantasies and ideas then realized that the family was being torn apart. So i told her not to go, got jealous and a tad upset. In the following weeks she continued to want to leave us to be with him, her true love. we have been intimated four times since May and she told me she felt like she was cheating on the teacher in questions. After two of the occasions, my wife screamed that it would never happen again. One occasion, four days after the retreat, after speacking to my Zen teacher and believeing Kadampa was a cult, she fled the next day with our young daughers and was missing for three days. On the four occasion in August, she seemed accepting however we seemed to be bonding on the idea that we were looking to buy a cottage together. My wife has descirbed feelings of revulsion to the idea of being dirty by being with me and untrue to her new love. Ugh.

to make matters worse, i have had email communications with this teacher's ex who describes him an a narcissitic psychopath. she is said to have lived with him for a year and suffered from emotional and psychological abuse from which it was difficult to pull herself. friends of hers (related to a band called the Operators) have a post on their facebook page, warning of this teacher. the ex-girlfiend says he has an intense workout regime of "250s", whereby he rusn an hour a day and does 250 pushups, situps, etc. she seems a legitimate person who writes poetry and has a large following on her blogpost. she also has legitimate loving family (i accidentally friended her father and facebook then had conversation with him).

My wife told me about feelings of "unconditional" love toward the teacher, that they had talked many times over the retreat. He had alternated between being loving and nasty, upseting her emotional well-being. My wife researched this and discovered that this mirrors a seductive technique called fractionation.


Teacher Christine Reeves said she appreciated a question I put to her on a Sunday in mid-May, days after being initially separated from my family and unclear of their whereabouts. "Just thank them," she counselled.

The Centre's Administrative Director Kelly Loeffelman later sent me an email asking that I not return to the KMCC as i had brought up "marital problems in a public class."
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Nicky, modified 7 Years ago at 5/11/16 6:24 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/10/16 4:12 PM

RE: Kadampa disaster - Spritual flame

Posts: 484 Join Date: 8/2/14 Recent Posts
Heavy & frightening situation. 

Visit the centre to speak to the resident monk and the culprit. 

NKT do have a reputation & obviously the methods for recruiting spiritually immature people into their leadership ranks, which is why, in England, two consecutive Western heirs to Geshe La were involved in sex scandals. 

Wishing you, your wife, your children & family the best. 

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svmonk, modified 7 Years ago at 5/11/16 2:43 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/11/16 2:40 PM

RE: Kadampa disaster - Spritual flame

Posts: 400 Join Date: 8/23/14 Recent Posts
Hi Alex,

It may be that after a month or so, the intense emotions coming out of the retreat will fade and she will realize that her desire to leave you and take up with her teacher is a delusion. However, I think you could help things along by encouraging her to see a psychotherapist alone, and you both might want to arrange some sessions of joint marriage counsuling, preferably both with therapists that have some experience with meditation. If she has a good friend that she trusts, you might encourage her to spend some time with her friend. Also, you can try to show your appreciation for her, though depending on how strong her emotions are, she may or may not notice. You could also suggest to her that she might want to wait 6 months or so before making any drastic changes in her life, this is advice that I've heard from many teachers I respect about how to handle the after effects of a particularly intense retreat. I don't know how good your relationship was before she went on the retreat, so it is hard to say whether she would respond to any of these suggestions.

Since I don't know the teacher, I can't say whether or not he encouraged your wife to develop these feelings, and whether he would respond to your attempts to communicate with him.

Hope things work out.
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bernd the broter, modified 7 Years ago at 5/12/16 3:37 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/12/16 3:37 AM

RE: Kadampa disaster - Spritual flame

Posts: 376 Join Date: 6/13/12 Recent Posts
I hesitate to sound all red-pill, but in this case it may be appropriate:

Prepare for the worst.
1) It sounds like your wife just went full retard. It wouldn't be the first case of a woman running away for someone she perceives as higher status and more fun.
2) You heard from two different sources that this place is a cult. You contact them over a very serious issue that might break up your family and they don't respond? Seriously?

You want to do the following in any case:
Record your conversations. Document her behaviour. Collect evidence about your good relations with your daughters.
In the worst case you may not be able to prevent her from leaving and trying to take your kids/money with her.
You should be prepared.
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tom moylan, modified 7 Years ago at 5/12/16 9:05 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/12/16 9:05 AM

RE: Kadampa disaster - Spritual flame

Posts: 896 Join Date: 3/7/11 Recent Posts
Seriously solid advice Bernd.
Robert, modified 7 Years ago at 5/13/16 12:46 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/13/16 12:39 AM

RE: Kadampa disaster - Spritual flame

Posts: 100 Join Date: 5/8/15 Recent Posts
Alex L:

Can someone help me by talking some sense into me?



I have no affiliation with the center or with any of those people so this is not coming from a biased view. Anyway, your real problem seems to be the tendency for the apparent mind to project a lot of stuff to feed the deluded fears, and then feel righteous about it. This is one way how the ego maintains its sense of solidity. That's what the mind does; invents stuff and then believes its own imagination (only apparently though, the ego is just a robotic mechanistic functioning in a way). You should deal with yourself first and foremost and start questioning whether clinging to the thought made hell has any actual benefit in it. And in the end the reality of that thought made world should be questioned too. That is if there is the willingness to drop the unnecessary suffering and if there's the openess and willingness to be truthful about the real situation here, which is that "These thoughts might not serve me at all, they might actually keep the state of suffering up and are creating havoc around me, mainly in social life but also healthwise probably..  And they might not be anyone's thoughts in the first place. And who is the one having all these apparent problems anyway?".

I didn't address your wife's situation because it's none of my business to get involved with other people's business when they are not asking for it. I shouldn't get involved from a personal standpoint, nor would I want to.
Robert, modified 7 Years ago at 5/13/16 2:31 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/13/16 1:49 AM

RE: Kadampa disaster - Spritual flame

Posts: 100 Join Date: 5/8/15 Recent Posts
Alex L:
thank you Robert!  Lying awake scenario spinning, that's exactly what I needed!  I may have invited that with title NKT disaster 

now I just have to figure how to get the fam back
jk


You might not get the family back together. And if the family gets back together it probably won't be within the timespan that you'd like, and not in your terms necessarily even. And that's fine (but not to the apparent egoic self). The best thing at this point is not to fight but to just relax to the best of your ability (lie down, sit and enjoy, take walks, work but without unnecessary thinking, talk with the family without trying to influence them if they are willing to talk etc.). And to let thoughts go, they can just appear without there being any reactivity in the body to the thoughts.. Personal opinions about "how things should be now and in the future" will only create action that will harm the situation. This is how I see it anyway. I too have personal experience of thoughts creating painful and unhealthy circumstances within the apparent body and the apparent world when the thoughts are being believed somehow. Just to relax and start noticing the thoughts as just thoughts. Keyword being "relaxation" here, and not relaxation with alcohol or something btw.

And there will be reactivity to thoughts in the body in the beginning but if the longing and orientation for truth and real health is there, then there will be a gradual calming down of the thinking mind with apparent ups and downs. And eventually the real joy and wellbeing will start to shine everywhere and also in the apparent body as a felt "sense". And that will be the indicator of a real state of health being the case. That can be instantly evident and felt but usually takes multiple years to start being predominantly evident "most of the time" so to speak. But it requires the absolute commitment to truth and freedom... Anyway, health is all pervading peace and refreshing alive joy, and other apparent people will be benefited from that. They won't be benefited from a personal fight. Unconditional love doesn't want to grasp anything for itself, love just wants good for others without getting anything back. And that has never gone away, only overlooked due to focusing on thoughts and believing them.

edit:

Forgot to mention that intense emotions will arise and they can be felt without going in any kind of opinions about them. Not to construct any story that will create a future to be feared or a story that creates a past that is lamented or longed back. Fear of death and madness will come too in forms of panic attacks but those can just be felt too without thoughts. To just let the panic attack kill you or to dissolve you into insanity, that will be the eventual attitude towards it. Not an attitude in confrontative sense but just losing interest in the whole thing. Not fearing the fear. After that the mental health issues will also diminish most probably. It won't be easy to meet the deepest pain though, but if the pain grows large enough the only way to deal with it is to let everything go. And that will happen in its own time. Talking with a therapist wouldn't hurt either.

Btw. don't try to force yourself through a panic attack. When they happen a good mantra would be "It's ok". The panic attack will come again and again and eventually there can be the total disinterest in the mind's stories about it. Btw. experiencing a panic attack with a good therapist could help the situation. That is if it is an issue already, not otherwise. No need to produce them out of thin air.
Robert, modified 7 Years ago at 5/14/16 11:59 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/14/16 11:50 AM

RE: Kadampa disaster - Spritual flame

Posts: 100 Join Date: 5/8/15 Recent Posts
I know that agonising feeling very well, have had some similar situations with women. I can't give any solid advice there. I can only say that sometimes these intense emotions and feelings need to burn and there's not much anything that can be done about them. Not much to do to relieve the emotional pain, just to burn and be in pain for a time. The emotions seem to arise in waves btw. So it most probably won't be intense all the time. There will be periods of calm when the thoughts aren't spinning really fast. And then the mind starts again and spins for a time. The intensity will gradually decrease when there is the intention for consistency in being aware of the thoughts/stories that keep the emotions up and when there's not buying into the thoughts. Talking with someone can help (friend, therapist, wife's mom like you mentioned etc.).
Robert, modified 7 Years ago at 5/14/16 12:05 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 5/14/16 12:05 PM

RE: Kadampa disaster - Spritual flame

Posts: 100 Join Date: 5/8/15 Recent Posts
And there are some speakers that you might want to listen to. A few that come to mind, whose videos can be found on youtube for example, are Eckhart Tolle, Jeff Foster and Byron Katie. Byron Katie's "The Work" can be effective for the situation. It's freely available online. And there are lots of videos around it.