Rob Hogendoorn – open buddhism

‘What do we really want?’

Rob Hogendoorn — Sun, 19 Dec 2021 11:37:57 +0000

‘Unfortunately, there’s a whole cultural phenomenon now, which is going very fast, in which there’s a glamour about the Buddhist and the West and Western Buddhism and a Hollywood fascination with His Holiness [the Dalai Lama]. And it’s very easy to get very, very superficial and many superficial things. So, we just have to keep to our standards, and we can continue to work, where we are doing fine.

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Hullabaloo over the ‘Karmapa’

Rob Hogendoorn — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 18:16:27 +0000

Speculation runs rife that the 16th Karmapa (b. 1924 d. 1981) abused an American woman, Kathy (comments 739 through 783). Apparently, the commenters are unaware of the ‘Erratum Notice’ that came with the referenced source, ‘Divine Disenchantment: Deconverting from New Religions’ (1989) by Janet Liebman Jacobs. In it, Indiana University Press and the author make clear that the name ‘Karmapa’ and...

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Tortured, untethered apologetics

Rob Hogendoorn — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 08:39:31 +0000

So, let me get this straight: According to Tenpel (aka Tenzin Peljor or Michael Jäckel), the survivors that met the fourteenth Dalai Lama in Rotterdam in 2018, did so in in “bad faith.” (comment 178, November 29, 2021 at 1:26 pm). With this, Tenpel not merely insults the four survivors who met the Dalai Lama as well as the twelve authors of testimonies, but also some 1.300 people who signed the...

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There is no factual basis for Tibetan exceptionalism

Rob Hogendoorn — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 10:17:05 +0000

There is no factual basis for Tibetan exceptionalism: Tibetans are a people like any other, Tibetan Buddhism is a religion like any other. Tibetan Buddhist Lamas sexually abuse, physically assault, and squeeze dry their flock of devotees like any other religious leader does. And, yes, Tibetan Buddhist devotees enable such abuses like any other religious community does.

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Mick Brown, Mary Finnigan, and Rob Hogendoorn discuss the rise and fall of Sogyal Rinpoche

Rob Hogendoorn — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 14:44:19 +0000

To mark the launch of the revised and updated second edition of Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of Sogyal Rinpoche (Jorvik Press, 2021), British writer Mick Brown (Daily Telegraph, Telegraph Magazine) recently interviewed its authors, Mary Finnigan and Rob Hogendoorn. A video of that conversation is now available online. Among other things, their hour-long meeting on Zoom...

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Tibet, Land on the Brink of Oblivion

Rob Hogendoorn — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 08:00:15 +0000

In 2014, shortly before the state visit to the Netherlands by the Chinese president Xi Jinping and a subsequent visit by the fourteenth Dalai Lama, I published a preview in Dutch on my personal website. This is a slightly edited English version of that text. Chinese President Xi Jinping will soon pay a state visit to the Netherlands. A month and a half later, the Dalai Lama follows suit.

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I See You

Rob Hogendoorn — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 11:05:54 +0000

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Caveat Emptor, Buyer Beware

Rob Hogendoorn — Sat, 09 Jan 2021 19:35:58 +0000

In 2014, the open access, peer-reviewed journal Religions published my paper on the Dalai Lama’s so-called Mind & Life meetings with (mostly) Western scientists. I had presented it during ‘Buddhism and Science: An International Workshop’ (University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Canada, April 12-14, 2013). For clarity’s sake, references have been omitted from the following quote (you’ll find...

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Hostile Takeover

Rob Hogendoorn — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 09:28:04 +0000

A sizeable part of my work is exceedingly boring but, ultimately, very rewarding. For instance, I began investigating the formative years of the abusive Tibetan teacher Sogyal Lakar (formerly known as Sogyal Rinpoché) without any conception of what I might find. As it turns out, his family did not just escape the impending political purge by Chinese Communists, but reactionary Tibetan Lamas’...

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Knave or Fool? The Dalai Lama and Shōkō Asahara Affair Revisited

Rob Hogendoorn — Sat, 05 Dec 2020 19:08:06 +0000

These days, the fourteenth Dalai Lama loses no time in telling spiritual devotees of inveterate and deliberate offenders that they must make their abuses and crimes public. Likewise, he routinely declares that the media should investigate and expose such matters diligently. However, the Dalai Lama himself rarely if ever contributes to the coming about of such investigative reports. Instead...

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