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Be Scofield

Secret lodges, ceremonial oaths, ancient bloodlines, heavenly kings, dragon magic, prophecies...It sounds like Game of Thrones but it's the strange Buddhist sect Pema Chodron's guru founded.

Be Scofield is a prominent cult reporter whose work is cited by the NY Times, Rolling Stone, People, Netflix, and more. She exposed the Love Has Won cult which led to the hit HBO series. Be is the author of Hunting Lucifer: One Reporter's Search for Cults and Demons.

By BE SCOFIELD

August 29th, 2024

"My personal teacher did not keep ethical norms and my devotion to him is unshakable...My teachers have always been the wild ones and I love them. I’m bored by the good ones. " - Pema Chodron

It was 1990 and Fred Coulson was sitting with his teacher Pema Chodron at her monastery Gampo Abbey. "She was giving me a teaching on how serious devotion is," he told me. "She then told me that if she were shown photos of her guru Chogyam Trungpa molesting children her devotion would be the same." He said he tried to rationalize the jarring statement in his mind.

"This was before Pema was famous," he told me. "I remember just sitting in her office hanging out while she was doing paperwork." He described her as "difficult to live with" and said she had an "abrasive personality." There are unconfirmed claims she would yell at nuns but he did hear Chodron engage in "angry exchanges" behind her office door.

Most know of Pema Chodron from her book When Things Fall Apart which would be published six years later in 1996. Her several appearances on Oprah have also made her a household name amongst spiritual seekers. Her public image is that of a soft-spoken and wise Buddhist nun who provides life-changing advice for difficult times. Along with other new age gurus like Eckhart Tolle and Marianne Williamson, Chodron has been a pillar of modern spirituality for decades.

The guru to whom Chodron pledges her "undying devotion," Chogyam Trungpa, is no saint, however. The Shambhala tradition which he created around 1970 functioned as more of a Buddhist-military styled sex cult that was steeped in strange esoteric practices and insular beliefs. For decades Chodron has been indoctrinated into the bizarre creation of an abusive, cocaine-using alcoholic who had seven "sexual consort" wives and slept with countless students.

In 2018 it was revealed Chodron was complicit in covering up sexual abuse. It turned out suppressing abuse was a structural feature of her tradition. In 2019 the Denver Post found that, "Shambhala and its leaders had a decades-long history of suppressing abuse allegations, including child molestation and clerical abuse, through the organization’s own internal processes."

When a female student came to her and told her she was raped and impregnated by her Shambhala center's leader, Chodron dismissed her claims. "I don't believe you," Chodron scoffed. Later, she told her, "If it's true, I suspect you were into it." Chodron publicly apologized when the story surfaced in 2018 and was later asked by Oprah about her statements.

 "After I experienced terrible abuse from a person in the sangha, abuse that put me into serious therapy and caused me much loss, I went to her to get help making sense of it," a woman who studied under Chodron for years writes. "She basically ripped me apart and said I wasn't being compassionate enough toward my abuser, and if I didn't like it I should leave Buddhism." She described Chodron's response as "beyond harsh at a time where I was still experiencing uncontrollable crying."

One of Trungpa's students began asking others their thoughts on him sleeping with students. "Pema was told that I was asking around and she told EVERYONE that I was a gossip and would never be enlightened," they write. "So when I decided to leave the community...there was already quite the disapproval of me." 

"Pema has long misunderstood how to support women who have suffered abuse," writes Fionna Bright. She studied with Trungpa directly and considers him a Buddha. "There are a number of people (I’m one) she retraumatized with her responses to requests for help. What she did to me was devastating. Her approach has been to deny and scold, to blame the victim."

Chodron was steeped in a culture of denial, codependency and obfuscation. When asked about women who come to her with issues with male teachers she replied, "Blaming others never heals anything." Chodron's responses were no mistake. She had been trained to be fiercely loyal to Trungpa and his mystical Shambhala Kingdom.

The Cult of Shambhala

“Trungpa was basically the king of the universe, and any contact with him was a blessing that was going to guarantee your enlightenment and eternal salvation.” - Former devotee

"We were taught to regard ourselves as members of Trungpa's family," Fred Coulson told me. "Literally. We called ourselves Clan Mukpo, in the style of the Scottish highlander use of 'clan' where the chief is the patriarch of a large kinship group."

This wasn't your Thich Nhat Hanh garden variety Buddhism that Pema Chodron found herself in. Trungpa's "family" consisted of a government, military, "ministers of the realm," a foreign service, councils, a court, servants and more. There were ranks like warrior and major, titles, flags, pins, uniforms, rituals and secret oaths. He often spoke of "conquering" to establish his Shambhala Kingdom. And his entire kingdom was being aided by magical sky deities called the Rigden Fathers.

 

Trungpa propped himself up as a divine Buddha who had come to save the world in its darkest hour. He referred to himself as the Sakyong, a "celestially or heavenly appointed" king who "joins heaven and earth together in establishing enlightened human society." He once proclaimed to his followers, "As the heavenly appointed one and as a very worthy person, I feel tremendous responsibility."

"He taught that we are at the end of a dark age and there will be a massive holy war between good and evil in 500 years," Coulson said. He used the classic Tibetan mythology of Shambhala but he placed himself at the center of it. "Trungpa said he'd come back as king and lead his Shambhala forces to victory. He imagined himself as a descendent of a warlord and saw himself as royalty."

Coulson described the founding myth of the texts of the tradition. "According to the mythos that we were taught in Shambhala, Padmasambhava planted the four Shambhala termas or verses in the mind‐stream of one of his students, and they lay dormant over many lifetimes until at last they emerged in the conscious mind of the Eleventh Trungpa tulku, Chogyam Trunpga. They are alleged to be the exact correct teachings that Padmasambhava prepared for us barbaric North Americans living in the present dark age. Trungpa, it is believed, did not compose them, he merely 'channelled' them."

Top secret texts and manuals obtained by The Guru Magazine shed insight into Pema Chodron's Buddhist tradition. "This book is the property of the Kalapa Court, and must be surrendered upon demand," The Court Vision and Practice says on the first page. "This material is available for a limited publication only, and no general publication is made or intended."

 

 

The Decorum Manual works as a method of behavioral control. Trungpa mapped out specific instructions on how to hold knives and forks, what to wear in different settings, what wines go with each meal, and how to write proper letters. It gives details on how to properly eat Italian, Indian and Chinese food. It seems like a guide for high etiquette. "Using your fingers, pick up the stalk of asparagus at its base. Dip the head in the sauce and bit off the tip," it states.

It was as if Trungpa adopted English colonialism when he studied in London. "How to conquer the world is very much connected with how to speak properly--as much as how to dress properly, how to comb one's hair properly, how to wear proper makeup, and how to choose the appropriate ties or shoes," he said.

The Court Vision and Practice lays out the elaborate hierarchy of different branches of his kingdom. He explains the roles such as the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Command Protector, the ministers, the military branch, the "subjects" which were the followers, ranks like "Warrior of the Order of the Dragon of Shambhala" and servants and masters. "The servant must be 100% certain that the master can do no wrong," it states. Pema Chodron would eventually be in the role of director of the Gampo Abbey monastery when it opened in 1985.

Chogyam Trungpa's Kalapa Assembly talks from 1978-1984 reveal a clear effort to build a cult of personality around himself. Some of the language he and his followers used is reminiscent of cult leader Jim Jones or Charles Manson. There is good reason Shambhala does not want these texts public.

"From my point of view, you have become my children," he told his devotees in a talk. "Lady Diana and myself could be regarded as your parents," Trungpa proclaimed. "You have to remember that from this time onward you remain my subjects. And I have power over you." He told them to "take pride in being a subject," and said "good subjects" are more "glowing," "dynamic," and "beautiful."

Trungpa convinced his followers that by deepening their relationship to him, i.e. worshipping him, they were saving the world. "Each time we work together our relationship is further deepened and that is how we are sharing the Great Eastern Sun world altogether," he told them. "This bond is unique and extraordinary. Certainly our working together will benefit hundreds of millions of people in the future. Thank you for being together. I love you all a lot."

Spiritual teachers may talk about lofty visions of planetary transformation. It's different, however, when the teacher claims a relationship with him is the key to that change and then exploits it to have sex with students or exploits their labor as Trungpa did with countless followers.

A talk from 1981 could easily be confused with something Jim Jones said. "This is a week of understanding why we have to create such an emergency situation, " Trungpa warned his followers. "The world is running out of any sanity; it is our duty to provide sanity in this world." He warned they may be "annihilated when we realize our profundity" and that the "more profound" their insights the "the more profound the attacks" will be. "Ladies and gentlemen, we hold the threshold of the future of the world in our hands, on our path. Maybe we are the only hope for the future dark age."

 

The language of Trungpa's acolytes also reveals the cult-like nature of the group. "On behalf of my children of Shambhala, I ask the Father Sakyong to present the profound, brilliant, just, powerful, all-victorious dharma of Shambhala," Trungpa's wife "Lady Diana" introduced him with. One devotee signed a letter to Trungpa with, "Your Majesty's most humble and obedient servant." When students at a talk addressed him by saying "Good morning, sir," he replied, "It would be better to say, 'Good morning, my lord.'"

 

An introduction of Trungpa by the "regent" Tom Rich is steeped in an alarming cult-like devotion and worship of him as a god-like figure. This type of language was commonplace for devotees.

Profound, brilliant, just, powerful, all victorious, heavenly appointed Dorje Dradul of Mukpo, heir to the glorious lineage of Kagyu and to the ancient lineage of Nyingma, you are the Dharmaraja. Heart son of the Rigdens, the one who shows the way of the Great Eastern Sun, you are truly the Sakyong. Chakravartin, Universal Monarch possessing all good qualities, you awaken the Ashe in our hearts. Please lead us and inspire us so that the way of the warrior may be realized and so that the Kingdom of Shambhala may flourish. Inspired by the Sakyong Wangmo, on behalf of your loyal students, I request that you teach us so that the darkness of the setting sun may be dispelled and so that we may realize the genuine vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Please conduct this fourth grand Kalapa Assembly for the benefit of those who are gathered here and for the benefit of all beings.

"I am the servant and he is the master," his attendant "Major" John Perks wrote. "I am intensely proud of my master...I help His Majesty up the narrow stairs and we play the falling-down-stairs game. The subject of this game is for him to crush me beneath his weight by falling on top of me – the greater the height of the fall, the better."

In most all cases, if many followers believe their spiritual teacher is enlightened, divine, or free from ego, that has been encouraged and instilled by the teacher. "It is my opinion that he was a Buddha," long-term student Fred Meyer stated of Trungpa. "The Vidyadhara [Trungpa] was unquestionably enlightened," he wrote. "He was enlightened, full stop." He goes on to say that he knows Trungpa's mind and that it is bigger than any of his centers, practices or traditions. Meyer urges that Trungpa's "mind must not be permitted to leave this earth." Fionna Bright studied with Trungpa and shares Meyer's view. "The reality is that [Trungpa] was a Buddha," she writes. "I feel he was beginning to show more overtly his true nature as being not an ordinary human," says long-term student Jeremy Hayward.

"As the heavenly appointed one and as a very worthy person, I feel tremendous responsibility."

Trungpa did work to create the ethos that portrayed him as a divinely special being. Selling himself as the Sakyong, he said he is "never subject to the sickness or sleepiness of egohood at all." He also claimed to be "awake" and "without confusion" and to have arisen from the "ultimate." His mind was "synchronized with that of the Rigden Fathers," which were kings of the celestial realms. He also repeatedly portrayed his teachings as "brilliant" and "profound."

Trungpa masterfully created an in-group and out-group, one of the most classic characteristics of a cult. The "setting sun" was the term Trungpa used for the out-group i.e. the world that is filled with "pain and misery." He spoke of the "curse of the setting sun," "the setting sun evil," and "setting sun problems" which needed to be cleansed. "Tonight we will be doing a lhasang in order to purify any setting sun situations," he told his followers. "We have more to recover from: the entire rest of our lives in the setting sun." He said it is, "wonderful that we can actually do this in the midst of the completely, utterly degraded world we have around us."

"You have to be purified before you enter the Shambhala world."

In contrast with the "utterly degraded world" was that of the Great Eastern Sun vision which he spoke of extensively. "The notion of sacred world is that when the Great Eastern Sun dawns in every aspect of society, life and the phenomenal world, you begin to experience basic goodness reflected everywhere," Trungpa said. "We can actually hold the Great Eastern Sun in our hand, in our head, and in our heart," he told his followers. "It’s a tremendously moving experience."

Advanced students like Pema Chodron were in what's called the Shambhala Lodge, a secretive fraternity-like group. A photo of Chodron at the marriage ceremony of one of Trungpa's wives confirms her role. Only lodge members were allowed to participate. In order to join, followers had to take oaths. "You are taking an oath tonight, which means that you are being included in the power of the Rigdens and the Sakyong," Trungpa stated to the new Lodge members. "When you received the ink on your tongue in the form of an Ashe, you committed yourself to the Shambhala world. Unless you cut out your tongue, you cannot get rid of that Ashe."

In the Ashe ceremony Trungpa would incorporate a large amount of his saliva into the ink. "Then the assembled students would line up, chanting KI KI SO SO ASHE LHA GYEL LO over and over, and one by one approach Trungpa, who would dab a spot of the ink+spit mixture on your tongue with his brush," Coulson told me.

"Taking this oath means that you will keep this information to yourselves and not publicize it," Trungpa warned. "If you violate the situation you will be punished at the level of hell." A senior teacher chimed in. "This submission or oath also has to do with how to sustain the secret quality, the confidentiality of what we know by virtue of being Assembly graduates."

"Maybe we are the only hope for the future dark age."

"I would suggest that you wear the pin in order to help distinguish between lodge members and non-lodge members," Trungpa told his devotees. "Wearing this pin will actually help you. In some sense it provides magical protection. You will be protected from any attacks of the setting sun...it contains the basic Shambhala vision and the Shambhala magic of Tiger Lion Garuda Dragon...It is not superstition, but it is real."

Coulson told me the Shambhala Lodge group would do something like rent a hotel for six weeks. There'd be no outside staff allowed, only those of the Kalapa Assembly. "Everyone would dress up in gowns and tuxedos, meditate, and have lessons in how to be lords and ladies," he said. They'd be trained in etiquette. The texts reveal he tried to get his followers to speak with a British accent.

"I have been granted permission by the Rigden fathers to discuss further," Trungpa would often say. "The Rigdens are the kings of the celestial realm," Coulson told me. "Trungpa talked about having these trances where he’d go off to Shambhala and the Rigdens would show him pictures of women and say, 'you should marry this one,' they give him advice on what to wear, what uniform, what shoes."

Trungpa told followers the Rigdens were supporting them as well. "If you are completely in contact with the vision of the Kingdom of Shambhala, you will have no problems in setting up your own affairs...I can assure you of that in the name of the Rigden Fathers."

“He made us all sign a vow about loyalty and not creating schisms,” writes senior Shambhala teacher Jeremy Hayward. “We each had to sign our name, and then he personally pricked our thumbs so that we could make a thumbprint in blood on the huge piece of paper on which the proclamation was written.”

Trungpa also told his students terrible things would happen if they left the group, one of the hallmark signs of a cult. He once told a woman who said she was going to leave Shambhala, "The lions will come to devour you." In a seminary talk, Trungpa said, "If you decide to abandon the vajrayana, you will be roasted alive, unable to die on the spot." "Trungpa told us that if we ever tried to leave we would suffer unbearable anguish, and disasters would pursue us like furies," a former student named Stephen Butterfield writes in his book The Double Mirror.

"What we are doing is dangerous, as the Sakyong has said here," warned a Shambhala leader at the beginning of a talk by Trungpa. "It can be dangerous for all of us. In particular it can be dangerous for the Sakyong. Each individual person here does have the power to cut off the life of the Sakyong and the Vajra Master and the kingdom. So please bear that in mind." Trungpa warned his devotees, "Shambhala can be destroyed by insiders."

Chogyam Trungpa checks off most of the boxes for a cult leader by any measurable standard: Claiming to be "heavenly sent" on a "dangerous" mission, creating an in-group/out-group with a sick/degraded external world, telling followers terrible things will happen if they leave, implementing secret oath ceremonies, claiming to be the "only hope for the future dark age," demanding god-like devotion and loyalty, claiming to be free of ego, using "revealed" texts, controlling behavior, instilling fear and paranoia, demanding purity, purchasing isolated property for the "Kingdom," sleeping with countless students and physical and sexual abuse.

Warrior of the Light

Pema Chodron recently taught at a month-long Shambhala retreat called the Three Yana's at Drala Mountain Center. She paid for 20 participants to attend and paid for the entire teaching staff according to several participants at the retreat who had seen emails. The retreat was organized by those, “who have trained extensively with Trungpa Rinpoche, or his senior students,” according to the website. The goal of the retreat was to “make Trungpa Rinpoche’s approach to deep study and practice available to future generations of practitioners.”

Drala filed for bankruptcy in 2022 and is one of the many centers within Shambhala that is struggling or that has closed. Chodron bailed Drala out to the tune of a $500,000 donation but their future is uncertain. Plagued by sexual abuse scandals, the pandemic, and waning interest, the tradition has been on the decline for years.

I recorded members marching and chanting in military-like fashion at the retreat. They were the last remnants of Trungpa's Kasung or military branch. In its prime there were hundreds of members who'd dress in uniforms and wear pins showing their rank. A woman named "Erin" who lived and worked at Drala for many years told me she's seen them in recent years dressed in full uniform. "They'd be drilling and marching," she said.

Undercover video shows Shambhala members marching and drilling in August, 2024 at the Three Yana's retreat at Drala Mountain Center

"The Kasung are the general military body which acts as the national defense force to protect the Kingdom from attacks from the air, water and ground," Trungpa wrote. Members who violate certain policies "will be publicly flogged and placed in a situation of re-educative hard labour or imprisonment," the Court Vision states. "Depending on the degree of his crime, he will be made into a street cleaner, impressed into manual labor, or exiled, and/or he will be required ceremonially to cut off his own right thumb in public."

Even the updated 2015 Shambhala Kasung manual describes how members should dress, contains elaborate hand signals to communicate with, and details the rankings and pins members should wear. It states to contact the "Dorje Kasung Sergeant-Major" with any questions.

In Trunpga's day the Kasung often acted as a force to police and remove critics, troublemakers who didn't follow orders, or anyone who stepped out of line.

Trungpa had plans to "conquer" Nova Scotia, Canada where he had purchased remote and isolated land. "In order to rule even small provinces like Nova Scotia we need all of you as government personnel," he told his followers. "You all will have your spot in our kingdom. In order to run our country, more people besides you will be invited." He also spoke of it as an invasion. "Infiltrating peoples’ minds and their businesses and their real estate, their economy, and their government is very dangerous. We should all share the danger that exists there, as well. From a practical point of view, as long as we are prepared, we can do it."

"Altogether, the rest of the world could be influenced, affected, by the vision and power of Shambhala – economically, socially, educationally, scientifically," Trungpa proclaimed. "Such a situation could take place. You yourselves will be the pioneers who will work and influence. Conquering comes first, which shouldn’t be problematic but it might be so."

Given Trungpa's talk of the coming dark age, proclaiming to be a savior and his erratic behavior, it's plausible Nova Scotia could have been a doomsday-exit scenario had Trunpga not died.

Devoted to a Madman

"He said to me, 'I'm on the verge of becoming enlightened and when people get to this point they either go crazy or they attain realization." - Diana Mukpo

"He didn't hide the drinking or his sexuality," Pema Chodron says in the documentary Crazy Wisdom about her long-term guru Chogyam Trungpa. "There have been so many teachers who have been brought down by what's called sexual misconduct but that's not what caused them to come down, it's that the students felt deceived and lied to."

Chodron's claim is shattered by the next scene in the documentary, however. It cuts to Trungpa's first wife Diana. "The first time he slept with somebody after I married him I was completely freaked out," she says. "I sat on the floor of the bathroom and just cried all night. The next day I told him that I was completely destroyed and that I couldn't believe that he just married me and now maybe I had to divorce him because he was sleeping around."

The back-to-back placement of these segments brilliantly exposes the myth of Chogyam Trungpa's openness. He "deceived and lied to" his wife and it caused tremendous pain and suffering. There was no pretense of him having multiple sexual partners when they married. Ironically, it was the devastation caused by her husband cheating on her that led Chodron to find Trungpa and take him as a teacher.

By glowingly saying Trungpa "didn't hide the drinking or his sexuality," and that the real problem was a guru's deception of students, she tacitly endorses the guru-student sexual relationship. It's fine for a spiritual teacher have sex with many of his students as long as he's public about it. It's fine for a guru to be an out-of-control alcoholic as long as he's public about it. "It isn’t really the sex or even the teachers that are the problem," Chodron said. "It’s the duplicity, because it’s so hard to handle lies. It’s important to create a situation where people aren’t lying."

Trungpa started dating his first wife when she was 15 and he was 30. Diana had read his book Born in Tibet and began attending his lectures in England. "Over the course of the following year [Diana] snuck out of her boarding school to spend weekends with Trungpa," says Alexander Gardner. "She recalled that the two had sex for the first time in October 1969, shortly after she turned sixteen, the legal age of consent in Britain." The relationship led to scandalous news headlines and they fled to America.

"Her mother, on learning that Diana had married a Tibetan guru nearly twice her age, fainted," reported The Guardian. She also hired private investigators to keep an eye on him.

The story Trungpa sold to an impressionable teenager was that she was the "one" he had fallen in love with. Instead, she was the first to be inducted into what became a military-themed Buddhist sex cult.

https://www.gurumag.com/pema-chodron-shambhala-cult/