Twenty years ago, when there was

quite a bit of troubling public news

concerning dangerous cults among
spiritual groups, I co-authored a
white paper called "Spiritual
Responsibility" with my Boston
neighbour, cult deprogramming
expert Steve Hassan. At that time
the guru Bhagwan Rajneesh was
deported from this country, and
Scientology was banned in Germany,
etc.

Aum Shinrikyo, the purportedly
Buddhist group in Japan, which
spread poison sarin gas in Tokyo
subways, was under intense criminal
investigation and eventually found
its leaders in prison.

Now people are asking about the Diamond Mountain University incident in the
Arizona desert. (NY Times, June 11, 2012) Having spent a significant amount of my life
training in silent Buddhist meditation retreats, I have seen that, aside from the
undeniable benefits of such rigorous contemplative and monastic practice disciplines,
isolation and extended silence can for some also have dangerous repercussions. This
may be the case for the insular spiritual group founder, Geshe Michael Roach, and his
devoted followers.


This scandal is very troubling as well as troublesome, and raises a lot of questions
about spiritual centers and accountability. Michael's group is not the only one whose
retreats might look, to the outside viewer, like a mere refugee camp, trailer camp,
barracks or prison. Traditional long intensive practice retreats and monastic training
rules of reasonable efficacy are well known to sometimes take unprepared people
over the edge; practices including long-term silence, fasting, celibacy, sleep
deprivation, restricted outside contact, secret teachings, proscribed readings, etc.


All these can lend an aura of cultic activity to a fairly harmless group such as any
ordinary short-term yoga retreat or prayer enclave, things that we ourselves may be
engaged in without remaining very conscious of or vigilant regarding potential dangers
and downsides.
Having experienced these austere conditions and austerities myself for lengthy
periods of time, including several years on end, I know that these things are effective
and can be appropriate; it's all a matter of degree, intensity, intention, management
and coordination, to be balanced and rounded out with various healthy and nurturing
mitigating factors for purposes of group well-being and inner individual flourishment.

Unfortunately, unstable personalities who are subjected to such conditions are
especially vulnerable; I've found it useful to thoroughly screen and prepare potential
trainees who wish to participate, including observing individuals over a period of time
and assuring that they complete shorter intensive retreats before becoming overly
involved in long-term retreats in often marginal conditions.

It is worth pointing out that experienced cult experts make a significant distinction
between generally harmless cults (the die-hard Boston Red Sox fans or the Yale Skull
and Bones Secret Society) and dangerous cults (David Koresh's Waco group, and Jim
Jones' Jonestown fanatics), and point out that all cults are not created equal nor are
equally harmful.

There is not much professional oversight or organizational hierarchy in the
Buddhist tradition, although every authorized and qualified teacher answers
to their own teacher and their own lineage tradition to a certain extent and
traditional monasteries in the Old World had their own systems of checks and
balances, including communal monthly rituals and acknowledgements of
wrongdoing.

This has been the case for over twenty-five hundred years, since the time of the
Enlightened Buddha. Eastern disciplines like Buddhism are fairly new in this modern
world and our Western culture; we each have to rely on our critical judgment,
kindred spirits, elders and the study of other traditional sources of knowledge in
order to make intelligent decisions.

"As a simple Buddhist monk" and not as a pope-like figure, the Dalai Lama himself
has spoken out on many occasions "against ethical lapses, exploitation, abuse and
corruption among spiritual teachers." He believes that "we should be Twenty First
Century Buddhists, socially engaged and open to science and psychology and other
religions, developing critical thinking through modern education." He has exhorted
us to be vigilant and discerning, self-critical as well as tolerant -- supporting each
other in spiritual friendship, collegiality and community -- for the sake of advancing a
balanced and harmonious, wise, altruistic, and actively engaged compassionate path
of enlightenment, of genuine benefit to the entire world.

An old Tibetan saying goes like this: "Don't spy out the flea in another's hair while
overlooking the yak on one's own nose.

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