Buddhism is often seen as the acceptable face of religion, lacking a celestial dictator and full of Eastern wisdom. On paper, Buddhism looks pretty satisfactory. It has a philosophical subtlety married to a stated devotion to tolerance that makes it stand out amongst the world religions as uniquely not awful. In the light of recent events we have been able to sense that something is a bit depressing about Buddhism, but nothing more sinister than that. But if we start looking a bit closer, at the ramifications of Buddhist belief in practice, there is a lurking darkness there, quietly stated and eloquently crafted, but every bit as profound as the Hellfires of Christianity or the rhetoric of jihad. This is not about the personal feelings or beliefs of the people but the institutions which are becoming very corrupt.. It seemed like it was all good to throw mud on the three dominant religions of the world, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam that’s usually what gets all the flack but when you start to talk about anything negative related to what’s going on with these Dalai Lamas and what’s going on in Tibet for real with Human Trafficking, with rampant pedophilia and all kinds of other issues going on in these religious centers just like those of the other religions there’s this weird cognitive dissonance where people don’t want to hear about it and they’d make the same assumption like “You’re attacking the actual belief system”.

After thorough research, it was figured out that the original Buddhism has been altered slightly over the years by different priests, by different groups, and just like all religions there are different sects now that are competing with each other for who has the right interpretation of this stu. Certain things were found out from the insiders, people who have been part of this religious system for over the years, one such person is the author of the book “Enthralled: The Guru Cult of Tibetan Buddhism” Christine Chandler. Christine worked in Tibet in the monasteries under some of the Rinpochets and the different Lamas, she was deep within the system an administrator on their behalf, and was even in charge of taking care of some of the affairs going on there. Chandler’s book is an absolute mind-blowing testimony of somebody who lived there for 30 Years and saw things firsthand, when she started to point out the connections that people like Dalai Lama specifically have with the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, the United Nations, etc she started framing questions. Everything has a good side and a bad one to it. At times questions have been raised about the Buddhist religion as being a sexist religion. Many instances have proved so as well. This can be seen in the behavior of Gautam Buddha himself. We have read many articles and historic texts that Buddha himself was reluctant to take women as nuns. He was afraid of the various consequences that would arise if women were enrolled. Buddhist literature contains a wide range of views of women, from extreme misogynist attitudes to religious ideals of nondiscrimination and universal salvation. Buddhism is a male-created institution dominated by a patriarchal power structure, and as a result, the feminine is often associated with the secular, profane, powerless, and imperfect. According to those texts, being born into a woman’s body is the result of bad karma and women should aspire to birth as a man. Many testimonies of these young girls are coming up, cases in which they are being asked to have sex with their priests regularly for “Spiritual Enlightenment”.

An article was published by Charles Haviland- BBC Colombo, which explains The principle of non-violence is central to Buddhist teachings, but in Sri Lanka, some Buddhist monks are being accused of stirring up hostility towards other faiths and ethnic minorities. Their hard line is causing increasing concern. People like to ignore the bad stuff and focus on the good. Still, people like Christine Chandler realized that you need to talk about the negatives to understand the roots and causes behind the corruption of the Buddhist belief system. There are other testimonials of people on online platforms such, as people who have experienced abuse, Sexual abuse, and Ritual abuse when in the presence of a lot of these priests and different Buddhists. People might find flaws in Christian thinking, Hindu thinking, and many religions but who are we to judge it’s just an opinion but when you look at what’s going on within the institution it’s not acting in accord with its doctrine of universal compassion and love for all living things and humans are just gardeners and caretakers of the planet and every action has a certain amount of karma attached to it so your action in this life echoes throughout all of your lives because they definitely believe in reincarnation but again it make you wonder that “then why are people in your cult acting in such a criminal fashion?”

Author: Khushi Dhital