Interview with Dr. Ann Gleig, author of the book “American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity”. In the interview she was asked her observation on how the Shambhala organization responded to the sexual abuse accusations against Shambhala leader Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. Dr. Ann Gleig responded: “To be honest, I don’t think Shambhala as an organization has responded adequately to their long history of sexual misconduct and abuse. From the reports that I’ve read, senior members and teachers of Shambhala appear to have stalled, minimized, and deflected these accusations. So we have to wait and see whether they will bring in more psychological work.
But one place we do see the therapeutic/psychological response is Buddhist Project Sunshine [a series of three independent reports released in 2018 detailing anonymous survivor stories]. The founder, Andrea Winn, talks about drawing on her clinical therapeutic training, and you can certainly see a therapeutic component to her project: she talks about projections and building emotional safety and resilience. And like the Zen examples I explore in the book, she articulates this within a wider Buddhist framework—she sees the project as a kind of expression of a neglected feminine principle in Buddhism.”