[Gem]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

Ah my bad lol.

Yea I am sure there are a lot of good religious or spiritual organizations. No reason to focus on the bad ones really unless somebody brings them up. And even in bad ones it's a mix of good and bad people.

Even in the best organisations one still has to take the good with the bad, but if the structure is founded on the right ideology such as sila, dana and metta, that's OK, but it doesnpt solve everything. My organisation is involved in deep healing practice without proper psychological training, and I have seen attendees go off the deep end more that once. Hence, I say it is a very good school, but there are risks which I don't think are adequately mitigated according to a high standard of duty of care.

This one place I lived we were not allowed televisions or internet or cell phones so not much to do in those categories. But then I was staying in a higher up's house and they were gone a lot. Well they had a pile of recordings of the meetings they (the robe wearing teachers) had with the "master" sitting in the living room. So with nothing to do one day I listened to them. Yea was an eye opener lol. They seriously discussed how to get more money out of some rich members. How to butter them up and get them to donate more. How to make them feel important. I learned a lot there about human behaviors. People join religious groups for so many different reasons. The reality is many in these groups don't care about the morality of the master at all. They are there for their own selfish reasons. For the peaceful lifestyle, for the community. For being close to nature etc. For not having a real 9 to 5 job. To be away from the big cities. So they find out about what the master is doing which is wrong, and they just shrug their shoulders, not my concern is their view. And that's true in a way. But then untrue in another way.

We don't pay anyone at our organisation... we receive donations to run the school which is there to teach dhamma to as many people as possible, but our system is such that people can only make donations to pay for the meditators that will come after them, so they effectively pay for future people's retreats. We don't pay the trustees or teachers anything, and they wouldn't accept renumeration or reward if it were offered... this is because of the dana ideology: to give expecting nothing in return. Hencewhy there is no way to pay for your retreats at our school. Your retreat has already been provided for by someone else, so if you donate, you can only pay for someone else - that keeps the principle of dana. Having that sort of mentality, we wouldn't try to get more donations out of our wealthy patrons. And certainly not make them feel important, since that entirely goes against the purpose of what we are there to do.

But then some do leave, some stay, when a bad guru is exposed. Up to the individual. So many factors involved. Some are so financially invested in a community or dependent on them they can't leave. Like to have your children there as well. Your source of income and support. Leave and you lose your whole family and way to support yourself.

We don't pay anyone and our rules are very strict, we segregate sexes and don't allow children; practice celibacy and prohibit physical contact... we don't really have an issue of people wanting to live there permanantly... it's really a very difficult place to live.