The Buddhist spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Saturday while meeting four victims of sexual abuse by their Buddhist teachers in Netherlands explained he had been informed of some Buddhist teachers abusing their students sexually since more than twenty years back and he has denounced such religious teachers.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama arrived in the city of Rotterdam for a 4 day visit to the country during his 4 nation tour of Europe. A dozen of victims of sexual abuse by Buddhist teachers had petitioned to meet His Holiness in the city to inform him of their distress. “We found refuge in Buddhism with an open mind and heart, until we were raped in its name,” the victims wrote in the petition.
The Tibetan spiritual leader explained the problem is not a new thing and he has been informed about it before 25 years ago. “I already did know these things, nothing new,” the Dalai Lama said in response on Dutch public television NOS late Saturday.
“Twenty-five years ago… someone mentioned about a problem of sexual allegations” at a conference for western Buddhist teachers in Dharamshala, a hill town in northern India, he added. The Dalai Lama, 83, lives in exile in Dharamshala. People who commit sexual abuse “don’t care about the Buddha’s teaching. So now that everything has been made public, people may concern about their shame,” he said, speaking in English according to the report in The International News on Monday.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been preaching his followers to become scientific Buddhists by analyzing and testing the teachings of their religious teachers and not follow them blindly. It has long been clear and according His Holiness’s representative, Tseten Samdup Chhoekyapa, His Holiness the Dalai Lama “has consistently denounced such irresponsible and unethical behaviour”.
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