The long and the short of it

I think it only right I begin this journey by telling you about my own.

I was raised by two non religious parents yet I myself have always been drawn to religion, I went with my ageing Nan to the Salvation Army when I was just a small child, and what the hall lacked in warmth and appeal was more than made up for by the lovely,kind people who attended. I loved the lively music, the excitment of the other visitors and me at just 9 years being allowed to bang my ribbon adorned tamboreen until the sun went down. I  completly understood why my Nan attended, this was a far cry from the local church I started visiting when I was 13 years old. It was Cof E and it's attendees were as damp and cold as the building it's surmon's were held in. I went I suppose because I was desperate for some hope, some explanation for all the pain in my young life.  At 14 I was confirmed, I wanted answers and the only way I could see to get them was to confirm and have bible lessons,then, I thought I'll find out all the secrets, I'll be free to ask whatever I like but also I was so in love with Jesus I wanted to make a commitment to him.

After my confirmation on the day of my first Bible class, I wasted little time before asking the long list of questions that had weighed down on my young fragile mind, I saw so many contridictions in the bible, the old and new testament just didn't seem to work together and to be honest I felt that anything before Jesus was a waste of time.I also failed to understand why I suffered so much, the original sin idea felt cold and cruel. My hopes were dashed as to every question asked came the same steely response,"You must have faith Fiona" basically I thought after an hour of this,"You don't have a clue" On the way home I pondered how can a man in his 50's who has devoted his life to the church and God still have no answers, after that day I never went to church again. 

I lost hope for a long time and drink and drugs took the place of any deity I could kneel or pray to. I still though had a searching mind and I read a lot of spiritual books, anything from the celestine prophecy to wicca for beginners. I was open to all yet shut to so much. It was a strange thing though, through out my teenage years and into my twenties people kept giving me Buddha's, pictures,statues,cards you name it, I never got why. I had a brief encounter with the Sokkai Gaka in my late teens but it never sat well with me, apart from that I had never shown an interest. During my first marriage my husband one day brought me a book by the Dalai Lama,'The art of happiness' it was the first Buddhist book I ever read and it really hit me, it was so beautiful, full of hope and kindness, I loved it. Up to that point I felt like a dark,hopeless person with little to give the world, this book was the opposite to how I viewed myself and the world in which I lived.

About 2 years later my marriage ended and the first thing I did once I had found a new home was to find a Tibetan Buddhist group in my area, I knew nothing about it I just knew the Dalai Lama was Tibetan and a Buddhist, that is when I stumbled across the NKT(New Kadampa Tradition). I found out they held meditation classes in my town and so at the first oppotunity I went to one.

I was greeted by a red haired women who was all smiles and kindness, her teaching was on how everyone was our kind mother,it was so inspiring to me after a painful divorce and a life of so much unhappiness and insecurity I was wide open for something good in my life. I went home that night with a book by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso who I was told was a meditation master from Tibet, no one at the group mentioned the Dalai Lama and I was too embarrassed to ask. 

I read the book which was so clear to understand and felt like something quite special, I continued to go to classes for a year until I decided I needed more and I moved to Bristol so I could move into one of the Traditions centre's.    I loved it there, I lived in a house with 21 other people, all from very different walks of life, I had gone from quite a lonely existance to suddenly belonging to a family even though it was obvious from day one it was alittle disfunctional it still felt loving and good. I was unwell when I first moved in but everyone was so kind to me, doing my washing and shopping and being so helpful. That first year in the house was one of the best of my life and I can still say that today even after everything that has happened. I lived in a mansion, in a beautiful area, surrounded by lots of friends it felt good. I was a lost little girl desperate to belong and there I did. I so fell in love after just a year I got ordained into the tradition and became Kelsang Drime. It was shortly after this that things began to change, firstly we moved to a new building as the house we occupied was being sold and we couldn't afford the price to buy. So we downsized and many people decided not to move with us. Our new house was much smaller and now we only had 15 residents including our teacher a male Monk. I became assistant Admin Director too and was teaching, infact I was teaching before I even got ordained after less than a year in the centre, this was a shock to me and now when I look back realise it was crazy but I was very low on self esteem and to be asked to teach by my teacher whom I was so in awe of was too big an honour to refuse,plus we were told it wasn't experience that mattered we just had to have read the book first.

In the new centre the smaller number of people ment a lot more work for us and the pressure mounted especially as some worked more than other's, I then started to get sick again, I had been diagnosed with Chrones Disease and it became a real problem for me, I was plagued by pain in my stomach and joints,tiredness,diarreah and vomitting yet I still worked, no one suggest I didn't and sickness was treated as a problem with your mind rather than your body. I would still go out to teach, sometimes I would be in so much pain it was hard to get through and now I don't know how I did it, I must have been mad.I recall one day when I was so ill I got half way to my university class that I taught that I had to phone one of my students and ask him to pick me up and drive me to the class, he tried to persuade me to go back to the centre and not teach that night but my teacher had no sympathy at all for sickness and when previously I had tried to not teach because I felt ill he not very subtly suggested I was being selfish. My resident teacher made it pretty clear that he had no time or sympathy for sick people so I pushed on. Then came one hospital admission after another, I lost alot of weight and became very depressed. I even got hooked on pain killers.I became very depressed but I hid this as best I could, all that ever seemed to matter was spreading the teachings how exhausted we all got doing this was irelivant and I saw much sicker people than myself work just as hard. Then the centre was due to move again, we had this time found a place to buy instead of just rent, it was a large place but needed alot of work to make it a suitable Dharma centre. Of course I was ill at the time so I did paper work instead of going to the other building to help. Then one day as I sat at my desk and just before everyone was due to drive to the other building to start on a day of painting etc my teacher came up to me and said,'isn't it time you helped your well enough now' I was a little better but I was still very weak and tired but as he asked me directly I felt I couldn't say no so I went and started painting with the other's. I was in pain,I was so tired it was hard to stand up I did 2 hours and then couldn't do any more so I got a friend to take me home to the other centre, when I got there I went to my room and cried, I felt so unloved and uncared for, I felt I was letting everyone down. This was not the first or the last time I was made to feel bad for being sick. One day my teacher told me if I jogged I would be ok, another day he acused me of acting. This hurt me so much, this was someone I looked up to and I felt belittled by him.          Then came the protests, one day we were told that we(the NKT) were being asked by Geshe-la to go on protests against the Dalai Lama because he had banned Dorje Shugden practise. Since entering the NKT I never heard anyone mention the Dalai Lama and most of us never read any books but Geshe-la's as it was discouraged so all of this was a surprise to us. I by now was so in the grip of Geshe-la that I had completly forgotten it was the Dala Lama's book that had inspired me to find a Buddhist Tradition. I also before coming to the NKT knew nothing about Tibetan Buddhism I just did what I was told to do, I thought what I was told to think. When I heard about the protests and why we were doing it, it all seemed so unreal, I could hardly believe it, the Dalai Lama doing something wrong but by now I was so brainwashed by GKG that I just took it all on face value so off I went around the country even to Germany to shout Liar at the man who had led me to Dharma in the first place but the irony didn't even enter my mind at the time that's how brain dead I had become.

I did spend a lot of the protests skiving with my friends who were slight rebels and mainly drank coffee rather than shouting, maybe somewhere in my deep conciousness I knew what we were doing was insane, I mean he's a nobel peace prize winner, what the heck were we doing!Even if the Dalai Lama's actions were wrong, Buddhists disturbing other's mind's, I never even asked myself how I would feel if people shouted at my spiritual guide while he was teaching me. I now feel so ashamed of my actions back then.

Not long after the protests doubts began to fill my mind, I was so unhappy it was unbearable, I was sick,tired,full of guilt and at this time I started to look around me at the others in the centre. I guess the vaneer had sullied because suddenly I saw a lot of sick,mentally unwell people desperately trying to appear happy. Infact the NKT seemed full of sick monks and Nuns and damaged lay people. The happiness we were selling wasn't there, noone I knew was any happier than the average person on the street yet the teachings we were given about how our path was the best, only and right path made us look at those outside NKT with a sort of sickly pity a million miles from the empathy Buddha teaches. I started to realise most of us seemed devoid of real emotion, we had become like logical robots but many including myself seemed unable to relate to how people outside the NKT felt.

So I disrobed and moved to Cornwall for a year,it was one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do,I was leaving my family behind, but it was this act that really started to open my eyes to the issues around the NKT. After just a few months back in the outside world I realised I found it so hard to relate to people, I never knew what to talk about, no one spoke NKT language, I felt so lost and alone a lot of my NKT friends were told not to contact me, doubt is seen as a disease in NKT world that must be avoided, not looked at or dicussed but just treated like an incurable disease that will make your arm fall off.I'm glad to say some friends ignored the advise and still called me but I think this is because I still had faith In the NKT at that point, I spoke to no one about my real doubts and feelings.   I went from a packed life full of friends to nothing over night and the lonliness was the worst of my life.  It was during this time I started to notice how difficult it was for me to relate and bond with other's, even old friends I had long before the NKT, I thought about the people I knew in the centre, especially the one's who had been living in a centre for year's and I realised most if not all of them were unwell in one way or another. Those with physical sickness worked themselves to near death, many had mental issues that were not addressed, other's seemed to suffer from crippling low self esteem, yet here we all were telling other's how to be happy, it was a joke. 

After a year I came back to Bristol, found a place to live and started going to my centre again,(after disrobing in the NKT you are banned from all NKT centres and classes for a year, this is so isolating)  I just wanted to be part of my family again but it was never the same again,I guess it just couldn't be.

It wasn't long till I met someone, this person turned my life around and we quickly got married and had a child, my husband was not at all involved in the NKT and for this I will be ever grateful.It was my husband who helped me to see how strange things were within the NKT,he noticed the difference between how some acted in the centre and how they did outside,part of the ethos especially for teachers is to hide your faults from others this can put a tremendous strain on people a pressure to act very differently from who you are I believe this harmed many and put their position as a teacher in question.In the NKT everything is taken to the extreme and so many take the teachings completly literally without the adition of their own wisdom, this mean's common sense is sacrificed on the altar of purity.  Over the years in the NKT I saw a lot of people lose it and for some it was the amount of work, for others it was the strain of having to pretend to be something they were not. There was very little acceptance of ourselves in NKT world no self respect, self love, no mindfulness teachings which are based in learning to observe your mind without judgement. Infact there was so much in the NKT that reminded me of old testament teachings. So little joy, so much matrydom. I was slowly with the help of my husband trying to pull away but it was hard for me to drop my faith in Geshe-la, I felt all the issues were simply with the way people practised not with him, I guess I really wanted to see him as pure, some thing to hold on to. I can not I am sad to say give you all of the details of what happened next as it affected some friends of mine and they wish to stay silent on the matter but enough evidence was presented to me of the dubious nature of Kelsang Gyatso and the lengths he will go to in order to protect his empire. 

I had over the year's heard many stories similar to this but I had never personally known the people involved and as in this case I did I was convinced that whatever good intention Kelsang Gyatso began with he had devinately lost it along the way.

I now knew that all that mattered to Kelsang Gyatso was furthering his empire, the people within it didn't mean anything, once you left or became no longer useful you were thrown to the wolves, is this the way a kind benevolant Buddha behaves?

 Since then I have heard so many stories, read alot of different ex nkters accounts and collected alot of history of Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and Dorje Shugden to know I wouldn't touch the NKT with some else's barge pole.  Since leaving I have lost friends, I have lost a family but I have gained so much. Now I listen to my instincts I don't ignore them as you are trained to in the NKT, I trust my heart, I listen to other's no matter what their faith or lack of it. I am finally learning to be human again and my son has helped me so much with that. In the NKT I lost myself, I lost my self esteem,my self worth and most importantly my self love, now I am learning to question again, learning to search again and learning to follow what I believe Buddha's real intention was my own inner Guru. Finally would I ever tell people not to go near the NKT?       For me is a hard one to answer, my first year in NKT was an amazing experience,I met some amazing people, travelled around the world for festivals,and a scared, angry little girl found a safe place to hide for a while. What I did not find was a place to change, to grow , to develop or even to get to know myself all the things I believe are vital to the spiritual path. So if someone asked me whether they should go to an NKT meditation class I would probably say no, I would like to say, sure go, listen but don't get sucked in too deep, don't stop asking questions, don't move into a centre and don't stop trusting yourself, the thing is if I said all that and they went to a GP and they met the smiley friendly teacher who never pressurizes them, and they read the books that are clear and make sense, then they will remember my warning and they will shrug their shoulders and think I'm a crack pot. You have to have gotten deep into the NKT to really appreciate  what I've said and then you have to have gotten out to believe it.The trouble is by the time you see the faults of this organisation it can be far too late. So for the sake of not wanting them to end up hurt like me I would have to say no even if I didn't want to.

I do not believe Geshe Kelsang has done anything to adapt his teachings to western psychology, he has just put them in our language but fundamentely they are the same teachings he received when he was 8 years old. Instead of teaching us to get to know our mind which I believe was Buddha's main intention GKG has just handed out a list of good qualities to try and smear over the western psychological mess that is already there. 

Is the NKT an evil cult? I don't know. The man at the top I believe has gone mad and the others either haven't noticed or choose not to see it. There are alot of kind well meaning people in the NKT, many have good intentions but most of these people are so completly brain washed they  will do what ever Geshe-la asks of them. They don't know they've been brain washed it wasn't until I got out that I noticed the teenager who questioned her vicar to death about the holes she saw in the bible, the 20 year old who had a million questions and was so cynical about the world yet hopeful there was something better she had been killed and replaced with someone who had one view and she never questioned it and she never gave the time of day to anyone who had a different view. I lost so much of myself in the NKT but without that journey I don't think I would be where I am now, in a place where I will always trust my instincts, will always be open to myself but most importantly I will always be open to others now too. The purpose of this website is not to harm other's or start a one women campaign against an evil cult because I'm not even convinced that is what the NKT is, unhealthy devinately, mixed up and polluted for sure but evil I don't know. I simply want to be able to talk through the experiences I have had and to share the one's to come with like minded people. I am very aware now how hard this will be, so many other's who have been hurt are choosing silence, I understand why and I don't blame them, most just want to move on with their lives after a bad experience, for me keeping my mouth shut has never been my strong point. Other's silence does make me feel rather alone in this and at times like I am just a bitter ex unable to let go. But now I know for sure my instincts were right, now I know the pain and suffering the wrong path can cause I have to at least speak out to act as some kind of warning or at least information point for others who may be now where I was 6 years ago or who may just be pondering that new meditation class. To me the more information that is out there the more well informed a choice someone can make, and although supporters of the NKT will say mine is just one view point, there are a lot of people like me out there who have shared a similar experience, this can not be said for the majority of Tibetan Buddhist Traditions. For me the old addage stands true. There's rarely this much smoke without a little fire.

If any of you out there have had any similar experiences to me I'd love to hear about them. Please share here you will never be judged.