Buddhist center in Eugene sued over rape accusation against master guru (Oregon Public Broadcasting)
A Buddhist center in Eugene is at the heart of a lawsuit filed earlier this year, accusing the facility’s master guru of raping and impregnating one of its members in 2013.
Extract:
A Buddhist center in Eugene is at the heart of a lawsuit filed earlier this year, accusing the facility’s master guru of raping and impregnating one of its members in 2013.
Rachel Montgomery filed the lawsuit in Multnomah County Circuit Court. It says she was 19 when she joined the Dzogchen Buddhist Dharma Center along with a friend in the summer of 2011. Master guru Choying Rabjam — known as Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche, or Choga — immediately took an interest in her, she says in the lawsuit, giving her special treatment and providing acts of enlightenment for which most other followers had to pay.
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Montgomery’s attorney, Carol Merchasin of the London-based law firm McAllister Olivarius, specializes in cases involving sexual misconduct in religious and spiritual communities. She said Montgomery’s suit reflects a broader trend in Buddhist communities that deserves higher scrutiny.
“These things are never isolated instances,” Merchasin said. “This is a pattern, this is a practice, this is something that’s being sold as some kind of spiritual opportunity, but it’s fraud and sexual exploitation.”
Merchasin said the power dynamics within these communities — in which followers treat a leader as an all-powerful, all-knowing, invincible master — makes them susceptible to sexual assault, particularly when followers become socially and economically dependent on the congregation.