Attorney general Suella Braverman belongs to controversial Buddhist sect

Founder of the Triratna order was accused of sex abuse; victim has spoken out about cabinet minister’s new role

Jamie Doward
The Guardian
February 15, 2020

The new attorney general is a member of a controversial religious sect which continues to venerate its founder despite well-documented claims that he was a serial sexual predator, the Observer can reveal.

Suella Braverman is a mitra – Sanskrit for “friend” – within the Triratna order, one of Buddhism’s largest sects, which has been rocked by claims of sexual misconduct, abuse and inappropriate behaviour.

Her appointment to succeed Geoffrey Cox was one of the biggest surprises in a dramatic cabinet reshuffle on Thursday, in which Sajid Javid resigned as chancellor.

Braverman declined to comment on her links with the order last night, but she is understood to attend the London Buddhist Centre, one of Triratna’s main hubs, once or twice a month.

Last week, one of its senior members, who goes by the Buddhist name Vishvapani, expressed his delight at Braverman’s appointment in a Facebook post above a prominent picture of the order’s late founder, Dennis Lingwood. The post was subsequently deleted.

Braverman’s position within the sect is likely to raise questions about her personal beliefs and whether this could affect her judgment as the government’s senior legal expert.

“The new attorney general must surely be aware of the long-standing allegations against the organisation,” said Mark Dunlop, a former follower, who said he had felt compelled to have sex with Lingwood over a four-year period.

Lingwood’s abuse of his position down the years has been well documented, with many male followers saying they were coerced into having sex with him. But the Triratna community continues to promote his teachings and life. Its websites feature many photographs of Lingwood and his writings and stress his centrality to Triratna. Lingwood, who took the Buddhist name Sangharakshita and died in 2018 aged 93, presided over a sexually licentious culture that influenced others in the sect.

Last year, the Observer published the findings of a report produced by nine members, who call themselves the Interkula, which found that of 423 Triratna followers who responded, 13%, said that either they, or someone they knew, had “experienced sexual misconduct by either Sangharakshita or other Triratna order members, in past and recent times”.

The report, which acknowledges that “some good progress” had been made in responding to the misconduct, states: “While many respondents described misconduct between a more experienced male OM [order member] and less experienced male mitra, as has been described many times in the past, other types of misconduct were also reported, including male order members becoming sexually involved with very vulnerable women … and inappropriate behaviour by a female order member.”

An order member of more than 15 years’ standing was quoted in the report as saying: “I know of several cases and the details are awful. They include alleged intervention on the part of one of the most high-profile OMs to try and encourage a victim not to testify to the police if questioned.”

The Buddhist Centre website, which promotes the Triratna community, acknowledges: “There has been controversy surrounding the past sexual activity of our founder, Urgyen Sangharakshita, and others”.

It observes: “Sangharakshita himself later made a statement of apology about his own past, endorsed by the Triratna college of public preceptors.”

In December 2016, Lingwood said: “I did not act in accordance with what my position in the movement demanded or even as a true Buddhist. I am thinking in particular of the times when I have hurt, harmed or upset fellow Buddhists, whether within Triratna or out of it.”

A spokeswoman for Triratna, who goes by the Buddhist name of Munisha, said: “I would like to make clear that Sangharakshita has never been accused, charged or convicted of any crime. In order to be quite sure of this, as Triratna’s overall safeguarding officer, I myself have discussed with the police his sexual relations, and they told me nothing they have ever been told was criminal.”

Braverman has also sparked controversy in legal circles. She has called for the UK to “take back control, not just from the EU but from the judiciary”, challenged the Human Rights Act, and complained that “judicial review has exploded since the 1960s”.

Simon Davis, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, said: “The role of the judges is to give effect to the will of parliament, and the role of judicial review is to support parliament, not to undermine it.

“The article 50 and prorogation supreme court judgments were good examples of judicial support for parliamentary democracy. An independent judiciary is fundamental to the rule of law and underpins the UK’s reputation for fairness and impartiality.”

Amanda Pinto QC, chair of the Bar Council, said: “The independence of our judges is fundamental to ensuring the rule of law remains the foundation of our justice system. No one is above the law.

“The Bar Council expects the government to uphold the rule of law in this country. Both the attorney general and the lord chancellor have important roles in guaranteeing those principles are upheld.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/15/new-attorney-general-suella-braverman-in-controversial-buddhist-sect

Fears mount over scale of Buddhist sect sexual abuse

‘Deep regret’: Dennis Lingwood, now frail at 91,
 is the founder of the Triratna order. Photograph: Vimeo

Followers allege they were coerced into sex in 1970s and 80s with elders of UK’s Triratna order

Jamie Doward
The Guardian
February 19,, 2017

One of the UK’s largest Buddhist orders has been forced to report allegations of sexual abuse after a former follower claimed he was coerced into sex with one of its elders. In a separate development, the group’s founder has apologised for having relationships with its members – some of which, he has previously acknowledged, may have been against their will.

Triratna, which has tens of thousands of followers, is battling to protect its reputation, both in the worldwide Buddhist community and among its own members who are questioning the extent to which the coercion was perpetrated and how long it continued.

Founded by Dennis Lingwood in the 1960s, the sect, formerly known as the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO), is a wealthy community with 30 retreats in the UK and a further 20 in countries including Australia, the US, Germany and Mexico. In the 1980s its Croydon centre was closed down amid newspaper reports that its members were being manipulated.

Now its troubled history has resurfaced after Lingwood, 91, known by his Buddhist name, Sangharakshita, made a shock confession late last year. After being treated in hospital for pneumonia, Lingwood issued a statement expressing “deep regret for all the occasions on which I have hurt, harmed or upset fellow Buddhists, and ask for their forgiveness.”

His decision to speak out followed discussion on social media from past and present members who expressed concerns about the culture he had promoted within the order. Last month a former follower alleged that he had been groomed for sex by another senior member of the order at the Croydon centre in the 80s when he was just 16, and therefore a minor in the eyes of the law at the time.

In a statement on its website, the community said: “As part of our commitment to safeguarding the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, Triratna’s safeguarding officer has reported the matter to social services in south London, in accordance with formal safeguarding requirements in the UK. Where required, we ask members of the Order to co-operate fully with any investigation, should that take place.”

Lingwood encouraged his heterosexual male followers to experiment with homosexuality as a form of self development. A former member, Mark Dunlop, told the BBC last autumn he had been persuaded to engage in sexual activity with Lingwood at an FWBO retreat near Norwich in the 1970s. “I told him I hated it. He said, well, you need to keep persevering, you mustn’t give up.”

“He [Lingwood] thought that it might be a good thing for them to get over their fixed self-view, and one of the things they might try doing [to achieve this] is having sex with other men,” explained Triratna’s safeguarding officer, who goes by the single Buddhist name of Munisha.

A document produced by the order suggesting that relationships between students and teachers could be beneficial was until recently still available online. “We took it out of public circulation, not as a way of covering it up but because we agreed it was unsuitable,” Munisha explained. “In the early days, in the context of the 1970s, it was all very weird. He did for a while explore ideas based on Greek ideas of relationships between younger and older men. But I’ve been around since ’91, and I’ve not heard a tracing of that teaching, and we would not permit that now.”

In an interview with a Buddhist follower in 2009, Lingwood said of the sex between him and students: “Perhaps in a very few cases they were not as willing as I had supposed at the time – that is possible.” When pressed about whether he considered he had breached the student-teacher relationship, Lingwood said: “I did not regard myself as a teacher with a capital T.” He added: “I have had many, many human encounters, the great majority non-sexual, and most of those encounters, including the sexual ones, have been satisfactory for both parties. If there were any encounters that were not satisfactory for the other person, whether at the time or in retrospect, then that is a pity and I am truly sorry that that should be the case.”

Triratna’s College of Preceptors, its leadership body, has issued a statement in response to Lingwood’s apology. “Consideration of some aspects of Bhante’s [Lingwood’s] past has been difficult for some of us in the College, as it has been for many of our brothers and sisters in the Order and others associated with our community. Bhante is the founder of our Order and Movement, and we feel enormous appreciation and gratitude to him for his teachings and inspiration – and yet at the same time we must acknowledge the effects of some of his past actions.”

Munisha said: “Everybody knows he’s had sexual relationships with some of the people in the community. Some people around today say they were very happy with those relationships, and some say, no, they didn’t really want to, and felt confused by his advances and felt he should not have put them in that position.” She said the order had set up a safe space for people who had been members of the order in the 70s and 80s whobelieved they were abused to have their stories heard.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/19/buddhist-sexual-abuse-triratna-dennis-lingwood