Via commenter yoyogi, here is another perspective/opinion article by Matthew Remski about Diamond Mountain and the death of Ian Thorson.
I want to emphasize that I have no first-hand knowledge of Michael Roach, his students, or the happenings at Diamond Mountain, so please don't cite me as an authority about any of this. However, at least some of what Remski writes (under the subhead Scrutiny of Roach's Metaphysics: Gelukpa or New-Age?) is corroborated by people who claim to be Roach's students.
For example:
"After Roach and McNally came out of the yurt in 2003 and declared their partnership, their supporters (cued by their public statements) began to claim that spiritual partnership is common within Gelukpa tantric practice, and acceptable for qualified monks, although it normally remains hidden. Some supporters still claim that the Dalai Lama has spoken publicly about his own spiritual consorts, but none provide references to this point."
I've seen these claims made a number of times, and I do believe this is what Roach is telling his students. And it's hooey. There are some schools of Tibetan Buddhism in which lama/priests/teachers often are not celibate, but Gelugpa is not one of them.
Even within Gelugpa, when Roach began his relationship with Christie McNally he had the option of disrobing and declaring himself to be a layperson and not a monk, and he could have continued to teach with Gelugpa's institutional approval. His attempt to cling to both McNally and his monk's robes struck me as deeply dishonest when I first heard about it way back when, and it still does.
Even if "spiritual partnerships" were practiced in Gelugpa, such tantric partnerships involve two partners who are both advanced practitioners of tantra, not a 40-something monk and a 20-something new student, as Roach and McNally were when their relationship began.
And I do believe that if His Holiness the Dalai Lama had ever spoken publicly about his own spiritual consorts, there'd be references to it all over the Web. Every time the man so much as coughs it gets in the news somewhere.
I also once read part of Roach's book The Diamond Cutter: The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life. It was about using spiritual power to make oneself wealthy and successful. It was very New Age stuff; more The Secret than The Dharma. After that I could not take Roach seriously as a Buddhist teacher.
He also has, according to a commenter on this site, changed the meaning of the 6th Mahayana precept from "don't gossip about the faults of others in the community, lay or ordained" to "don't criticize the ordained clergy." He appears to be making the teachings up to suit himself as he goes along.
Beyond that, I have no way to know whether things said of Roach in Remski's article are true or not. Note that a person named Frank Jude Boccio, who is identified as a Zen priest, is quoted extensively. I cannot verify that Boccio is a Zen priest, which doesn't mean he isn't one, just that I cannot confirm it.
Human all too human. Zen masters are also ordinary human beings with egos, desires and ambitions.
As they say, wake up, do not waster this precious human life.
For the record, the Diamond Mountain crew claims to be Vajrayana/Tibetan, not Zen. Roach was booted out of the Geugpa monastic order by His Holiness the Dalai Lama a few years ago. We’ve got some Zen teachers who are doozies, too, of course.
My own Lama became a monk after having taught as a lama for several years according to the wishes of his spiritual master. However, he found himself alone in a community with no other ordained Sangha members and very lonely. He also had to support himself and lost a lot of clients when they met him wearing his robes. After much thought and prayers, he gave up the robe and went back to being a lay lama. He teaches with as much knowledge and authority before and his sangha is stronger than ever and he exhibits wisdom and compassion like no one else I have known.
This now making it into the mainstream press:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/derek-rose/stanford-grad-dies-in-cav_b_1536868.html
To practise the actual sexual component of Tantra within the Gelukpa one would have to disrobe, also one has to be almost at the end of the Vajrayana path, nearly a Buddha ! Roachs` claim to a “spiritual partnership” is nonsense, if that far along the Path one would not need such a “relationship”, he just fell for a young bit and did not want to disrobe …
@ Michael … thanks for posting that link, seems like another Buddhist group who have lost the plot and just cant see it.
Apologies if I seem a bit to direct in my posting concerning M Roach. It`s because in the past I had a lot to do with the NKT, I was at Majushri Institute in the early days when the NKT was just forming. I`ve seen a lot of peoples lives ruined & torn apart by errant buddhist masters, my own included, so I have no patience for their students who REWRITE their groups history to reflect more favorably on their “lamas”. Prime examples being, IMHO, Kelsang Gyatso, Sogyal Rimpoche, Trungpa Rinpoche, & lately of course M. Roach.
Finally hits the front page of the NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/us/mysterious-yoga-retreat-ends-in-a-grisly-death.html
Hello Barbara,
Many folk it seems tend to get confused over terminology used in various buddhist traditions. They hear I am ordained, that I am a “poep sa” (dharma teacher) and confusing it with their own cultural understandings, make me out to be a monk or a priest.
My teacher gave me the choice of ordaining as a priest or as a lay dharma teacher. I officiate and wear robes similar to priest robes, but I purposefully avoided the overt religious connotation of priest by not ordaining as one.
If Matthew alludes to me as being a priest, it is not through any ‘false presentation’ on my part. I never have, and do not now (would never want to) present myself as a priest. Much of the culture of the sangha I have founded in Tucson rejects the traditional hierarchical valuation of monasticism/priesthood, so to present myself as a priest would be in complete betrayal of my teaching.
I trust that the fact that I am not a priest does not detract from the valuation of the comments I made on Matthew’s Elephant Journal piece about Diamond Mountain. At least since the late 90s, Roach’s work has been permeated by new-age pablum that I abhor. That he teaches it as the ‘essence’ of vajrayana lacks all integrity.
Frank — Thank you for you comment. I’m not a priest either, so I certainly don’t hold lack of priest ordination against anyone.
I try to be careful about who people are because I’ve been burned a couple of times by people with fake credentials.
Anyway — I read a section of one of Roach’s books once and was appalled, so I am inclined to agree with you about the new-age pablum. I get the impression he is just making it up as he goes along.