{"id":1508,"date":"2012-08-26T22:45:26","date_gmt":"2012-08-26T21:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/?p=1508"},"modified":"2014-01-22T12:50:38","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T12:50:38","slug":"american-buddhism-unraveling-a-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2012\/08\/american-buddhism-unraveling-a-scandal.html","title":{"rendered":"American Buddhism: Unraveling a Scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

For several months (or in fact, possibly much longer), a former student of Ken McLeod based in Montreal, Canada, has been attempting to put forth a grievance of misconduct<\/strong> on the part of McLeod, a well known American Buddhist<\/a> teacher and principle teacher of Unfettered Mind<\/a>\u00a0(UM)\u00a0a California-based organization dedicated to modern, pragmatic Buddhism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The details are still murky, with the former student understandably reluctant to make public the full scale of the actions and relationships in question. However, the fact that there is<\/em> a problem has become public<\/strong>, and was brought to my attention (along with the former student\u2019s blog) just over a week ago. In that time the issue and blog were mentioned, though only in passing, at the Sweeping Zen website<\/a>. Students of American Buddhism may find it quite worrying that Ken McLeod\u2019s name is mentioned in the same breath as\u00a0Richard Baker<\/a>,\u00a0Eido Shimano<\/a>,\u00a0Dennis Genpo Merzel<\/a>\u00a0and others whose charismatic teaching careers were marred by ethical lapses. It is hoped that by discussing the issue here, further clarity can develop so that all parties involved can best move forward with their lives.<\/p>\n

According to a blog post<\/a> dated June 9, 2012, the former student\u00a0states that she has begun collaborating with An Olive Branch<\/a>, a Buddhist organization \u201cdedicated to fostering\u00a0peaceful and effective solutions\u00a0for spiritual and non-profit organizations\u201d\u00a0<\/em>to discuss the UM policy and to put forth her allegation along with one other.<\/p>\n

In defense of UM, the president of their Board of Directors, Stephanie Siebert, asserts that no such allegations have been made, with Ivan instead playing email \u201ccat and mouse\u201d in efforts to resolve the issue (July 23\u00a0email posted by Ivan<\/a>). She stated that UM does have a grievance policy<\/a>\u00a0available to Ivan and others if they wish to follow it (it\u2019s not clear when the current policy was enacted or placed online).<\/p>\n

However, Ivan claims that the policy is insufficient. In an August 4 letter to Robert Conrad<\/a>, Secretary to the Board of Directors at UM, she states:<\/p>\n

1) The only \u201cpolicy and procedure\u201d Ms. Siebert has offered so far is that I must submit my\u00a0grievance to her alone and trust her to convey it to the UM BOD.
\n2) Grievant2 (in an anonymous comment to my post of August 2 which I have verified) states \u00a0that,\u00a0when she submitted her grievance to Ms. Siebert, it was denied by KM and dismissed \u00a0summarily\u00a0by Ms. Siebert.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In his Aug 16 response<\/a>, Mr. Conrad writes, in part:<\/p>\n

I have reviewed some of the correspondence between you and Ken McLeod in which you acknowledged your failed marriage occurring long before you met Mr. McLeod and your desire to have an intimate relationship with Mr. McLeod (with, I might add, no encouragement on his part) after he ceased consulting with you and after he advised you to seek professional help on your marriage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He also says that he hopes to put forth a full reply to her letter<\/a> by the end of August.<\/p>\n

These claims, the former student\u00a0writes (aug 24)<\/a>, constitute\u00a0\u201cfalse and unsubstantiated judgements about me and the relationship I had with Ken, this time adding disparaging and false remarks about my marriage to my ex-husband.\u201d She furthermore worries that Mr. Conrad\u2019s email treats her more as an adversary and less as a greivant, thus making any open, honest, and fair procedure between herself and the board increasingly unlikely.<\/p>\n

I welcome feedback, concerns, criticisms, etc in the comments area and hope that both the former student\u00a0and those associated with Unfettered Mind can find a way to move forward.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For several months (or in fact, possibly much longer), a former student of Ken McLeod based in Montreal, Canada, has been attempting to put forth a grievance of misconduct on the part of McLeod, a well known American Buddhist teacher and principle teacher of Unfettered Mind\u00a0(UM)\u00a0a California-based organization dedicated to modern, pragmatic Buddhism. The details […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,9],"tags":[519,98],"class_list":["post-1508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-american-buddhism","tag-american-buddhism","tag-sexual-misconduct"],"yoast_head":"\nAmerican Buddhism: Unraveling a Scandal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For several months (or in fact, possibly much longer), a former student of Ken McLeod based in Montreal, Canada, has been attempting to put forth a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2012\/08\/american-buddhism-unraveling-a-scandal.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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