How Tsem Tulku Ruined My Future

How Tsem Tulku Ruined My Future


To the current and future followers of Tsem Tulku,
	this is a sad story demonstrating the consequences you will discover for yourselves.

	I, like so many others, was conscripted, by a bright faced follower, from a career just about to blossom into wealth and independence from my parents. Looking back; I couldn't have known. I couldn't have known, from that eager face welcoming me into Tsem's cult, that it would ruin my life. Equally deceived, the worker bees couldn't show the subtle expressions of deception as they believed themselves to be honest back then. I wish I could blame her for ushering me into that haunted house, but I can only cry when I visit her grave; we were so naive.

	I started volunteering; “It looks so good on my resume”, I thought. Clean this, organize that; it wasn't until I received my first degree that I received any attention. I became a ghost writer for Tsem. We were given a formula to follow and we were taught how to represent Tsem best. Nothing was off the table: we were saving the dharma after all. I personally made hundreds of accounts as different people to defend and promote Tsem. I was a pious old Western tantric, I was a Kagyu monk, I was a hard-liner Nyingma defending Tsem's reputation without bias and smearing shit and sewing uncertainty into the online communities. When we couldn't control the opinions of a community and they started to reject Tsem, we put up articles about not criticizing to guilt trip them into complacency.  If we couldn't make them into supporters, then we would shut them up. We were so clever. “Who does that bitch think she is?”, we would say after an ex-student mentioned us on facebook; and later that day we would leave fliers outside her door, on the gates of her son's school, and at night, through an open window, I sailed a paper plane, “Dorje Shugden airlines”, into the living room of her grandma's house as she watched the nightly news. When she killed herself, after almost a year of unemployment, we celebrated. We were experts at psychological warfare. I wish I could hug her and tell her how wrong I was.

	Not everyone knew about Dorje Shugden. Tsem didn't want anyone we couldn't blackmail later to know: they had to work for us first. “Good luck job hunting”, was our parting phrase when someone left. Sometimes we would accuse them of theft or lying so they could never work anywhere else. When a volunteer showed up with a useful degree, we would tell them about how wonderful life was here, about our “tight knit” dharma “family”, about the respect the world had for us, and the potential to become a pastor and share in Tsem's glory; it was our egos that drew us in like a fish on a hook.

	I remember my first Shugden retreat. It was exclusive and I had never attended, but Tsem was hysterical and “Namdrol” and others HAD to die. Tsem said they were destroying the Dharma after they pointed out the inconsistency of Tsem's praise for NKT and his “following the Dalai Lama”. Tsem assured us we were following the Dalai Lama, and that all the lamas did it secretly. He told us that it was all an act and that we couldn't understand the plans of HHDL and Dorje Shugden. If you asked me if I believed this now, I would say no. I don't think any of us believed Tsem, but we needed something to tell ourselves. We needed to associate with HHDL to support our ego identity as superior dharma practitioners. Without HHDL, we were just a group of backstabbing prima donnas. Fortunately, the pujas never worked. Shugden never killed, but whenever the slightest misfortune fell on our internet prey, my phone would light up with SMS from Elena Khong praising Dorje Shugden and, in that way, herself. Thinking back on our sickly faces, the only one Dorje Shugden seemed to harm was the people worshiping him. The night I received Dorje Shugden, I had turpid dreams of myself cutting off the soles of my mother and father's feet and feeding them to Tsem in a bed with mucus soaked blankets and his body twisting around like a maggot pupae. I blamed the dreams on a late meal, but now I recognize it was prophetic.

	Before I had joined Tsem's crew, he made me quit my job. It was to prove my loyalty. If I was loyal, I would break my work contract and work for him. And if I wasn't loyal, I could never show my face again because I was a samaya breaker. They pulled this on me so fast I couldn't think straight. I submitted my letter of resignation that day. Afterwards Tsem had someone else conduct an interview. They acted like Tsem hadn't promised me a job and they were hiring me out of sympathy. This was a cult and they knew what they were doing. My mother didn't trust Tsem and complained to me, “why are you working for that faker? He's not a monk!” and it wasn't long before Tsem convinced me she was enemy #2, #1 being my own doubt in him. I disowned them. No phone, no mail, no nothing until they apologized. My mom and dad went as far as coming to KH to see me, but it was too late. I had made up my mind. They sat in the back with sad eyes focused on me, but I ignored them completely. They lost their daughter.

	Like my usher, I also ended up as a victim of workplace politics. It started subtly after Paris had a mental breakdown. They needed a new scapegoat. First, it was my appearance, “your eyes aren't level, your picture can't be on the website”, and then it was accusing me of thinking critically of them. They were highly defensive of their relationship with Tsem, who was fickle and would throw out a member of his inner circle over imaginary offenses. Sometimes, Tsem would randomly pick someone out of the group and slap them or grab their hair and drag them. He loved to pretend he was psychic and knew their inner thoughts or what they were planning. Tsem is not psychic; he's a compulsive liar with delusions of grandeur. He thinks he will take over NKT even as members of his inner circle are working against him. He's too excited by the compliments to pay attention to what his closest confidants are doing. He sees himself the master manipulator when in fact he is only an accessory to his closest students as they enact their sadistic fantasies on other members.

	To get out, I made myself undesirable and harmless. I acted stupid, I spilled food, I did poor work, and I complained of the early symptoms of illnesses that required expensive treatments. They stopped inviting me to meetings with Tsem, and after a few weeks I covered my delight with a hammy frown at the news that they were “letting me go”. I continued to attend KH prayers for over a month so they wouldn't sense I was making a break for it. I wore dirty clothes, I left my pants unzipped, and wiping snot on my blouse,  I said goodbye forever to Tsem by asking him to pray for my getting a high paying job after my application was rejected for a low IQ score. I made up with my family and, after three months of deliberate unemployment, I got a temporary job. It was at the end of my work contract when I was looking for further employment that I discovered Tsem had been exposed to the world by another ex-student. The degree of deception was public and all over Malaysia Tsem's students were known to be manipulative liars. It wasn't just Buddhist owned businesses, it was Hindu, Muslim, and atheist businesses as well. After I delivered my resume with KH listed in my work history, even the secretaries would look it over and say sarcastically, “Thank you for applying”.  At a posh marketing firm an interviewer asked me about Tsem and, before I could answer, shredded my resume; “We'll contact you if we need your services”.

	It's been over 9 months since I've worked and my education is worthless now because of Tsem. I spend all day at home with my mom and grandma. I've applied to 134 jobs. Some days I visit her grave. Her name doesn't matter; it's just some marks in granite now. All that's left are my thoughts. I've felt so much regret that the emotion has become worn out. Sometimes, I will feel nothing at all and, other times, I will suddenly break down and cry because of what I've done. I realize now that I am not a moral person; instead, I judge right and wrong by what I can get away with. Only now that people know about Tsem's cult and have called his followers two-faced liars and psychopaths do I realize what I did was wrong and not the dharma activity my ego wanted to believe it was.

	In the beginning, I wrote this letter to share my guilt; in the middle, I wrote to warn others; and in the end, to explain my suicide.

	I've asked my brother to publish a selection of my letters and to scatter my ashes at Maha Bodhi temple.

	Om Mani Padme Hum

	Non-Survivor,
	Dec. 16, 2013