I Dated A Buddhist Vampire
Bodhi Snatcher.
It was the end of a long Sunday of meditation on a hot August afternoon. The pot luck was on the table. I got up to stretch my legs, to regain my sense of being-in-the-world. Meditators moved cushions around the room. On the wall to my far right was the flyer I had designed for Queer Dharma: Red Tara blazing, a history of queer dharma, presented by my new best friend Jude; date, time, place. I felt a presence behind me, a warm breath. Someone clasped a bony hand on each of my shoulders, left and right, pulling my shoulders back hard behind my neck, wing bones pressing into my back. And then—a hot kiss on the back of my neck. I felt a mouth pressing against the smooth muscles of my neck. Release! hands let go my shoulders. I twisted my head to the right, 90 degrees, eyes over my right shoulder, to see who was standing behind me. It was Charbry, her eyes were fixed on mine, I looked twice, split second; it was Charbry. Directly to my right, watching this entire scenario was Kaitlyn. Her eyes rolled back and she slumped against the wall, with an ‘oh my god’ expression on her face.
Late August. Sunday. The all day retreat. Charbry. The kiss. I was in shock. I didn’t know what to make of it. I figured well, some people just flirt, that’s all. No big deal. Don’t make anything of it. I decided to forget it, just put it behind me.
Spring, a sunny afternoon. We were sitting on lounge chairs outside the Coburg café. Charbry introduced herself to me; she was the first person I met in this new community. Nice church lady, I thought, sensibly dressed for May weather. I talked about my experience with Shambhala. I’ve been meditating for five years. I had just finished a year of intensive courses and retreats, but left feeling I learned very little. Lots of courses, no content, just one meditation technique after another. I’d had enough of ‘not thinking’, especially since I was at heart a scholar, an intellectual. I was a part-time instructor at Dalhousie, then teaching queer-centred social work practice. “I teach queer culture,” I told her. “And queer people get to have a culture.” I chaffed at what felt like Shambhala’s anti-intellectual approach. What’s wrong with using your mind? And what’s so special about direct experience?
I liked what I read in Rinpoche’s Introduction to Buddhism course. It was scholarly but accessible. It glistened with a kind of pristine clarity. It answered my questions and clarified my thoughts. Charbry offered “It’s just a different style of learning.” “Yeah, that’s what it is,” I rejoined, “a different learning style.” She stood up and leaned over to give me a hug goodbye. I wasn’t prepared for a hug. I stayed sitting in the lounge chair, confused. Her arms enveloped my head, and I awkwardly accepted the gesture.
Early July. I was grinding my way through 300 pages of the Introduction to Buddhism. Having made my Bodhisattva vow, I was itching to put into practice my vow to liberate all beings. I was damn serious about it. So I got on the outreach committee. We met in the back sun room of the Other Bean cafe on Quinpool. The searing July sun sliced through the wooden lattice work, and splattered sunlight onto the settee to my left. I sat in the shaded settee. Charbry came in and wondered where to sit. I offered the settee to the left, which was vacant. She sat next to me in the shade, to my right. “I’m sitting next to you,” she said. Well, OK, I thought. I didn’t know why she wanted to sit next to me on such a hot afternoon.
The Committee had gone over a brainstormed list of ideas for outreach. Charbry was dour, her voice stern. She let us know she had met with the Council and they had made their plans for outreach which cancelled every idea we proposed. Another member protested: “What’s the point of making all these decisions as a group only to have them overturned by the Council?” I agreed; I was getting bored and frustrated with the committee. I resigned a month later. That week I sent a note to Charbry: “Why so despondent? You were not your usual enthusiastic Charbry-self.” How sweet my message was, she responded, and how bad she felt that she had not read it sooner, and how she hoped I was not offended, and would I like to go for coffee or a walk?
Public Gardens.
August. Tuesday afternoon, Ruby Tuesday. Charbry invited me to go for a walk. I suggested the Public Gardens. We walked through the maze of paths in the shade. As we walk, she did all the talking. I’ve discovered why she asked me on this walk, or so I think. She is one of the leaders of the community. She is explaining to me her style of leadership. I am supposed to listen with wrapt attention, I guess. I try to respond, but I can’t get a word in edgewise. I decide it’s no use trying to say something, so I just listen. Charbry’s demeanor is cold and off-putting. She has this kind of wooden quality, very stiff and rigid. Her face is pasty and expressionless. I wonder if she’s on some kind of medication. She asks why I left the Outreach Committee. I told her it’s because I had a chance to work on climate change with Ecology Action Centre, that was my passion. “We don’t get divorced,” she said. I thought that was a weird thing to say, considering that “we” weren’t married.
She was ten years older than me, and had been practicing Buddhism for more than ten years. She had already done all the course work, was already into Vajra practice, a personal student of Rinpoche. I was more than a little intimidated. I was a rank beginner; I hadn’t even started the Hinayana class. I’m starting to feel like I’m totally outranked, and afraid to show how little I know about advanced Buddhist practice.
We ended up on the bench together across from a duck pond. “I always end up near the water” she said. She was born and raised in Saint John, New Brunswick, a dismal port town. “I got out of there as soon as I could.” She went to NSCAD, the art school in Halifax, for painting and printmaking. When she realized she couldn’t make a living as an artist, she went back to school to become a librarian. Out in Vancouver, she worked part-time as a librarian. Somewhere along the way, she had a son, who was now 30 years old. I never asked her about her relationships. I assumed she was (mostly) straight.
I got a chance to tell her a bit about myself: “I’ve never had a normal life.” I said. “I just drifted from one place to another, one career to another.” I was in a Ph.D. program at UNB and now teaching at Dalhousie University. I told her about RadStorm, the radical art space on Almon Street that just opened. It was one of the few places in Halifax where I felt I could be myself. “I just want to be weird with the weird people and not feel weird.” I felt like I was making a pretty bad impression of myself, but I needed to let her know who I really was.
My mind went over the incident again and again. Late August. Sunday. The all day retreat. Charbry. The kiss. I was still dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to think about it. Why would someone do something like that? That’s not a friend-kiss. My friends don’t kiss me like that. I had no idea she was even interested in me. I mean, we had gone for a walk together in the Public Gardens, but it seemed like she just wanted a friend. Mostly she seemed to want to impress me as the leader of the community. I never thought it was more than that.
Then I started to think, “Well, maybe she likes me.” That seemed like a reasonable assumption, considering that she kissed me on the neck. “Maybe I should see if she’d like to go on a date.” But before I leapt into that scenario, I checked with my best friend, Theresa. I told her all the misgivings I had about a relationship with Charbry. I had a lot of doubts and fears. There was a big power disparity. She was a leader of the community. She was so much more advanced than me in terms of practice. I felt quite overshadowed. And then she kissed me on the back of the neck. I didn’t know where that was coming from—totally out of the blue. I didn’t know what to think. Theresa was reassuring: “Sure you have a lot of misgivings, but go ahead, give it a shot.” So I sent Charbry an email, “I’d like to take a walk with you Charbry, because I like walking with you.” It was about as innocent as I could make it, and exactly how I felt about “us.” No expectations, nothing more than an afternoon walk in the park.
So fine, we went for another walk in the Public Gardens. Ruby Tuesday. By this time I had learned to play “Ruby Tuesday” on my harmonium, that I had shipped from New Delhi, India. I had spent the summer learning to play simple kirtan mantras. The sanskrit chants sent me into a state of perfect bliss. On this walk, I was feeling much more ebullient, more confident, and I had a chance to do the talking. I told her about my career as a lawyer, that my grandfather had been a judge. I was starting to feel a certain rhythm between us—it was the walking.
I invited her back to my place to show her my new harmonium. I sang and played a few tunes for her. The harmonium was set up in front of my altar where I meditated. She noted that Rinpoche’s photo was on my altar. It was the one where he held up his fingers in a peace sign. I liked it because I thought it was as funny as he was. “You had to pick that one.” she said.
Whale Riding Weather.
The day before the Friday night show, I decided to go see Whale Riding Weather at the Neptune Theatre, part of the Halifax Fringe Festival. I quickly thought, “I wonder if Charbry would like to go with me?” Whale Riding Weather was a play about a gay couple growing old, staged with three gay characters. The lead was played by Hugo Dan, the most famous gay actor in Halifax. I really knew nothing about Charbry’s sexual orientation; I figured it was none of my business, or she would tell me herself if she wanted me to know. I just figured if she was open to seeing gay theatre, then she would probably be ok with me. I was an out, loud and queer transgender person. If she couldn’t deal with that, then there was no way we could have any kind of intimate relationship. So this was test—how much “queer” could she take? Well it turned out, quite a bit, since the queer sensuality in the play was passionate and visceral, involving some nudity and sex. Gay men are always very flamboyant, especially when they think they’re performing for their own kind. Charbry said she was totally ok with that. So far, so good.
Just before Queer Dharma, Jude and I had dinner at a restaurant on Quinpool. I told her that I had serious reservations about dating someone in such a small community. What do you do if it doesn’t work out? If you break up, the whole thing blows up in your face and everybody in the community knows about it. Then you can never go back to that place again. If we dated and then broke up, not only would I lose a relationship, I would lose a community. At that point, I was deeply invested in becoming a member of the community. In just another month, I would make it to the six-month mark and become a full member, which entitled me to become Rinpoche’s “personal student” (whatever that meant) and to go on the member’s retreat. Jude told me not to avoid relationships, but to work through my attachments. “That’s what the Vajra path is about,” she said.
“I don’t get it—” I told Jude. “On a Sunday in August, after retreat, Charbry came up to me behind my back, grabbed my shoulders and kissed me on the back of the neck. I don’t understand. That’s not a friendly kiss. My friends don’t kiss me like that.”
“Why would somebody do that?” I asked, thoroughly perplexed.
“Desperation?” Jude replied.
Queer Dharma. We ended up having it on two nights in September. First at Shambhala, then at The Buddhist shrine. As a visibly transgender person, I was deeply concerned about the place of trans* people in Buddhism. I presented the Trans Competency Guide, written by the US Transbuddhists group, to both communities. At the shrine room, Jude and I teamed up. She presented a history of Queer Dharma, and I talked about being transgender, for the first time, as Charbry listened. I said that people in my generation didn’t understand being transgender, they just didn’t get it. That’s why I hung out with 30 year olds, because they got gender. Charbry seemed visibly frustrated, seemed to be saying that she also understood. Jude asked, “Is there someone in the shrine room that you can’t help looking at, that you can’t keep your eyes off of—that’s how love starts in Buddhist circles.” Charbry looked directly into my eyes, and I glanced back. I couldn’t hold her glance for long. After the presentation, Charbry hung around me in the shrine room; she wanted to talk to me there, to hold my attention. I felt uncomfortable; I didn’t want people to think we were seeing each other.
Friends are Empty Forms.
Going for walks became our way of seeing each other. I would take the ferry to Darthmouth, and she would meet me at Alderney Landing. She always brought her dog, a golden mutt named Hera. We walked the dog and talked about whatever came into our heads. Usually it was about Buddhism, the obsession that we both shared. We would walk the trail along the Dartmouth shore, or end up at a café on Ochterloney.
I was flattered by her attention, but I couldn’t figure out why she was attracted to me. “You have lots of energy,” she said once, an answer to a question that was vaguely about her interest in the relationship. Her answer sharpened my perception. And you lack energy, I thought to myself. That’s why you need me. You need my energy, because you don’t have enough yourself. She appeared to me to be chronically depressed. Or maybe all this focus on Buddhism and meditation had repressed her energy, especially her sexuality.
As I later told a friend, “I seemed to represent everything that she rejected about herself.” I was a known social activist. She was once very politically active, but repudiated that part of her life. I was still producing my art, but she abandoned her art years ago. She graduated from art school in the 70s, mostly prints and paint. She had promised herself that when she retired, she would do her art again, but she never did. And she rejected her own queerness, her bisexuality. Somehow her attraction to me was an attempt to revisit those parts of herself that she had rejected. No wonder she had no energy: she was repressing everything about herself that was wild and free—the artist, the radical the queer—trading it for a boring career as a government professional, with a paid-for house and a guaranteed pension. She sunk her vampire teeth into my subtle body to siphon off the radical energy that I emitted.
The following are unedited, sequential, contiguous emails:
“Hey Charbry: I had a wonderful time with you yesterday. You have a magnificent garden! It’s amazing all the different kinds of trees and shrubs you have arranged and grown. I really want to thank you for taking the time to be with me yesterday. After spending a week in Banff you must have been quite exhausted. I appreciate your company, because you seem to enjoy the kind of intellectual discussion that I like, that I don’t often get to share with people. I hope we can go for more walks in the future, before it gets too cold. I consider that we are friends, and friend-love is pure wisdom-compassion, the expression of buddhanature.” love Shaun.
“ok you lovely empty form you! its a deal – do you like hikes? I have a number of local hikes that I take whenever i can. or we can meet in Halifax on your turf.”
Charbry
I was stunned at her response; it was incomprehensible. How could she she call me an “empty form?” I felt totally dehumanized. I was trying to convey that I valued her as a friend, as a human being, that friendship was an expression of love, of pure Buddhanature. Calling me an “empty form” reduced me to a category of Buddhist philosophy, a form of shunyata—emptiness. As far as she was concerned, I wasn’t even a human being. I wasn’t a real person with feelings or needs. I was some kind of temporary blip of consciousness.
When we couldn’t spend time together once a week, which often happened, we kept in touch by phone. Our contact was limited to one phone call per week, and a few short emails. I thought that was a reasonable amount of contact for a new relationship, certainly not excessive.
“We have to take one of the long hikes that Hera and I go on,” she wrote one day. That sounded like a challenge. We made plans. In early October, on a bright, warm autumn afternoon, I took the ferry to Dartmouth. I got in the car with Hera, and we drove out to the Salt Marsh. I was thrilled because I knew the place. I had ridden my bike down the Salt Marsh trail months ago, and was blown away by it’s breathtaking beauty.
I had brought a gift for Charbry, a book, Sky Dancer: The Biography of Yeshe Tsogyal. It was my book, but I had already read it, and I would rather give it away. It was a magical afternoon, as we walked for two hours along the trail into the pine forest on the other side of the marsh. We sat on a bench while Hera played in the freshwater pond. I thought of moving closer to her on the bench, but I respected her personal space. The biography of Yeshe is filled with fantastic stories. I opened to the centre of the book that held the key to it’s meaning: Yeshe’s teachings on the Four Joys. I explained what I knew about the Four Joys. “Any time you come across the Four Joys in the book, you can always look back at this section and remember what it means.”
On the way back, the trail led us toward the most radiant sunset I had seen that year. Passionate red and orange clouds streaked across the sky. The receding tide coaxed sandpipers toward the water, their brown-speckled bodies sparkling in the dimming light.
It was getting late as we pulled into her driveway. She brought dog and the book into the house. When she got back into the car, she turned to me: “I read what you wrote on the inside cover. Did you write that for me?”
I had written: “For you, the Great Bliss Queen, may the Four Joys never cease.”
“Yes,” I said. “I wrote it for you.”
“Oh my god, it was so beautiful,” she cried. She leaned over and kissed me on the mouth.
It was a kind of wooden kiss, stiff and dull. But I kissed her back on the lips, the same way she kissed me. She drove me home.
At the end of October, after a few weeks’ absence, we agreed to meet for lunch on Quinpool. We met at the Garden of Eatin’. There was almost no one in the restaurant. She came in elegantly dressed in a jewell coloured jacket and slacks, hair done just so. I was already sitting at the table. She leaned over and kissed me, not on the cheek, but on the neck. It was delightfully sensual. As we had lunch, she discussed her plans for Nepal over the winter. She was going to stay in Rinpoche’s nunnery near Kathmandu. She was hoping to work with a women’s relief organization in Kathmandu. She was going to bring some things for the nuns in Rinpoche’s order, feminine sanitary items. I said that was very thoughtful of her. “They’re not for me,” she said. “I’m way past that now.” I smiled and added: “So am I”. Charbry groaned and folded her face into her hands on the table, thoroughly embarrassed, although for what, I don’t know. We were both “older” and knew that already. What’s to be embarrassed about? I continued to grin broadly, hoping that she would recover her composure. She never did.
The Long March.
Early November. For a whole week, the same song kept going through my head, “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star. I decided I would learn the tune on guitar. There was nothing very explicit or even romantic about the lyrics. In fact, though the song is about a relationship, it was quite vague and ethereal, but that’s why it said so much to me. It seemed to describe our relationship so well, which had this sort of ethereal, other-worldly quality to it. I recorded my version of the song and sent it to Charbry by email. She never wrote back to me about it.
Sunday. We had just finished meditation at the shrine room. One of the co-leaders came up to me and asked me if I was ready to become a formal member of the Buddhist shrine. That meant paying $40 a month membership fee. The treasurer was standing behind her, also expecting an answer. I told him I didn’t think that I could afford to pay $40 a month. And I also couldn’t make an automated payment out of my checking account, because I never knew from one month to the next how much money I would have. I was barely living paycheck to paycheck. “Well, you have to pay some monthly amount,” he said. I told him I would give it some thought and get back to them next week.
I got a ride with Charbry after Sunday morning meditation along with two other members who needed rides. After she dropped off the other passengers, she suggested we go for a walk., It was another sunny Sunday, but the chilly winter air was beginning to seep through our overcoats and cling to our bones. Charbry had suggested another long hike on Long Lake. I had never been there before, but I was open to it. She did not have Hera with her this time. I said, “What about your dog? Can she stay by herself this long?’ “Don’t worry,” Charbry said. “She has kidneys of steel.”
I had no idea where we were going, so Charbry led the way. Once we got out of the car and found the trail, she looked straight ahead. She walked ahead of me at least five paces. Charbry had longer legs than me, and I asked her a couple of times if she would slow down, so we could walk together, but she never did. Facing forward, she never looked back at me once during the entire walk. She asked me questions, but I was talking to the back of her head. At one point, she was so far ahead of me, that I couldn’t even see where she was. I had lost track of her. “Where are you?” I shouted. “I can’t even see you.” I as afraid of getting lost. As I scanned the woods, I spotted her standing ahead of me, looking over Long Lake. We sat down on a rock and talked a bit, but she never turned her head to look at me.
We continued walking around the lake. When we crossed a foot bridge, she told me that we were about half-way around the Lake; we could either continue around the lake or go back. I had finally caught up with her by this time. I asked her, “Did you get the song I sent you?” She said yes. I said, “I sent it to you because it reminded me of our relationship.” She turned to me suddenly, and said, “So, what do you think of our relationship?” She raised her eyebrows and fixed her eyes on me like lasers.
“Well, what do you think? “ she demanded.
We just stared each other in the eyes for a moment. I knew something was coming.
I said, “Well, I think it’s—kind of different, sort of ethereal, like it has this kind of spiritual quality to it, which is something I never experienced before.”
She said “I have this feeling like it has some kind of romantic quality to it.”
I said, “Well yes, it has a kind of romantic quality. . .”
“WELL I DON’T WANT THAT”, she screamed in my face. My head snapped back in total shock.
“It makes me feel very uncomfortable. . . Nobody has been interested in me for so long, I wouldn’t know what to do if they were. I mean, I was interested in the romantic part at first but. . . oh forget it. If you want to talk about this some more, we can.” She immediately turned and walked back over the foot bridge. We obviously weren’t going to discuss anything.
I was absolutely stunned. I couldn’t breath. I couldn’t think. I went totally numb. I couldn’t say anything. I just wanted to get back to the car and go home without completely losing my mind. She continued to ask me nonsense questions while I was supposed to answer to the back of her head. I didn’t want to talk to her. I just didn’t want to lose track of her and get lost in the woods. I wanted to go home.
We got into the car and she drove me back to my apartment. She pulled the car over to the side of the road and parked. I thanked her politely for taking me on the walk to Long Lake. Then, again, completely out of the blue, she leaned over, put her right hand behind my neck and brought her face close to mine, half-closed her eyes, ready to kiss me. I totally freaked out. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t say anything, but in my head I was screaming: Didn’t you just say you didn’t want a romantic relationship with me? SO WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KISS ME? But nothing came out. I just went into a full panic. I jammed my hand against the door handle, kicked the door open and jumped out of the car. I slammed the car door and ran across the street to my apartment.
When I got inside, I realized that I was in a relationship with someone who was completely out of her mind. She had no clue about how to have an intimate relationship. Moreover, she was just using me to work out some kind of stuff about her own sexuality that had absolutely nothing to do with me. I felt like I had been totally used, grabbed off a shelf and used up like bottle of shampoo; thrown away because well, now it’s empty and she was done with it.
Monday, the Day After. I had to go to class at the Buddhist shrine. I sent an email to the co-leader. “I’ve decided that I don’t want to become a member of the Buddhist shrine at this time. I cannot afford to pay for classes and pay membership dues as well.” She wrote back and said she was away on retreat and wouldn’t be back until Friday, and could I wait to make a decision then? I said, “I’m sorry but I need to make a decision today, and the answer is NO. I don’t want to be a member.”
In the following weeks, not only was I emotionally shattered by the relationship, but my hope for a life in the Buddhist community was starting to turn into a black cloud of excruciating pain, disillusionment and despair.
Samsara.
We had to go on one more date. I had made the arrangements a month before. We were supposed to go see Vandana Shiva speak at Dalhousie University. Since I had set this up, I felt like I should do the responsible thing and follow through on it. I asked her if Charbry still wanted to go. She said yes, so I figured we would go this last event together and that would be it. I wouldn’t have to see her anymore after that. We met at my apartment, then we walked over to the University. I was in a total rage. I wasn’t interested in talking to Charbry at all. I just wanted to see Vandana Shiva, one of my greatest heroes, speak in person. I kept looking around the room to see if any of my friends from the environmental movement were there, but I didn’t recognize anyone. I would have given anything to go chat with my friends, but I was stuck with Charbry. For her part, Charbry was embarrassed. “I hope I know nobody sees us here,” she said. I was thrilled when Vandana Shiva spoke so eloquently about climate justice, rural women’s rights, organic farming, Earth Democracy, all of her contributions to the environmental justice movement.
After the speech we walked down to Spring Garden Road. “I’m taking my power back” I said with rage in the course of our final conversation. As we got to the Coburg Café, I said goodbye and walked toward my apartment, determined to never look back. I was glad the whole ordeal was finally over. She shouted after me, “Shaun! Shaun!” Stunned, once again I turned around and looked at her. She held her arms out to me, to give me a hug. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what to do. I should have just walked away, but I went up to her, gave her a hug, turned and never looked back. I never wanted to see her face again.
December. Charbry asked to come and see me again. Why? I couldn’t for the life of me understand why she wanted to see me, what this was about. I had been meditating and chanting, doing forgiveness practice, to relieve the pain from the abuse, to put the whole ordeal behind me. My mind was on my own physical survival. I was facing immanent homelessness. I had no teaching assignment for the next semester at Dalhousie, or anywhere else. All I had was a part-time job working as an organizer for the faculty union. I knew that I could not afford to stay in my apartment. I had anticipated this situation in October and applied for public housing. It was a last ditch effort to stay in Halifax, otherwise I would have to go back to Fredericton, New Brunswick, to even worse circumstances. Charbry had emailed and asked if we could go for another walk. “Whatever, ok.”
The day she came over, that morning, I had just gotten a phone call from Metro Housing. They had an apartment for me at a building on Cornwallis St.; I was elated. Charbry rang the doorbell. I ran downstairs to let her in. She had Hera with her. As we walked toward the Public Gardens, she asked how I was feeling. “I thought you were going to be angry with me.” “Angry? Oh yeah, that! Yeah, I was angry.” At that point I didn’t care. Of course I was happy—I had just found out that I was no longer homeless. That was all that mattered. Who cares about some moribund relationship?
As we walked through the park, we talked about the end of the relationship. I told her that I forgave her, and that I had been praying for both of us. I forgave her because I wanted to convey to her that she hurt me very badly. She said nothing and wouldn’t acknowledge that I forgave her or what I forgave her for. “I’m getting old and I’m not very attractive,’ she said. And in what was becoming her typical Jekyll-and-Hyde style, she turned and glared at me: “LOOK AT ME!” she shrieked into my face. My head snapped back with the impact of her voice, another ricochet moment in this fucked up relationship. And then, in another complete about face, she held out her arms to give me a hug. I flinched and recoiled from the gesture. I didn’t want her to touch me. Once again, she had just screamed at me, and now she wanted to hug me? I couldn’t take any more of her insanity and abuse. It was obvious that we couldn’t even be friends.
As we walked back toward my apartment, I began to tell her some of what I was angry about. It was the Buddhist sangha; it was the whole way that the sangha was set up. The only people who could go on community retreats were people who could afford to fly across the country to Seattle or Vancouver. I was completely left out, always left behind. This was Buddhism for rich people. They obviously didn’t give a shit about low-income people and they ran the whole sangha to benefit themselves. “And what’s this about taking refuge in the sangha? Taking refuge in what? What the hell am I taking refuge in?’ I shouted, now really angry. “This isn’t refuge. It’s samsara, it’s the same shit that goes on in the rest of the world and it works exactly the same way.”
We said goodbye and I vowed never to see her or speak to her again. So long Charbry. Good riddance. I got on with the business of making arrangements to move to my new apartment. I started packing my stuff.
Avalon.
January. I had heard that Charbry was gong to Nepal sometime in January. I had one more class to get through at the Buddhist shrine. I had already paid for the class, but I was ambivalent about going back to the shrine room. Except for Buddhist studies class, I had stopped going to services at the Buddhist shrine two months ago. But Charbry was never at the shrine room on Monday nights. I just wanted to get the first year course done. I wanted to feel that I had “finished” with the Hinayana [sic] level. I had taken the Bodhisattva vow last spring in May 2014, and I wanted to feel that I was ready for the Mahayana path. Get this done and move on, I thought. So I went to the first class in mid-January. I walked up the stairs on Monday night, and who did I see? Charbry. I was blown away. I didn’t think she was going to be there on a Monday night. Now what? I told the teacher I had to go do some business at the pizza shop across the street. When I came back at the start of class, Charbry had left. I went to class, but I decided that I couldn’t go back to class anymore. Seeing Charbry, even incidentally, was starting to make me feel physically sick. I couldn’t stand the sight of her; I didn’t want to see her ever again.
I decided to take the class from home and hand in my assignments. Considering that we were in the midst of the coldest, snowiest winter on record in Halifax, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. The weather was so bad we didn’t actually have class again until March. I had moved into my new apartment on January 1, and was still focused on settling in my new place. I was just starting to come out of the shock and numbness that had enveloped me during our relationship. I was starting to feel all the things I didn’t want to feel: the rage, the shame, the grief, the sense of being physically violated and emotionally abused, of being used and thrown away. Most of all, the utter confusion and despair provoked by Charbry’s unpredictable and inexplicable behaviour. I was in excruciating pain, emotionally and even physically. I couldn’t deal with it on my own anymore. I started telling my friends what happened. I decided I had to tell my teacher at the Buddhist shrine why I could not go back to class on Monday nights. On a Sunday afternoon, he invited me to his house. I told him the whole story, the assault in the shrine room, the relationship and Charbry’s strange behaviour. He was very supportive and understood why I didn’t want to go back to class. So we agreed that I could just email in my assignments from home.
I was becoming morbidly depressed. As the emotional aftermath of the abuse started to take it’s toll on me, I was barely coping with my life. I couldn’t do my job; I could barely get out of bed some days. I needed help, serious professional help.
One day in February, I was at the Halifax Central Library, which had just opened a couple months before. It had become my new architectural temple in the sky, away from the pain and despair that was shrouding my days. The bright white walls streamed a heavenly white light into my eyes, making my world a bit brighter. I ran into my friend Dennis, a gay man from the 12 Step program, at the café on the 5th floor. People in 12 Step programs don’t aspire to “full, perfect and complete enlightenment.” They’re not so ambitious, spiritually speaking. They just want to stay sober and help other people. You can count on them being there for you. I can’t say the same for most Buddhists I’ve met. I started to tell Dennis about the assault and the relationship, how it had destroyed me emotionally. He just listened and supported me in the most sympathetic way. As I talked about my pain, it became clearer to me that I had to do something about my condition. I couldn’t go on like this. “Maybe I should go to Avalon Sexual Assault Centre.” I told him. “They know how to deal with abusive relationships. They have the expertise. They deal with this 24/7.” I decided that day that I would call and make an appointment at Avalon.
I had my first appointment at Avalon in early March and was assigned to a therapist. I was starting to write about the abuse in poems and journal entries. I started doing research on sexual exploitation in Buddhist communities, and found that it was not only common, it was absolutely rampant. Research showed that a Buddhist teacher was 3 to 6 times more likely than clergy in mainstream religions to sexually exploit their students. One survey showed that as many as 85% of Buddhist teachers had become sexually involved with their students. And I wrote about the assault in the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, in an article about ending sexual abuse in Buddhist communities. For the first time since the assault happened in August, I started to feel a sense of relief and empowerment. I discovered that the most powerful tool I had was my own voice. I decided that I would tell my story, and I would keep telling my story until I was done telling it.
I told my therapist at Avalon in my first appointment that first and foremost, I wanted to get clear about my own issues. I wanted to work through what would be the best course of action to deal with the situation. But I wanted to make sure that I was clear about my own mind, because I didn’t want to be blindsided by my own issues. I wanted to spend at least two months in therapy working on my own issues and thinking things through, so that when I made a decision about what course of action to take, it would be absolutely clear that it was the right choice.
I told her that Charbry was away in Nepal for several months. My therapist asked me if Charbry’s absence made it easier for me to seek support. I said yes, it did; it gave me the space I needed to get some help. I told her that I didn’t want to go to the police or the courts. I wanted to find some way to resolve this outside the court system. A restorative justice process would be the ideal way to settle the issue. But unfortunately, under a new law since 2000, restorative justice was not allowed for sexual assault cases. So that left me with figuring out what kind of action to take.
Avalon gave me the name of a woman attorney who is an expert on sexual assault cases, and who is also a member of the Buddhist community. I gave her a call and briefly talked about the case. She referred me to Attorney John McKiggan, an expert in sexual assault cases. He had prosecuted several high profile sexual assault cases with religious institutions. He briefly consulted with me for free. I sat across from John and described to him the incident in the shrine room which started this whole mess. “That’s definitely an assault,” he said. “No question about it.” He explained to me the law of sexual assault, both on the criminal and civil side. He said that essentially all sexual assault cases have to be tried in the criminal court first. He told me I would have to report the incident to the police.
I still didn’t want to go to the police. I knew that once I made a complaint, I would just become a pawn of the criminal justice system. The process would take all my power away from me, and I would never get to say the things that I thought needed to be said. My personal story would go through the meat grinder of the court system and come out in shreds. And I needed, more than anything, to tell my story.
In therapy, we continued to work through my feelings, how I felt about the assault, about Charbry and the relationship. I talked about speaking out and my fear of backlash from the Buddhist community. I told her that I had learned that the most powerful thing I had was my own voice. Every time I told my story, I felt better and stronger.
I told her that I was afraid to go to the police while Charbry was in Nepal. I had heard that the government had recently extradited a man from Nepal who was wanted for sexual assault back in Canada. I didn’t want to put Charbry through that kind of stress. Sending the Nepalese police to have her extradited to Canada seemed excessive. I’m glad I didn’t go through with it—it would have spared her an even worse fate.
Poetic Justice.
April 25. I woke up and out of bed on Saturday morning to the clock radio. World news. There was an earthquake in Nepal, 7.9 on the Richter scale. Massive damage to the city of Kathmandu. I could not believe it. My jaw dropped and I nearly doubled over. I started laughing hysterically. I couldn’t help it, but I started dancing around my apartment. It was a classic case of poetic justice, which is such a rare occurrence. Poetic justice is some chance event that you would never even think of, or wish on anyone, but when it happens, you think to yourself, “oh my god, that’s absolutely perfect.”
The earthquake has been an endless nightmare for the poor people of Nepal, who suffered unimaginable pain, injury, death, homelessness and despair. But for Charbry alone, and from the perspective of poetic justice, she got exactly what she deserved.
The relationship with Charbry was so devastating, there was almost no “bright side” to it. It was like a freak accident that should never have happened, an emotional head-on collision that I barely survived. It shattered my faith in Buddhism. I became thoroughly disillusioned, and I struggled to hang on to Buddhism at all.
I sought the advice of a member of another Buddhist community who was both an expert in sexual and domestic violence and conflict resolution. I needed advice to sort out the practice of Buddhism from the effects of the assault, which happened in a shrine room at the end of an intense meditation practice, and the relationship, which was enmeshed with the life of a Buddhist community. I was hoping that she would facilitate a mediation session between me and Charbry. Restorative justice could not take place within the court system, but it could certainly take place outside the court system in the community. In fact, that’s exactly where restorative justice belonged—in the context of the Buddhist community. Unfortunately, this expert was not willing to facilitate that process.
During these months of therapy, I went through the hard work of separating all the issues. I had to separate three things: the Buddhist community in Halifax, the teaching on “friends are empty forms”, and Charbry. Once I got those three issues separated, I was able to deal with them one at a time, and each had their own solution.
Regarding the Buddhist shrine: I finished the Hinayana course. My last in-class presentation was “The 8th Reasoning of the Chariot”, based on the classical Seven-fold Reasoning of the Chariot. My teacher thought it was so good, he asked me to present it to friends of his who were experts in Buddhist philosophy. Triumph. Done and over. I am never going back to the Buddhist shrine. I have moved on to becoming a member of another Buddhist community that is primarily Theravadan, not Tibetan, and focuses on Buddhist ethics and social justice.
Regarding the teaching on “friends are empty forms”: I have already written several articles on my total disdain for this hateful teaching that treats people like categories of Buddhist philosophy. No, I’m sorry, but friends are not empty forms. Treat people like people, not like aspects of shunyata. I sensed that the abuse in the relationship stemmed in part from the teaching that “friends are empty forms”, which depersonalizes and dehumanizes people. This teaching treats people as unrealities, without bodies, feelings, needs, boundaries and rights. Real human beings are infinitely more complex than “empty forms”. There is more work that I have to do on this issue, and I plan to write articles that totally discredit this hateful teaching. But at least I was able to separate that teaching from Charbry’s individual actions.
That left just Charbry. At the beginning of May, I heard that she was returning from Nepal. I discussed her immanent return with my therapist. By that point, I had worked through much of the rage, grief and shame provoked by the assault, and I was able to bring it down to this: all I wanted was an apology. Charbry has never apologized for what she did, or acknowledged her part in the abuse. I don’t want to go to the police, I don’t want to go through the court system. I just want an acknowledgment of the harm done and an apology. I would be willing to go through a mediated session with her, with a professional mediator who was familiar with the Buddhist community. Because that’s where this belongs: it belongs in the context of the Buddhist community, with counsel and support from an objective, outside source.
I was most certainly suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of what Charbry did to me. The assault and the relationship were both highly traumatic. Not only did it cause great harm on a personal level, but it severed my connection with a community that was important to me, and moreover, nearly severed my connection to Buddhism.
However, I instinctively did the one thing that heals trauma most quickly and thoroughly: I wrote about the trauma. I worked it out with my therapist that I would write this piece as part of my therapy, in stages, over a period of several weeks. This is my story, and it’s about my life. It’s a story about a devastating relationship that had serious impacts on my life.The surest way to treat and cure sexual assault is sunlight. Bring it out into the open and deal with it. At least now, there are no more secrets.
I’m glad I wrote this, and I’m done with it now.
I’m a female-to-male transgender person, a former member of a Buddhist shrine in Halifax. In August, 2014, I was sexually assaulted by one of the leaders of that community in their shrine room, at the conclusion of one of their public services. This leader continued to engage in a relationship with me that lasted three months, a relationship marked by ambivalence and emotional abuse. In January 2015, after the leader had left the country, I began to seek professional advice to help me deal with the aftermath of the assault. I sought a restorative justice process, which would have been the ideal way to settle the issue. But unfortunately, under a new law since 2000, restorative justice was not allowed for sexual assault cases. I then consulted with two lawyers who were specialists in sexual assault cases, one of whom has prosecuted several high-profile sex abuse cases involving religious organizations. After describing the assault, the lawyer confirmed that the facts, as I stated them, constituted non-consensual assault that carried criminal and civil consequences. I sought counselling services at the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre. Because I called it what it was—sexual assault—and did not minimize or deny what happened to me, I went to a sexual assault centre and got the right kind of help. As a result of all this consultation, and months of soul-searching therapy, I concluded that the best way to come to terms with this abuse was to break the silence and tell my story. I discovered that the greatest power I had to heal this situation was not the police, not the courts, but my own voice. The leader has never acknowledged the assault or apologized for it. I don’t want compensation, and I don’t want anyone to go to prison. I just want recognition of the harm done and an apology. Because of the assault, I lost a relationship with the Buddhist community of Halifax, the spiritual path that has been at the centre of my life for seven years. It is impossible to describe the immense psychic and spiritual pain that I have suffered as a result of this incident. But telling my story begins to heal that pain. At least now, there are no more secrets.
All names have been changed to protect identities.
Research note: Research with people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder shows that writing the story of one’s trauma is the key to overcoming trauma and PTSD. In studies of people with PTSD, mostly combat veterans, people are instructed to write about their trauma as part of their recovery. They found that writing the story takes the trauma out of the immediate “present”, which is in the forebrain, and processes it through the amygdala, the centre of memory and emotions in the midbrain, effectively sending the trauma backwards, deeper into the brain, where it can be processed. As long as the trauma remains in the forebrain (technically the pre-frontal cortex) It remains always “immanent” and “in the present,” as an experience that the person re-lives over and over again, as if it were still happening. Through writing and sharing the story (witnessing) the experience becomes a story that gets processed in the mid-brain, where it continues to be worked through as memory and emotion. Once again, breaking the silence and telling your story are the most effective ways to heal trauma and PTSD.
