August 11, 2025

We believe that SokukoJi Buddhist Temple and Monastery in Battle Creek, Michigan is a high-demand, coercive group. The stories of monks and other community members who have left the situation and are beginning to speak out about their experiences is heartbreaking. The narratives follow the cult playbook. 

Descriptions of the slow brainwashing that occurs from overwork, exhaustion, and unhealthy food habits are harrowing. Some details include the insistence that you are in the zendo meditating when you’re not doing other things (yet very little meditation seems to happen) takes all your private time. You may find that you are in relationships you might not have chosen on your own. Then you find that there is drama/crises in those relationships that grows increasingly dire the more you speak with the teacher as you were instructed to do. You wonder if there isn’t something deliberate in this that the teacher seems to orchestrate. The teacher may even weaponize therapists in the community against you. This goes on until you find it difficult to think straight. 

Your participation in the community starts out friendly and even loving. It is exciting. Finally, you are making a meaningful contribution to society; one that matters. You feel special. You feel like something remarkable is happening here and you are a part of it. How lucky you are to have found this path, this teacher. You feel met, even praised, for being exactly who you are and where you are at. You are finally seen.

Soon, however, life turns darker. In some small way, something you’d assumed was unassailably true is argued with. It may be that mourning the death of a beloved pet or the right to work is actually “confusion.” At first, you are sure it’s just your imperfections. You have so much work to do on yourself. You love and trust these people. But the attempts to harness your body for free labor and your mind for the leader’s escalating, incessant emotional needs have begun. The narcissist now knows that they have you and the real project is underway. You find that you are working more and more hours every day; you have lost your name and identity—the teacher has given you new ones; you have very little outside life. 

You are told that you must have questions and that the only way to speak with the teacher is to ask them. Everything becomes a circuitous dialectic directed toward and from the teacher. Oddly, simple questions such as “what is harm?” become unanswerable and confusing. The buddhadharma seems to both answer all questions nihilistically and be incapable of providing any answer other than to “ask the teacher.” You are discouraged from talking with other monks and members about your questions or experiences. You are told that the problem is you—your understanding and karma are lacking. Your devotion is not as strong as it should be. In short, you are silenced.

You lose your ability to discriminate truth from obfuscation. A desire to be free or explore other spaces of being is met with hostility and derision. Something you tell the teacher in private you discover was shared with many others or even in a dharma talk. You may even be made an example of in a dharma talk by the teacher. You have been labeled resistant, prideful, not manifesting “no separation.” If it concerns interpersonal issues, you are told that you are “not meeting them where they are at” to excuse another’s unacceptable behavior. You begin to wonder just what exactly is going on. If you earnestly challenge the teacher on a teaching, behavior or action, you are ridiculed and your “ignorance” publicly displayed. You are asked by the leader, “Am I your teacher?” and the answer is “yes” because you took vows. But that “yes” now means something different than you’d originally understood. Now you are instructed to obey instructions without critical thinking. Intelligence and critical thinking are now ridiculed, even though they were lauded attributes when you first started to practice in the community. 

Possibly, your questioning has resulted in none of the other members speaking with you. The shunning and eventual discard have begun. You are no longer worth it. It is only a matter of time before you are out. If you persist in asking challenging questions, maybe you are even screamed at and ejected from the temple. You find yourself in constant distress with little or no outside resourcing. Any outside life you had has evaporated. You notice that those who leave are treated to special disdain and an ongoing campaign of vilification. You are told: “Those who left were not ready for the truth; they could not handle the truth.”

Specific cultic behaviors at SokukoJi include:

• Inappropriate, extreme intrusion into the sex lives of members
• Clergy sex abuse
• Statements from the teacher such as “I am the Buddha” 
• Demands that all members report where they are and what they are doing at all times
• Discouraging employment outside the temple beyond the minimum needed to pay for housing at the temple
• Encouraging monks to go off medications and begin reusing known addictive substances
• Verbal and emotional abuse, including “confrontation sessions,” is framed as loving
• Asserting that questioning is being confused or not “on the path”
• Demanding fealty and being told that one “should be ready to kill for the dharma”
• Demonizing and shunning those who disagree or have left

All these behaviors (and many more) are excused and even encouraged as demonstrations of the Tibetan Buddhist idea of “crazy-wisdom.” They are not. This is not Buddha-like—it is delusion. This behavior has nothing to with the teachings of the Buddha. What you are experiencing is toxic abuse. It’s not uncommon in spiritual communities. There is nothing inherently wrong with you that you find yourself here. It happens to good, intelligent, kind citizens. It happens to the best of us. But you deserve more. Do not put up with this. 

Please do not give up your autonomy and adulthood to any other no matter who or what they appear to be. “Giving others the benefit of the doubt” does not mean sacrificing your inner authority and looking away from toxic abuse.

• Speak with those who have left. 
• Inform yourself about why. 
• Please leave if you have not. There is no vow worth losing your life for. Ask yourself if your vow is to the teacher or the teachings. 
• Please seek help if you have left.