As a Buddhist, does one have to be peaceful and compromising? No.
As I have described elsewhere, the psychologist, therapist and meditation teacher Daniel P Brown (1948-2022) was not a peaceful Buddhist. Instead, he had learned to be "fiercely protective" for those otherwise left behind.
In particular, he gave protection to victims of the CIA, and to victims of the Catholic Church that he liked to "piss off". However, he was also aware that child abuse is "universal" and is found in the West and in Tibet.
(This article is an expanded version of this article, having as its focus the Catholic Church)
Daniel P Brown´s Lifelong Hate Relationship to the Catholic Church as pedophile paradise
When I found out [at age 11] that the whole thing was corrupt and the church was corrupt, I was totally crushed. It was the first big disillusion in my life (Dan Brown)
Dan Brown from then on loved to take on the Catholic Church. His activities as expert for the victims in the abuse scandals eventually resulted in what Dan Brown said:
"The Catholic Church has a boundary of unlimited funds to take me out as an expert."(Dan Brown)
The first reason for this lay in his childhood, where he had become a victim of church corruption at age 11:
At that age, Dan participated in a local science fair, and as a gifted child secured 1st prize in the biology category. However, he had to find out that the grand prize had been awarded to another student who had only won the 2nd prize in biology. Investigation by a relative revealed that the Catholic Church, overseeing the registration process, had manipulated the contest to ensure a victory for one of their own students.
This revelation destroyed forever Dan Brown's belief in the ethical integrity of institutions like the Church. Dan Brown in his own words about the episode, and how his mother´s attitude may have helped him:
"And when I found out that the whole thing was corrupt and the church was corrupt, I was totally crushed. It was the first big disillusion in my life. And my mother, being from a good Irish family, being an Irish temper, called the priest and the bishop down to the house and said, how can you have us believe in your God when you are corrupt? And she fired the church and voluntarily excommunicated herself.
I don't suppose there's any accident that after the disillusionment with the church that I became an advocate for victims' rights and testified in many priest abuse cases against the church, both in the U.S. and also worked with the Royal Commission to nail Cardinal George Pell's and did the systematically participate in the coverup of the priest abuse cases in Australia. And he's now going to jail. So I think that that disillusionment helped me see the truth of institutions like the church as being highly corrupt and self-interested for their own self-interest."
The Catholic Church, a criminal racketeering conspiracy for hiding pedophiles
Eventually, Daniel P Brown worked as an expert in hundreds of cases on the side of victims, where the church had been accused of child abuse and pedophilie.
This affair is still bringing to light new abuses in 2024, and not only in the Catholic Church. The Evangelical Church in Germany is currently having to come to terms with their own ongoing child abuse scandal, having affected over 9000 children.
Dan Brown mentions three specific involvements:
The abuse scandals in the orphanage Madonna Manor
The abuse scandals in Canada
The Australian cardinal George Pell
The orphanage Madonna Manor: the brilliance of the Catholic Church to hide pedophiles
In the 2018 "The Attachment Project", he described the orphanage Madonna Manor like this:
The brilliance of the Catholic Church is whenever a priest got accused of molesting somebody they would transfer the priest to Madonna Manor. At the time there were six pedophile priests all running Madonna Manor and they hired a pedophile staff. The entire staff [of the orphanage] was pedophiles, so you can imagine what happened to these kids (Dan Brown, Attachment projects)
To substantiate this, it’s worth reading the 2023 Guardian article on the hell of Madonna Manor.
“Brother Harold was like the boss,” Leon continued. “Once you’re targeted they got lockdown units. They’d put a pillow over your face so you can’t hear what’s going on. Sometimes they wore masks to conceal [their] identity so you didn’t know who raped you.
“They’d bring you over to the Dark Tower – that’s what we called the church, the cathedral they had on the property. Running away from Madonna Manor you just wanted to be someplace else. You’re still going to an abusive environment, but it was the horrors of being sexually assaulted, like the devil was in the building.”
Leon’s lawsuit alleges beatings and sexual assaults by several men. “Brother Harold performed some form of fondling, groping or molesting of [Leon] on an almost daily basis,” the complaint alleges.
The church has still not cleared its moral and financial debts as of 2024. Dan Brown would have agreed with this attorney statement:
„You should not be able to maintain a criminal racketeering conspiracy for hiding pedophiles and still function as a religious, tax-exempt charity (Attorney Stephen C Rubino, in the Guardian)
The Canadian Church scandal: the movie "Spotlight"
Further, Dan Brown was involved in most of the cases in the semi-documentary movie "Spotlight" with Michael Keaton. As of January 2024, this move is available on Netflix.
Here too, it is remarkable that one of the responsibles , the Archbishop of Boston (Cardinal Bernard Law) was not punished but promoted by the Church
What is interesting about this case, is Dan Brown´s take of abusive behaviors in the West and in Tibet. In the "Buddha at the Gaspump" interview he answers Rick Archer´s questions:
[Dan Brown]I did almost 200 priest abuse cases. Priest abuse cases, yeah. The Catholic Church has a boundary of unlimited funds to take me out as an expert.
I have a certain frivolous pride in pissing off the church that much. I was on a mission in Australia for two years to nail the archbishop for the cover-up of the cases there.
[Rick Archer]
I remember hearing that on the news, so you were involved in that, huh?
[Dan Brown]
I was involved in most of the cases that are in the movie Spotlight.
[Rick Archer]
Oh yeah, yeah. That was a great movie. Has there been anything like that in the Buddhist world?
And if not, what is it about the way the Buddhists conduct themselves?
[Dan Brown]
The Buddhists are just as vulnerable to sexual misconduct around the issue of monasticism.
[Rick Archer ]
So it's just about as common over there?
[Dan Brown]
Well, I think what happens is you have a monastic tradition where people have the celibate and they come to the West for the first time and they have no preparation for dealing with relationships and sexuality. A lot of them lose it.
[Rick Archer ]
And how about in the East? I mean, the monasteries have young people in them and older monks and so on. Is there a similar kind of problem?
[Dan Brown]
It's less frequent, but it's still a problem.
[Rick Archer
Is there something about the Buddhist training and ethics or some such thing, or the techniques for managing energies and attachments in the body that makes them a little bit less susceptible?
[Dan Brown]
No, I think it's a problem in both East and West. So it's kind of universal. Okay.
My first Lama was, I really respected him because he, at the age of 80, had a relationship for 10 years with a woman who was in her late 70s. And I said, why are you doing this? And he says, well, it's not time to be a monk.
He said, I have to learn about why these relationships are so important to all you as Westerners.
[Rick Archer ]
Ah. And was he open about it? Or was it clandestine?
[Dan Brown]
No, he was open about it. Okay, good. He said he needed to learn about relationships and why it was so important and his attachments with Westerners.
[Rick Archer ]
Yeah. And he was in, and the woman was in her 70s. He wasn't like going after 20 year olds or something, so.
[Dan Brown]
No. They had a dear relationship together. She'd come for the weekend and spend the weekend with him.
George Pell
Third of his mentioned involvements was the case of the Australian Bishop George Pell. Dan Brown talks about this:
I don't suppose there's any accident that after the disillusionment with the church that I became an advocate for victims' rights and testified in many priest abuse cases against the church, both in the U.S. and also worked with the Royal Commission to nail Cardinal George Pell's and did the systematically participate in the coverup of the priest abuse cases in Australia. And he's now going to jail. So I think that that disillusionment helped me see the truth of institutions like the church as being highly corrupt and self-interested for their own self-interest.
However, George Pell, like all the other criminals, got away with it.
Resources
Brown, D. P., [Buddha at the Gaspump Interview]. (2021, January 12). Daniel P. Brown - Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1438&v=YiDsgkOjsEA&feature=youtu.be/
Brown, D. P. (2019, April). EO 360°: A podcast by the Entrepreneurs’ Organization: Transforming The Mind | Dr. Dan Brown. Retrieved December 16, 2023, from
Brown, D. P. (2018). The Attachment Project Workbook: How to Treat Attachment Disturbances in Adults. Mind Only.
This book Is a product of the limited collaboration of Daniel P Brown with Jock Gordon in the Attachment Project (www.attachmentproject.com/ ). As the collaboration between Dan Brown and Jock Gordon ended shortly after the setup of the project, and Jock Gordon shifted the underlying methodology, this book can likely not be purchased from the website or anywhere.
Brown, D. P., & Churchill, J. (2012, January 16). Living Meditation 2012-03-14 dan PART 2 [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/137969046/
Vargas, R. A. (2023, December 4). ‘The devil was in that building’: New Orleans church orphanages’ dark secrets. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/03/new-orleans-orphanages-church-sexual-abuse/
Comments