The Monastic Academy is a Buddhist Monastery in Vermont dedicated to the liberation of all beings. We care for life on Earth to express the compassion that can guide us on the path to enlightenment.
We are a tight-knit community of a few dozen people that live, work, and practice together. We share meals, run the organization, and sit week-long meditation periods together each month.
Over the years, thousands of people have trained with us, some for a few days, others for a few months, and some for years. We form close relationships. When someone leaves, we celebrate them and wish them well with a goodbye meal in which we review the moments of closest connection, deepest care, greatest success, and also tell funny stories.
The recent post made by a former trainee named Jampel Sungwa – aka JS or Laura Fash, born biologically female but identifying as male – makes many false accusations against our teacher Soryu Forall and other members of our community. We believe it is important for the general public to have more context regarding this attack.
The Case of JS
JS is mentally unstable. He has been confined to mental institutions on multiple occasions since childhood. During one confinement he suffered brain trauma. He did not disclose these confinements, or the brain trauma, on his training application, or in the extensive interview process that we conducted prior to accepting him into the program. He only said that up until a year and half before, he had been "dealing with" major depressive disorder, a condition which, according to a recent study, 18% of US university students meet the DSM criteria for.
We learned about his history with mental institutions, and the brain trauma he suffered, when he told us after joining our community.
MAPLE is not a place where you have to be perfect. Having had prior mental health issues does not exclude you from the training. However, it’s important for us to know all relevant information so that we can respond accordingly.
There may be no one else in the history of our organization who has managed to extract more from our community, while offering less. Over the entire duration of his two stays, JS proved adept at extracting time, resources, energy, and care from the community, while offering little in return. He did this by very powerfully portraying himself as a virtuous victim. For example, after withholding the most severe aspects of his psychiatric history during the admissions process, he told many community members about it, and received sympathy, time and resources from those who wished to help.
This pattern has continued after Soryu asked him to leave.
We admit that we were fooled by this for some time. We now want to help others who may be fooled as well.
JS’s First Stay at MAPLE
JS first came to MAPLE as a student from January 5th to March 20th, 2020. It was during this period that JS shared with us some of the aspects of his mental health history that he did not disclose in the admissions process.
None of these issues created problems during his initial stay. He did well in the meditation, worked hard, and eventually helped Soryu organize an extensive interview process in which all members of the community gave feedback and suggestions regarding the organization’s direction and strategy.
JS left at the height of the world COVID panic. He asked that despite everything, for his last retreat, we not interrupt his meditation, regardless of any message or phone call from his friends. He stated that he knew that such a request would be great burden for us, but asked anyway. We do not encourage such requests, but we believe people have the right to make them. We upheld this, while constantly monitoring the world situation, ready to change course if necessary. This was hard work, but we did it for him. Immediately following the end of the retreat, at 10:00 pm, a few of us drove him to the border. He was joyful and grateful.
JS's Second Stay at MAPLE
At the end of 2022, we brought JS back to MAPLE as a paid collaborator. During this stay, he was not one of Soryu’s students. Instead, he stated his desire to be a friend and collaborator to Soryu, not a student.
JS also repeatedly said he wanted more power in the organization. Soryu encourages everyone to take leadership, but when he saw that JS didn’t care for others in the community, he withdrew his support. We believe that leaders should be caring.
JS has expressed a desire for money more frequently than anyone else in our history. Even now, when someone disagrees with his accounts, JS demands that they send him money as restitution, usually to support his political ideology:
During JS’s employment, Soryu said on a few occasions that he felt unsafe around JS, at one point expressing directly to the then Executive Director safety concerns about a planned trip with JS. A meeting was called. Soryu said that he didn’t feel safe within ten feet of JS. They didn’t listen to him. Later, the ED assured him that it would be OK and the trip should go forward. The person in charge of caring for the community (similar to HR) also suggested that they not go on the trip, due to concerns for everyone involved. Both JS and the ED assured her that it would be fine. In hindsight, Soryu should have followed his intuition, and we should have protected him better.
During that trip, JS engaged in even more extreme and inappropriate behaviors, including one time entering the back of the truck they were traveling in, where he knew Soryu was resting. Soryu exited the truck when he realized.
JS regularly attempted to emotionally manipulate Soryu. He demanded that they be more intimate, which caused Soryu to ask for distance, and eventually refuse to speak. Many others in JS’s life have responded to his patterns in this way.
At one point as they drove, he screamed at Soryu, “You HAVE to be my friend! You HAVE to be my friend! Tell me your secrets! I’ll never betray you!” Soryu responded, “I do not have to be your friend. Friendship must be earned.” And then was silent. JS continued to scream.
After their return, JS became increasingly obsessed with Soryu. He sent stories, poetry and recordings of himself performing songs. He entered Soryu’s cabin without permission, both when Soryu wasn’t present, and when he was, despite Soryu repeatedly telling JS to not come in.
It became clear to Soryu that JS needed to leave, but certain debilitating symptoms from past brain trauma, along with a severe case of an unknown illness, perhaps long COVID, arose at this time. This led to poor judgement and extreme fatigue, and it seemed that it would have been unsafe for him to leave at this time. While we knew that he needed to go, we are proud of our choice to care for him during this time when he was incapable of caring for himself.
Eventually, he wasn’t doing any work at all. We continued to pay him and care for him. We brought him food every day, often staying with him to be sure he ate it. We made sure he didn’t strain himself, even when he wanted to join meditation retreats or physical labor, to be sure he got rest. We put him in one of our nicest private cabins. To be extra careful, we took out some floorboards that we thought might still be off-gassing. For some reason, JS secretly put those same floorboards back in, later calling it a “poison cabin”.
Once while Soryu was giving a public talk, JS went into the talk notes and changed them during the live presentation. Soryu did not shame JS for this, publicly or privately, but did explain that this was such clear evidence of mental confusion that it would not be possible to work together in the future. JS was not able to accept this.
Soon thereafter, we determined that he was healthy enough to go back to Canada, and Soryu told him to leave. He was furious, and Soryu once again felt physically unsafe. Soryu told him to work to overcome such extreme hatred. JS left at the end of May 2023.
In JS’s training application, he had expressed that his foremost weakness was “struggling with a self-imposed perception of inadequacy of my skills to contribute anywhere.”
He had said that it was painful for him to realize that he was not capable of contributing to this organization, which he felt was having such a positive impact on the world, and had cared for him so completely. Many people experience pain when they leave here. This is not harm. This is grieving the end of a meaningful relationship.
After JS’s Departure
After JS left MAPLE, his inappropriate behaviors continued. On multiple occasions, he entered MAPLE’s property unannounced. Community members reported seeing him sneaking around in the woods, and trying to talk to them. Once, he slept in an unoccupied barn without our permission.
His obsession with Soryu also continued. He kept sending Soryu messages, along with artwork, collages, and recordings. Soryu ignored them. This culminated in what can only be described as stalking behavior. He traveled across the country to attend an event where he knew Soryu would be, but turned around after Soryu asked him to leave him alone.
Ruminating for years about his time working with Soryu and then making a 4-hour audio recording in one take IS the latest example of JS’s obsessiveness. He has stated repeatedly that it has been painful for him to have lost contact with Soryu. His post is the latest attempt to force Soryu to be in relationship with him, and failing that, to prevent others from having a connection with Soryu.
Early in their relationship, JS asked to be Soryu’s student. Later JS set that aside in order to attempt being Soryu’s friend. At this point, it isn’t clear what relationship JS wants. A lot of people believe that Soryu should become whoever they want him to be. However, if someone wants to be his student, Soryu has a responsibility to maintain a healthy student-teacher relationship. If a student isn’t capable of that, he does not engage with them on their terms.
The Recordings
In two recent group meetings, Soryu offered us a chance to ask any questions we had about the accusations. We recorded those conversations.
We are sharing them here because we are in danger of being attacked further.
Reflecting on this, our current ED has written:
Hatred hates, clinging clings, and suffering suffers. It is our job to demonstrate how love loves, letting go lets go, and happiness happys, even on the internet.
We ask for your support as we navigate this situation, with care and compassion for JS and others, for our entire community, and all living things.
I have found most clarity in the reminder at the end of the video that "only you and I know."
I write this after reaching out to contacts I have made at MAPLE who asked for public support. I do this with a great fear of repercussions from anything related to this, given I have plenty of identifying information within my account. I do this because I told them I would support them and this is what was asked.
Having lived on the internet, I struggle with online discussions' tendency towards recency bias, to believe the claim of victim, and this drive towards being amenable. In fact, this post is a challenge to all of this as being late to respond, countering they are the victim, and refusing to be agreeable. So that makes me question where is the justice in all of this nonsense, in what looks like a race to the bottom. (I can already see actually that you're trying to not make this a race to the bottom by addressing the accumulation of many online allegations.)
I have recently learned of an inversion of meaning for justice; western concepts focus heavily on punishing the aggressor. Another step towards justice would mean reparations for the victim. What I found most complete is finding a way to live in accord with another. Could MAPLE share what happening towards a pursuit of justice?
edit: a later review has helped me see that MAPLE has offered a third party mediation for this, but the other parties have not accepted.
Woah, scary stuff. World spinning is a dangerous endeavor. Disney World isn't a safe place, even though it seems harmless. To let someone believe their deep delusions is cruel. It is good that you are pointing that out.