Buddhist group grappling with sexual misconduct claims announces transition plan

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, left, places a ring on his bride Princess Tseyang Palmo’s finger during their Tibetan Buddhist royal wedding ceremony in Halifax on June 10, 2006. One of the largest Buddhist organizations in the western world has announced a leadership transition plan three weeks after its spiritual leader stepped down amid sexual misconduct allegations.

One of the largest Buddhist organizations in the western world has announced a leadership transition plan, three weeks after its spiritual leader stepped aside amid sexual misconduct allegations.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the leader of the Shambhala International community, stepped back from his duties this month pending the outcome of a third-party investigation.

Members of the Kalapa Council, the governing body of the Halifax-based Buddhist organization and its more than 200 meditation centres worldwide, announced they would be resigning en masse through a “phased departure.”

In a letter to the Shambhala community on Monday, the council announced that a transition team will select and appoint an interim board of directors, an effort to separate the current leadership from the appointment of the next board.

The council said the transition team will also select a socalled process team, which will be responsible for improving the Buddhist organization’s future leadership, representation and governance structures.

“The Kalapa Council reached out to the international community to find respected leaders with expertise in various areas who could serve on the task force,” the governing body said.

“We believe that these leaders, based on advice and suggestions from the community, will create a strong, representative body for the interim board of Shambhala.”

The transition plan comes after a former Shambhala community member published a report in June with statements from women alleging sexual misconduct by Mipham.

In the report, multiple unnamed women accuse the him of heavy drinking and using his attendant to “procure women students for his own sexual gratification.”

The women alleged Mipham would identify a woman during a teaching session or other event, and then use his attendant to bring her to his lodgings late at night for sex.

“Women were brought to (Mipham) in the middle of the night and pushed out the door before dawn to stumble back to their beds,” a woman described in a statement included in the report.

The women said they were concerned they would face repercussions if they rejected his advances.

The allegations have not been proven in court and no charges have been laid.

The council has hired Halifax law firm Wickwire Holm to investigate the allegations.

An interim board and the process team are expected to be in place by Sept. 10, with the Kalapa Council transitioning its responsibilities to the interim board by Sept. 22.

The transition team is expected to reach out to the Shambhala community in the coming weeks.

The council also said the process team “will listen to the community, take feedback, and guide a process to oversee the deeper and longer process of inviting a new approach to community leadership in Shambhala.”

An entangled North Atlantic right whale spotted in the Bay of Fundy is proving elusive for rescue crews trying to find it.

Heavy fog forced searchers to suspend their hunt Tuesday, a day after it was spotted 22 nautical miles east of Grand Manan, N.B.

“Weather conditions deteriorated throughout the morning and the search was postponed due to weather on scene,” the Department of Fisheries and Oceans said in a release Tuesday afternoon.

Jerry Conway of the Campobello Whale Rescue Team said the whale, identified as an adult male, was seen Monday morning with an orange buoy trailing behind it.

“We’re guessing that the line is entangled on a lower portion of the whale and there must be a weight attached to that line to keep it submerged except for the buoy that’s on the surface,” he said.

Three rescue boats had been on the water Tuesday morning, while a Fisheries and Oceans aircraft surveyed from above.

Conway said his group, federal fisheries officials, as well as crews from the New England Aquarium and the Grand Manan Whale and Seabird Research Station will continue searching. HALIFAX – Tenants and landlords in Nova Scotia will soon resolve disputes via telephone, instead of an in-person hearing.

Service Nova Scotia Minister Geoff MacLellan says the idea is to make the process faster and more efficient. Nova Scotia currently deals with more than 5,000 dispute applications a year and will become the second province after British Columbia to replace in-person hearings with telephone hearings.

The use of phone hearings was

Fisheries and Oceans said the forecast shows continued poor weather for the next two days.

“Weather permitting and visibility permitting we’ll go out until we find the whale and try to disentangle it,” Conway said.

Freeing a whale from fishing lines can be very dangerous.

Joe Howlett died during the rescue of a North Atlantic right whale on July 10, 2017. Howlett and Mackie Greene helped found the Campobello team in 2002, and the organization has rescued about two dozen whales over the past 15 years.

Fisheries and Oceans has taken a number of measures since then in an effort to limit the number of whales that become entangled.

There have been speed limits imposed on vessels in some areas, there are new regulations on the use and identification of fishing gear, and a number of fishing zones have seen temporary closures as a result of whales spotted in the area.

The increased measures follow the deaths of 18 North Atlantic right whales in Canadian and U.S. waters last year - most of them in the Gulf of St. Lawrence - mainly due to collisions with ships or entanglements in fishing gear.

There are believed to be fewer than 450 of the whales remaining and, of those, there are only about 100 breeding females. tested through a Halifax pilot project over the past 18 months.

The province says more than 90 of about 650 participants completed a voluntary online survey - and 90 per cent indicated they were either very satisfied or satisfied with the process.

Phone hearings will be booked next Wednesday for Halifax and areas west of Halifax, Sydney and Amherst, with Sept. 4 the target date for all hearings across the province to be conducted by phone.

The change was introduced in amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act in October 2016.