my story

As some of you may have noticed, Ken McLeod’s recent newsletter to the Unfettered Mind community makes no mention of this blog or of the issues raised here and elsewhere.  (See the threat of a lawsuit against Adam Tebbe of Sweeping Zen, 20-year Ken McLeod student George Draffan's public statement, Myoan Grace Schireson’s report on teacher sexual misconduct, Seth Segall's article in The Existential Buddhist and Justin Whitaker's From Scandal to Just Plain Ugly, Patheos.com.)

I cannot know Ken’s reasons for remaining silent.  However, after yet another hostile email from UM Board member Robert Conrad, I do wonder if Ken is withholding the truth from his own Board of Directors.  Mr. Conrad’s email contains inaccurate and denigrating statements about me and my relationship to Ken.*

Originally, I had hoped that Unfettered Mind would receive my and the other student’s grievance in a way that would be unbiased and truly open to hearing our stories.  Unfortunately, the Board chose to dismiss and ignore us.  That is why I started this blog.  Now, after it has been widely publicized, the Board has stepped up its obstructive tactics and has become out-and-out antagonistic.  Rather than use a reputable third party like Faith Trust Institute, the board has decided to manage my grievance by adopting an aggressive adversarial position that leaves me, the grievant, to defend myself.  This has been re-wounding for me.  It is time for me to speak.

People have asked me “what do you want?”  All I have ever wanted was to tell my story.  It is important to my own healing and it is important that others hear it. 

Below is a factual timeline.  Most of it can be documented and all of it can be corroborated by correspondence and/or witnesses.  There are a few vivid and specific recollections of what happened between me and Ken privately.  I would testify to these under oath.

I met Ken McLeod during a weekend retreat that took place April 24-26, 2009 in Montreal.  Immediately after this event I asked Ken for a referral to a local teacher but he invited me to consult with him privately as his student.  Skype sessions began on May 11, 2009 and I paid for them.

During our first sessions in May and June, 2009, I specifically asked Ken to clarify the frame of our meetings including managing projections onto the teacher. I asked for help with issues affecting my family.  I asked him for reading materials on Buddhism.  Ken never responded to these requests during our sessions.  Mostly he listened and invited me to “open to everything” and “sit in the mess”.  In one session, Ken asked me to place my hand on my belly and to feel the “energy” there while he watched; then he recommended I read the fairy tale Briar Rose, a story in which Sleeping Beauty is awoken by a kiss planted on her lips by Prince Charming.  

In July, 2009, during one of our long Skype sessions, Ken invited me to be his “friend”.  He wanted me to gaze into his eyes.  In subsequent sessions, he asked me for a photo of myself to put on his phone which, he said, was the only woman’s photo he had ever carried.  Although I was married, he was in regular contact with me via email and Skype chats, sent me poems and music and signed one of his emails “with rosemary and roses”.  He introduced the possibility of marriage to me and asked if I would meet him in private rooms when he came to Canada.

In August, 2009, after receiving an email from my husband, Ken acknowledged error and unethical behavior in an email sent to me and my husband in which he said he would “step back completely”.  Nevertheless, in September, 2009, as my family was falling apart in the wake of what had already happened between Ken and me, he arranged to meet me in Toronto and Montreal where he was teaching.  I agreed to meet him because I believed we had a special relationship that was at the center of a major and painful change in my life.  I went to be with him.  I was registered at both venues and participated as a student during his presentations.   In both Toronto and Montreal there was intimate physical touch, embracing and kissing that resulted in mutual erotic excitement.  Ken instructed me in sexual energy practices involving the genitals.  This took place in his private rooms.  There was no technical intercourse resulting in penetration.

After our physical intimacies, Ken returned to California.  Contact was sporadic but he had talked to me about his three-year plan to be together, including writing two books he hoped to begin in Montreal in November so we could spend more time with each other.  On September 26, 2009, my birthday, the local florist called to say I had a delivery from Mr. McLeod.  When I went to pick up the flowers, I was told the order had been cancelled.  

On October 5, 2009, during an almost five-hour Skype session, Ken said he wanted to end our relationship.  I was devastated.  He had introduced the idea of a marriage between us.  He knew I left my husband to be in a special relationship with him.  He had watched from a distance as my marriage broke under the strain of our affair.  I was dealing with the consequences of a family freshly severed for the sake of this relationship.  I could not take in what he was telling me and I responded in shock "you are kidding; why don't I just slit my throat?"  He smiled and replied, "If I were you, I would slit my wrists".  

I continued to contact Ken but his responses grew fewer and farther between and then came to a complete halt on November 2, 2009. On that day Ken wrote me an email in which he said that “there was no point in any further communication.”  The email was signed “with best wishes, Ken”.

I have heard nothing from him since.

On July 23, 2012, Stephanie Siebert, President of the Board of Unfettered Mind, wrote secretly to three well-known Buddhist teachers and claimed “there was never any sexual or other relationship between Ken and Patricia”.  

The board has yet to retract that statement.

* Robert Conrad has not clarified his role in my grievance.  He has not told me whether he is acting as a board member, executive officer or Ken’s attorney; and he has not responded to the requests I made. I will be publishing my response to Mr. Conrad at some point.