清涼月

Rikkianne Chatfield and her husband Josh watched KVALs story about Rachel Montgomery. Montgomery is suing the Dzogchen center for facilitating the alleged abuse.

 

"It makes me feel sadness and a feeling of I wish I could have been there for [Rachel] during such a hard time," Chatfield said.

 

In the lawsuit, Montgomery says the leader of the Dzogchen Buddhist Retreat Center in Veneta groomed her and raped her. She detailed the abuse in the May 2023 interview.

 

"It wasnt until Rachels bravery that for me was such a turning point," said Chatfield.

 

Watching Montgomerys story changed Chatfields life.

 

"That really that led to me having a cascade of questions and doubts that I didnt allow myself to have before," she explained.

 

And conversations that she never had before. like the one with her husband, when she told him she had also been raped by Khenpo Choga. Josh, who had also studied at the retreat, had no idea.

 

"It was just clear to me to support her and be there for her. Something horrible has happened to her and its really hard for her to tell me obviously," Josh recalled.

 

Rikkianne did tell him. She told him how, like Rachel, Khenpo Choga scheduled private teachings with her. She told him how one night he had sex with her and continued to do that over and over and over.

 

"Ove the course of many years, like over 100 times," Rikkianne said.

 

According to the pending legal case, on another night when they were traveling, Choga entered Chatfields bedroom and raped her.

 

"I didnt realize how coercive it was even though I was experiencing that coercion and that force," she explained. "Its like an invisible force because I was being told if now that we are doing this, you can never not do this with me and you have to stay close with me or you can never be in this community again."

 

According to the lawsuit, the sexual abuse evolved into verbal and physical abuse, including multiple incidents of Choga punching Chatfield.

 

"I remember thinking to myself this is a test of my devotion," she said. "This is a test of my dedication to my practice, and in a way that type of thinking actually led me to endure more abuse because I didnt want to give up my practice. I loved my practice and the teachings very dearly."

 

So she stayed at the Dzogchen center for years under the watch of Khenpo Choga.

 

"The amount of mental gymnastics that the students have to do in order to justify his behavior is its really something that you cant put into words unless you experience it for yourself," Chatfield continued.

 

She says she may never have been able to break free from Choga and that invisible force if not for an unexpected development: the COVID-19 pandemic. Choga was stuck out of the country and Rikkianne was able to spend time with Josh, just the two of them.

 

"It really garnered this opportunity for me to start to regain my autonomy, make my own decisions with how I wanted to spend my time, where I wanted to be, and I remembered how amazing it was to spend time with my husband again, and just that freedom of not having to ask if we could go out for dinner was life-changing," she said. "Thats when I started to really conceptualize there are so many red flags to what Ive been experiencing, and its not normal to be told you cant spend time with your husband. Its not normal to be treated the way that we were being treated, and theres no reason to ever justify that kind of abuse."

 

So Chatfield pulled away from the community she’d spent nearly a decade with.

 

"For a long time, that was my home. That was my community, and that was my work I cared the most about."

 

Then in 2023, Josh saw our story about Rachel Montgomery. In that interview, Montgomery referenced Rikkianne Chatfield.

 

"I dont know what she knows, but I never told her because I was really worried about her falling into hell," she said. "Khenpo said in particular if I told my best friend that he was really worried that she could even commit suicide if I told her too much."

 

At that time the two former best friends hadn’t spoken in years, but Josh showed that story to Rikkianne.

 

"When Rachel came forward, I couldnt argue that there had been harm done," Rikkianne said. "For me that was the crack in the dam. Rachels bravery is truly the reason why Im here today."

 

Not only did Rachel coming forward help Rikkianne come forward, but Rikkianne believes Rachel speaking out against the center is the reason Khenpo Choga abused her.

 

"He didnt actually sexually assault me until after Rachel left and spoke out because he wanted to have a tighter grip on me," Rikkianne said. "He knew we were very close friends. He knew we were best friends, and that was a very strong intention on his part was to coerce me into the same situation."

 

Like Montgomery, Chatfield was pushed away by most of the high-ranking members at the center.

 

"Many people dont understand the extent of his harm because he hides it and many of his close students hide it because theyre always trying to justify it as teachings or specific personalized instructions," Chatfield explained.

 

Like Montgomery, it took time for Chatfield to process the assaults.

 

"At the time, I did not see it as rape," she said. "I did not see it as abuse. It wasnt until many years later and after I was able to gain some distance from the teacher and the community where I was in a safe environment."

 

Like Montgomery, Chatfield is still dealing with the pain, the confusion and the mental gymnastics.

 

"He took every person in my life that I love the most: Rachel, my husband, the other community members, even the senior community members that were the closest disciples of his. They were my heart."

 

Legally a lot has changed as well. Chatfield filed a criminal report with the Lane County Sheriffs Office and joined the ongoing civil lawsuit as a co-plaintiff with Montgomery. That process is still in the discovery phase.

 

Montgomery was emotional about Chatfields decision to come forward.

 

"At first it was a lot of shock and honestly a tremendous amount of pain," she said in a recent Zoom interview. "It was really like an emotional bomb of pain for understanding that someone I had thought of was really safe and wasn’t someone who would experience harm in the way I experienced harm, to learn that obviously wasn’t true at all was obviously shocking to me and something I had to adjust to."

 

Montgomery said she feels regret for not coming forward sooner but hopes the two women are on the right track now.

 

"It feels really great to know that maybe I started pushing the snowball down the hill, but one of the first things that came to mind when Rikkianne came forward is I felt like I had been building a sentence that she put an exclamation point on," Montgomerry said.

 

As for the state of the Dzogchen Buddhist Retreat Center in Veneta?

 

"Ive started to wonder if there’s a possibility that everyone, and this is a little strange, but even the people Im suing will all become like Rikkianne in the sense that they will wake up from the nightmare that they don’t know they’re living in," Montgomery said.

 

"I saw how they were being harmed and how they were suffering behind closed doors but didnt want to say it," Chatfield explained. "That was what empowered me to get to where I am today and just stop with the mental gymnastics because the result is painfully obvious. Its just abuse and trauma."

 

There are eight defendants accused of facilitating the alleged abuse in the civil lawsuit. Five have denied the womens claims. The other three have not yet filed legal answers.

 

Meanwhile, Khenpo Choga was removed as a defendant in that civil lawsuit because he was believed to be out of the country when lawyers attempted to serve him notice of the lawsuit, and he says he didnt get it so they were forced to drop him from the civil lawsuit.

 

As for the criminal report filed by Chatfield, in spite of the LCSO deputy identifying probable cause for arrest, the Lane County District Attorneys Office said it is not bringing charges against Choga because theres insufficient evidence to prove that Chatfield did not consent:

 

In a case like this, the prosecution’s focus would be to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Chatfield did not consent and that the suspect knew Chatfield did not consent. The evidence is such that the State could prove neither. Starting with Chatfield’s consent or lack thereof, the biggest factor is the culture surrounding this religious group. There seems to be a clear coercive aspect to it: to disobey your teacher would be the biggest “crime” you can commit and would send you to hell, and the sexual activity in this case is couched in religious ceremony. But the legal concept of consent does not really recognize this kind of coercion. The law says a person consents or they don’t. Under the circumstances of this case, it is not legally clear that Chatfield denied consent. This leads to the greater difficulty: even if Chatfield did not consent, there is virtually zero evidence that the suspect knew that. We lack a suspect interview (through no fault of law enforcement) and it does not appear in Chatfield’s account that she ever expressed lack of consent to the suspect. For all of these reasons, the State cannot charge this case.

 

Khenpo Choga currently faces no criminal charges or civil claims. He, along with the high-ranking members of the center, continue to decline requests for interviews, but Chatfield says she has spoken with some who have privately expressed their support for the two women.

 

https://www.katu.com/news/local/breaking-the-silence-multiple-accusations-of-sexual-assault-at-local-buddhist-retreat

 

Representatives from Dzogchen Shri Singha declined to comment when approached by KATU News. The website of the Dzogchen Shri Singha Foundation, which was founded to support Choga, still lists him on their lineage page. The site does not list any in-person activities in Oregon, but does detail a recent retreat to Taiwan, led by Choga. They give no warning about ongoing legal proceedings against Choga or the civil case involving leading members of the US-based organization.

 

According to a 2020 report, the Dzogchen Shri Singha Foundation has five centers in the northwest: in Eugene and Portland, Oregon, Seattle and Port Townsend, Washington, and in Boise, Idaho. There is also a center in Vancouver, British Columbia.

 

Carol Merchasin, a lawyer who specializes in cases involving sexual misconduct in religious and spiritual communities, said last year that these cases are not unique. It is common for victims of abuse in spiritual and religious to have difficulty realizing what has happened. “I hope that her voice is heard. I hope that she feels satisfaction that a court of law heard her voice, and I hope that these organizations are held to some kind of accountability.” ((Daily Beast)

 

https://www.buddhistdoor.net/news/second-woman-accuses-dzogchen-buddhist-teacher-in-oregon-of-rape/