You may have heard of some Buddhist cults, but do you know what makes a group a cult? Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, a highly regarded cult expert, defines a cult as having these characteristics in his paper Cult Formation: A charismatic leader, who increasingly becomes an ob...

You can take this article as me cautioning the Buddhist community. Having been active in the Buddhist circle for 30 years, I’ve met some ‘Buddhist’ teachers who knowingly lead their followers into more suffering, while having them believe the opposite. By showing good behaviou...