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Oregon woman sues Buddhist monk who allegedly raped her before forcing her to keep his 'enlightened' baby

Rachel Montgomery was a teenager when she began attending a Buddhist center in Oregon where a Buddhist monk sexually assualted her
UPDATED APR 13, 2023
Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche allegedly raped Rachel Montgomery at Dzogchen Retreat Center when she was 19 years old (Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche/Facebook)
Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche allegedly raped Rachel Montgomery at Dzogchen Retreat Center when she was 19 years old (Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche/Facebook)

Warning: This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some, readers' discretion advised.

EUGENE, OREGON: A 30-year-old woman has sued an influential Buddhist monk, Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche, who also goes by Choying Rabjam, and filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual battery and sex trafficking, when she was just 19 years old. Rachel Montgomery said he allegedly raped her inside a Buddhist temple, when she was 21, and impregnated her and told her to keep the the baby who will become an “enlightened being” like him.

This all started when Montgomery joined Dzogchen Retreat Center in 2011 led by Choga Rinpoche. She found comfort at the centre after her traumatic childhood, reports Daily Beast. A lawsuit filed by her in the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon in December 2022. The lawsuit stated that he asked her to suck his tongue before groping and penetrating her, claiming that it was all part of “tantric empowerment."

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Now, following the accusations against the Dalai Lama earlier this week where he was captured in a video asking a young boy to 'suck' his tongue, Montgomery told The Daily Beast, "I feel like Buddhism was weaponized to take advantage of me. I don’t want to say that it gets weaponized for everyone. But for me, it was weaponized.”

Montgomery claimed that Buddhism was an escape from what had been a traumatic childhood and that Choga Rinpoche eventually twisted their teachings to sexually abuse her. She told that she started using substance from the age of 13 after her father died while her mother struggled with alcohol and drug abuse. She stopped using drugs after rehab and later, found Buddhism.

'He was super mystical'

“I had pigtails, no sense of fashion. I mean, I look back and I’m like, ‘Wow. I was a baby.’ I hadn’t even had a smartphone yet. I was just fresh in the world. I had very little knowledge and know-how in general,” she recollected. Describing about Choga Rinpoche, she said, he was a “super mystical” presence on the campus. She narrated, “He asked me to go on a walk to talk about my opportunity to contribute to their community. And that was unique for someone to have that one-on-one time."

Instructed to suck tongue 'like lollipop'

The lawsuit alleged that the Buddhist conducted private one-to-one tutoring sessions with her that would take her learning to a new level. She was told to sit in his lap, straddling him face-to-face, and was instructed to suck his tongue “like a lollipop." He told her it was the art of “priming her lotus."

On December 12, 2013, during a party at the Dzogchen Retreat Center, he pressured her to get drunk and then took her to the temple where he raped her. She says that while she was barely conscious, she remembers Choga's body's weight on top of her and his long hair on her face.

Three weeks later, she found she is pregnant. “I never could have seen myself having an abortion. But the panic I felt was so uncontrollable. And so, in my body, it was inescapable. It was either hurt myself, or end the pregnancy. I didn't see a way I was going to be able to mentally survive the pregnancy," she said and added, "My whole body was shaking. I just couldn't stop shaking the whole drive from Washington down to Oregon,” she said. “I would say it was confrontation-lite. I had never confronted him before. It was more like an urgent pleading.”

He told her that the baby would be an "enlightened being" if born. She said, "After the abortion, I was Googling, what happens if you abort an enlightened child?… He made it clear, I would have this negative karma as a result of what I was doing. It was a very strong concern. It was an anxiety I had at the time.” However, he later agreed to pay for her to abort the fetus. As per the outlet, Montgomery now lives with her husband and her cat, Hitchens, in Washington. She also works with a community-based program that helps to prevent young people using drugs and alcohol.

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