[oinj]

He never was a "spiritual leader". He was a med school professor. He had been ordained as a _upāsaka_, a lay Buddhist disciple, meaning he took the vow of following the five precepts and he was given this name by the people who ordained him, that's not a weird thing. He later was removed from the board of the meditation center he co-founded because he broke the precepts (adultery and lying about it to his wife, hardly a criminal)[1], so he was prohibited from teaching things. He died recently from cancer[2].

His approach in the book, which seems still taught at that center, probably because it's excellent, was to lay out a path for meditation practice that was inspired from classic Buddhist writings, but presented and explained with modern neuroscience.

Getting advice from a divorced guy doesn't look great, but thankfully there are many more role models to look up to, and (early) Buddhism requires very little faith and demands that you verify the teachings by yourself anyway.

[1] https://engagedharma.net/2019/08/19/culadasa-charged-with-se... [2] https://culadasa.com/

[locusofself]

To be clear I'm not saying being divorced is a failing. But he has now been married 3 times, and has admitted to having extramarital affairs with prostitutes, as well as "supporting" them financially.