We agree that Peter Yeung does provide some help. Very sadly, his help is corrupt. His objective to is to earn money from you, and gain total power over you, so you keep paying him and worshiping him. This means that the help he has given you comes at a very high price, a price that real Tibetan Buddhists do not ask anyone to pay. He doesn’t help so you advance, he helps so that you pay him money and worship.

The “generosity” Peter Yeung displays is always an investment. He gives so people feel in debt to him, and pay him back more over time. He is very clever at giving just enough to impress a person, or other people, then extracting huge payback in terms of money or worship. This is the same as a fisherman who puts bait on a line. This is not generosity.

As well as extorting money and worship from you, because Peter Yeung uses fear, he actually stops his students moving towards enlightenment. That is the hidden price. Look at the senior students. They live in fear of Peter Yeung. This is the opposite of enlightenment.

His help is also, from our research and wider experience, at a very basic level. He deliberately keeps his teaching to a very basic level so his students do not advance, which means they end up paying him money for a long time. He then blames his students for their lack of advancement, which I’m sure you’ve seen and experienced. This also is deliberate, to ensure you keep paying him money and worship, and also gives the student low self-esteem, which directly blocks the path to enlightenment. Real Tibetan Buddhist teachers give their students high self-esteem, it is in all the texts. This is because, exactly as the Buddha says, a student needs high self-esteem to achieve enlightenment: the person has to feel they are worthy of enlightenment (precious human birth). This is the same in any field of endeavour: a person must believe they can reach the goal, or they simply will not reach it. Peter Yeung programs his students, using standard brainwashing and terror techniques, to believe they deserve nothing. They therefore achieve nothing.

Something that took us a long time to understand, and is again confirmed by other people’s experiences who after some time found their master to be corrupt, is that the student does advance, even if the master is corrupt. Spending hours in prayer and meditation, and living as best as you can as a Buddhist, has good effects. This is your energy at work within Buddhism, it has nothing to do with Peter Yeung. Peter Yeung makes it seem to all his students that any advances you make are because of him. The truth is, advances you make in your development are because of your work! This is clear in all the Buddhist texts.

All the students we’ve seen over the years who make progress in Buddhism, leave Peter Yeung because they all come to the same conclusion: they start to see that he is corrupt. This is another reason Peter Yeung deliberately does his best to stop his students advancing. He knows that if they advance, they will see through his lies, and stop paying him money.

The people Peter Yeung “helped” would have gotten much better, much quicker, and paying much less money, if they had studied with someone else. They say Peter Yeung helped them because they are ignorant of how much better quality help there is out there; also to make it seem like their investment of money time and worship was worthwhile (no one likes admitting they’ve bought a piece of shit); and also makes it seem like they are “improved” (so better than they were before, and by implication, probably better than you!).

If you look at his senior students – has he really “helped” them? What have they actually been “helped” to do?

Worship Peter Yeung, yes.
Pay money to Peter Yeung, yes.
Give up their lives to Peter Yeung, yes.

But has anyone who Peter Yeung “helped” actually achieved anything positive and real? No.

We’ve seen his students over many years, and they have actually become worse human beings over time. Look at their lives: they live in modern slavery in those houses, paying all their money to Peter Yeung, every moment of their day controlled by Peter Yeung, and living in constant fear of Peter Yeung.

This is not Buddhism, and it is not “help”.

Look at the students: do they achieve their goals in Buddhism and in life? Do they have good relationships with people in the real world?

Over 20 years, every student we saw that achieve things either in Buddhism, in martial arts, or in life, or who had good relationships in the real world, left Peter Yeung.

We all did this because we all realised he was stopping us from achieving enlightenment, not helping us. We all realised he was sabotaging our relationships in the real world (particularly with family). We all realised that he would attack and belittle any skills we had or developed, making us dependent on him.

Buddha encouraged all students to ask real questions, all the time. It is our responsibility as Buddhists to ask questions, and get real answers. You’ll probably have a lot of questions as you see the truth more clearly about the Pathgate cult, and might need some moral support. We’re here for you.

We will be transferring the information posted on the Cult Education Institute forum by a ex-follower:
https://forum.culteducation.com/read.php?12,138276

Here is the first post.

For many years I was Peter Young’s (“lama” Dondrup Dorje) loyal student.

My opinion is the following:

1. He is a very dangerous, highly educated, exceptionally skilful, narcissist.

2. Pathgate Institute is definitely a cult. It has zero endorsement from the real Buddhist community.

3. He has developed extraordinary personal power through martial arts, esoteric practices, and long- term practice of brainwashing / social conditioning techniques.

4. He is totally ruthless. He will do anything, to anyone, including short-term positive actions, and ingratiating himself with real lineages, in order to achieve a goal.

5. He is obsessed with achieving a sense of self-worth through being superior to others. Despite his undoubted personal achievements (gaining power over others), he is tortured by a sense of self-worthlessness. This drives him to achieve extraordinary powers, and to degrade everyone around him.

6. He feels genuinely justified in the same way all dictators feels genuinely justified. At any moment, anything he decides is good, is good; and anything he decides is bad, is bad. What he decides is good or bad, or the people that he decides are good or bad, change at his whim.

7. He totally believes power = spiritual blessing.

8. He draws people in by pretending to offer to share the secrets of his power and skill. In 20 years, I have never seen this offering ever bear fruit. His senior students are allowed to advance just enough that they’re not totally ridiculous at first sight, giving away the game. 5 minutes with any of them is enough to see their seeming achievements are build on sand.

9. When “teaching”, he shares information in a way that guarantees nobody understands him, then blames the student for failing to learn, making the student feel worthless, or karmically cursed.

For example: He said “I don’t care how much you’ve been abused in your life, as long as you are angry about it, it will happen again”. This is, effectively, in a very limited way, a true statement. However, First: anyone who has been abused will react very badly to this, it is abuse on abuse. No abuse victim will learn a single thing from knowing this. Second: He doesn’t say how to address the anger one feels about being abused. This leaves the abuse victim in a terrible state of guilt for feeling angry about being abused. Again, abuse on abuse. Third: This opens the student to further abuse, as the student starts to try to not feel angry about being abused, in order to not attract further abuse. This, of course, enables further abuse to happen, which is Peter Young’s objective.

10. He loves to ridicule his students individually in front of the group. Public-shaming is one his favourite things. He claims it does the individual good, in precisely the same way the Communist Chinese do.

11. He becomes extremely jealous of any of his students who do achieve some kind of advancement through sheer struggle amidst the tide of his wrong-guidance, and sabotages them, either directly or indirectly.

12. If he fails to sabotage them, or when sabotaged they manage to keep some sense of self-worth, he drives them away from the group, saying they are (in summary) evil.

13. He splinters his student’s sense of self, and isolates them, claiming that this is the way to practice the level of dedication that leads to success. He believes this to be true, because it is what he did.

14. He fully expects his students to be as ruthless and narcissistic as he is. If they are not, they deserve to be exploited to the max.

15. None of his students show any signs of success as a result of what they “learn” from him, on any level. The students who have been with him for a long time are all very damaged, sad, scared and confused people. I’ve personally been around them for a very long time, and they become actually non-functioning in any normal situation.

16. His method, both overtly and covertly, is to make his students utterly dependent on him. He calls this “Guru Yoga”, totally debasing and corrupting a real Buddhist practice.

17. He does share some wisdom, some insight, some healings etc., but only enough to keep people paying him money and adoration, and generate more for himself. He does it only for his own good. He is exceptionally clever at this. Most of the actually real information he shares can be obtained from basic YouTube video or any basic self-help book. He charges a fortune for this information, and students pay it, because these occasional glimmers of real information seem like diamonds compared to the confusing nonsense he gives out the majority of the time.

18. In 20 years, I have not seen one of his students begin to teach. Those who are in charge of centres around Europe and the world do not teach for themselves in this sense. They are puppets. Every single one was appointed as centre-leader to open new income streams, not because they are qualified.

19. He programs his students to be self-hating, and to lose all motivation for anything that doesn’t have him at the centre and goal.

20. He is utterly convinced that he is doing the right thing, and that anyone who doesn’t agree with him or his methods is (in summary) evil, or at minimum in a state of pitiful delusion. He convinces his students of this. He rewards those students who buy into this view by making them feel superior to everyone else.

21. He is exceptionally clever with what he says, and how he acts, so that nothing can be “pinned on him”, including pretending to be enlightened without ever actually saying the words. His students all think they’re being insightful by seeing him as enlightened when he doesn’t explicitly say so. He makes them think they’re “seeing with wisdom”, so he doesn’t have to say it.

22. He feeds off his students, and at the same time ridicules them at every turn. Part of that ridicule is getting them to believe he is enlightened without ever saying it. He, very clearly once one sees what he’s doing, thinks it’s hilarious his students are so gullible as to imagine he is enlightened, without him having to convince them in any way.

23. He bought his lamahood with cash and favours, it was not earned. I was there when it happened.

24. He does not teach Buddhism, he uses Buddhism as a frame to advance his narcissism.

25. I have never seen one of his students achieve anything of any worth or value that they wouldn’t have achieved by themselves, and much quicker if they’d been away from his influence. I have seen many of students become much less capable at things they used to be good at.

26. He truly believes, and openly states that “fear makes the world go round”. This, in one phrase, explains everything about him, his insecurities, and his methods. That he doesn’t even hide this as his world-view is another example of how he ridicules his students – he has them so brainwashed they don’t realise he is subjecting them to this paradigm.

27. Every one of his students is terrified of him. He makes them think this is the correct psychological position for accelerated learning.

28. He attracts students with the promise of power. If you are attracted to him, be warned he will use your lust for power to trap you in powerlessness.

I learned a lot from my time with him.

However, it is the kind of learning one gets from horrible experience.

In that sense it is valuable, but I only just managed to get out with my mind intact. It’s taken me years to be able to speak up on this forum.

The time and money I spent on him, if spent elsewhere, would have advanced me 1000 times further.

I have seen many others destroyed, burnt-out or succumb to what can only be described as a kind of deliberate imbecility.

STAY THE F**K AWAY FROM HIM.

Statement of Concerns

This statement is prepared by former followers of Peter Yeung/Young, also known as “Lama Dondrup Dorje,” from the “Pathgate Institute of Buddhist Studies” in Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. We, as long-time committed and devoted followers who have either left or been forced out of his community, feel compelled to shed light on his consistent pattern of unethical conduct spanning over three decades.

In the wake of the growing awareness surrounding misconduct by Buddhist teachers, it becomes imperative for us to address the misrepresentation of Tibetan Buddhism by this purported teacher. Our objective is to shed light on the actual harm he has caused and continues to cause to both former and current followers.

We express deep concern regarding the following:

1. Peter Yeung’s abusive and exploitative behaviour encompasses aggression, control, narcissism, manipulation, deception, and hypocrisy, inflicting physical, psychological, emotional, sexual, and financial harm upon his followers:

• Harsh Coercion: Disguised as “wrathful compassion,” Peter Yeung subjects his followers to verbal abuse, employing constant criticism, shouting, shaming, and public humiliation as coercive tactics.
• Breach of Confidentiality: Peter Yeung demonstrates a flagrant disregard for confidential information shared by followers, often exploiting this knowledge by exposing individuals in classes, thereby causing embarrassment and distress.
• Manipulative Fearmongering: By invoking “karmic consequences,” Peter Yeung perpetually instils guilt and fear in his followers. He further exploits the health of followers and their loved ones, leveraging it as a means to coerce compliance.
• Physical Assault: Justifying his actions as “karma purification,” Peter Yeung physically assaults followers, resorting to punching, choking, and shoving. Shockingly, these abusive behaviours extend to children, as he also encourages parents to discipline their children through physical violence.
• Sexual Predation: Peter Yeung engages in sexually predatory behaviour towards female followers, selectively grooming young and attractive individuals by normalizing close proximity and physical touch, often through massages. Grooming tactics also involve indoctrinating followers to believe that engaging in sexual relations with a lama is a blessing, while instilling fear of consequences for refusing such instructions.
• Sexism and Misogyny: His teachings and personal views consistently reflect a long-standing pattern of sexism and misogyny, perpetuating discriminatory attitudes and treatment towards women.
• Arbitrary Authority and Self-Righteousness: Yeung blurs the line between personal opinions and ultimate truth, presenting his arbitrary decisions and actions as inherently “appropriate.” He communicates in a sanctimonious manner, frequently boasting about possessing superior knowledge, insight, and practice. He often claims to possess supernatural powers and receives blessings from unseen forces.
• Manipulation and Intrusion: He indoctrinates his followers to believe that he possesses telepathic abilities, falsely claiming to “see what they are thinking and doing.” In reality, he spies on them through their daily journal submissions, manipulating their trust. When confronted with inaccuracies, he gaslights followers by asserting that he knows them better than they know themselves.
• Contradictory and Confusing Guidance: Despite claiming to provide perfect advice and instructions, Yeung’s teachings are often vague, contradictory, and chaotic, leading to further confusion and turmoil.
• Discouragement of Independent Study and Learning: He discourages followers from reading Buddhist texts and engaging with other teachers, fostering dependency on his teachings and restricting access to alternative sources of knowledge.
• Plagiarism and Inaccurate Translation: Yeung plagiarizes teachings from the internet, sometimes from unreliable sources. His spontaneous translations during classes are consistently lengthy, confusing, and inaccurate. He deflects responsibility for followers’ lack of understanding, attributing it to the profundity of his teachings or followers’ supposed lack of merit.
• Repetitive Content and Meaningless Activities: Despite claiming novelty, Yeung frequently rehashes old material and stories. Under the pretext of being a “modern lama,” his classes often devolve into meaningless timewasting activities, including trivia quizzes, singing, acting, self-aggrandisement, denigration, and audience abuse.
• Manipulative Control and Attention-Seeking: He unnecessarily plays gatekeeper to Buddhist teachings, requiring permission to attend even basic classes. Under the guise of “teaching at all times,” he demands to be the centre of attention, dominating conversations with self-promoting stories, gossip, complaints, and false narratives. He criticises those who do not give him attention and threatens consequences for diverting attention away from himself.
• Cult-like Atmosphere and Suppression of Dissent: Yeung surrounds himself with sycophantic followers, dismissing non-conformity, dissent, basic feedback, and valid inquiries as conceit, obscuration, or excessive thinking. He creates an environment of isolation and mistrust, undermining friendships and family relationships.
• Manipulation of Devotion and Sacrifice: He manipulates followers to abandon their careers, family commitments, and personal priorities, urging them to devote themselves entirely to him.
• Superficial Generosity and Control: While projecting an image of generosity, Yeung’s actions are often contrived, calculated, imposing, intrusive, and overbearing. He uses his supposed generosity as a bargaining chip to demand loyalty, obedience, and favours from followers and institutions.
• Fabrication and Gaslighting: He misremembers details and fabricates narratives about people and events, coercing others to agree and gaslighting those who attempt to correct him. He creates an environment where dissent is suppressed and constructive feedback is met with criticism and dismissal.
• Abuse Leading to Forced Exclusion: Those who do not conform to Yeung’s agenda are subjected to direct or indirect forms of physical, verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse, leading to their forced exclusion from the community.

2. The harmful effects on his followers and ex-followers:

• Atmosphere of Fear and Confusion: Instead of fostering compassion, wisdom, and joy, a pervasive atmosphere of fear, confusion, and unhappiness permeates within Yeung’s community.
• Impaired Cognitive Functioning: Long-term brainwashing techniques have severely impaired followers’ capacity to think independently and function normally, suppressing their critical thinking skills.
• Mental Dullness and Flat Affect: Followers, indoctrinated to believe that emotional expression is mere “sentimentality” and that all thoughts are mere “fantasy,” exhibit signs of mental dullness, a flat affect, and often appear to be in a trance-like state.
• Reliance on Supposed Healing Powers: Indoctrinated to believe in Yeung’s healing powers, some followers forsake modern medicine and rely solely on his advice and alleged healing abilities for their health. However, this approach has been observed to offer limited placebo effects, often prolonging their medical conditions.
• Perception of Illness as Karmic Purification: Through indoctrination, followers come to view symptoms of physical and mental illnesses as part of a supposed “karmic purification” process. As a result, they inadvertently prolong unnecessary suffering and even congratulate each other for falling ill.
• Lack of Awareness Regarding Abuse: Followers remain unaware that their deteriorating mental and physical health directly stems from Yeung’s long-term abuse. Instead, they are criticized by Yeung for their persistent illnesses, being accused of “not practicing” diligently enough.
• Loss of Trust and Isolation: Followers are indoctrinated to believe that basic social connections disturb one another’s minds, leading to a lack of trust and openness among them. They perceive anything outside of Pathgate as mundane, resulting in increased isolation from mainstream society, families, and friends.
• Manipulation and Vocational Sacrifice: Many followers are manipulated into giving up their careers and depleting their finances. They are coerced into providing free labour for Pathgate, leading to signs of burnout.
• Increasing Dependence and Control: Followers become increasingly dependent on Yeung, who progressively gains more control over various aspects of their lives.
• Psychological Trauma and Emotional Struggles: Leaving the community often leaves followers psychologically and emotionally traumatized. Many require psychological rehabilitation or psychiatric treatment, with reports of mental breakdowns and suicidal ideation.
• Character Assassination and Social Isolation: When followers leave, Yeung engages in character assassination, labeling them as “obscured” and evil. He instructs current followers to shun them, leading to the indiscriminate division of long-term friendships and family relationships, leaving ex-followers isolated with little to no social support.
• Consistent Negative Experiences: Ex-followers who have reached out report highly negative experiences with Yeung. The commonality of these experiences is striking.
• Fear and Psychic Attacks: Ex-followers are often fearful of speaking up due to indoctrination regarding karmic retribution. Some report experiencing psychic or astral attacks, further exacerbating their fear and distress.
• Ongoing Mental Health Issues: Both current and ex-followers continue to suffer from ongoing mental health issues, including severe conditions like psychosis, highlighting the enduring impact of their involvement with Yeung and Pathgate.

3. Questionable Qualifications and Lack of Accountability

• Unsubstantiated Claims of Lineage: Peter Yeung claims to be a disciple of the late Holiness Penor Rinpoche, associated with the Nyingma Palyul Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. However, there is a lack of evidence to support his formal training and recognition as a teacher, aside from unverifiable anecdotes originating solely from Yeung himself.
• Lack of Official Authorization: Yeung does not possess any official authorization from his claimed Tibetan Buddhist lineage to teach. Requests for verification of Pathgate and Yeung’s authenticity sent to Palyul and Namdroling Monastery have gone unanswered.
• Absence from Official Lineage Affiliations: The official website of the Palyul Lineage and its global list of affiliated centres do not include Pathgate Institute’s centres. Notably, multiple Palyul Centers exist in the UK and Europe.
• Questionable Use of Monastic Robes: Despite being a layperson, Yeung frequently dons Tibetan monastic robes, referring to them as “lama robes.” Witnesses attest that Yeung acquired these robes in an honorary capacity rather than through ordination as a monk, allegedly achieved through his manipulation and ingratiating behaviour toward the Palyul hierarchy.
• Lack of Charitable or Religious Organisation Registration: There is no evidence of Pathgate Institute being registered as a charity or religious organization, despite its claims to both designations. Additionally, concerns arise regarding the irregularity of the bank account provided by Pathgate for “donations.” Local tax authorities have received reports and initiated investigations into Pathgate and Yeung for potential tax offenses.
• Opaque Address and Illegal Building Modifications: Pathgate does not provide a proper address beyond a PO Box, justifying it as a means to maintain a low profile. Local authorities investigated properties associated with Pathgate members in 2019 for statutory overcrowding and illegal building modifications.
• Exaggerated Qualifications and Misrepresentations: Peter Yeung has a history of overstating his qualifications and misrepresenting his affiliations with organizations. He has made false claims of being a Rinpoche and holding multiple PhDs.
• Questionable Donations and Materialistic Culture: Pathgate fosters a culture of questionable donations and gift-giving, with followers indoctrinated to believe it generates merit. They are encouraged to devote excessive time, energy, and resources to support Peter Yeung’s sybaritic lifestyle, particularly in the realms of food, alcohol, and luxury brand items.
• Lack of Financial Accountability: Pathgate demonstrates a complete lack of accountability in its financial affairs. While some charitable contributions have been made, many of them appear to be exaggerated or unverifiable.
• Personal Use of Donations: There is an established track record of donations being used for Peter Yeung’s personal expenses, including lavish meals, shopping sprees, and indulgences aimed at “love-bombing” vulnerable followers or impressing potential recruits. These behaviours are rationalised as “skilful means” and making connections with sentient beings, conditioning followers to overlook such conduct.
• Visa Offenses and Dishonest Declarations: Yeung travels overseas for income-generating “teachings” but has failed to provide honest declarations to immigration authorities. He has been investigated and denied entry into at least one country due to visa-related offenses.

Conclusion and Summary:

In conclusion, while Peter Yeung has made charitable contributions and introduced people to Buddhism, these actions cannot justify the extensive harm he has caused directly and indirectly to his followers and ex-followers. Our personal experiences and firsthand observations confirm the detrimental impact of his actions. Additionally, the evidence suggests that Yeung’s purported “good deeds” may not stem from genuine intentions.

It is important to note that Yeung is not effectively teaching Vajrayana Buddhism to his followers, and there is no indication that any of his followers have taken formal tantric vows (samaya). Based on the weight of the evidence gathered, we conclude that we have been subjected to abuse under the guise of “Guru Yoga.” Moreover, considering the evidence, it is our assessment that Yeung should not be regarded as a legitimate teacher but rather as a charlatan.

(Last updated: 18 May 2023)