According to a source who claims to be familiar with the Dalai Lama and his inner circle’s operations, the Dalai Lama does not personally receive fees for public appearances.
Here is what the source had to say:
The Dalai Lama travels internationally to speak. If he receives money for an engagement, it is not paid to him directly. Payments are made to non-profit organisations.
Usually, prior to the Dalai Lama agreeing to making an appearance, the host or sponsor either agrees to pay a guaranteed fee, [donation] such as what it is believed that Keith Raniere/Clare and Sara Bronfman likely paid to have the Dalai Lama speak in Albany, NY, or an arrangement is made regarding proceeds from ticket sales.
The Dalai Lama does not personally get any donation, speaking fees or share of ticket sales. The money goes to a charitable trust, or is dispersed to charitable causes the Dalai Lama recommends.
In some cases, the funds go to, “His Holiness the Dalai Lama Charitable Trust”.
This trust is a private trust fund administered by senior members of the Tibetan Government in Exile, now called the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). All senior members are under the leadership of the Dalai Lama.
The trust – which is under the rule of the Tibetan Government [located in India] – does not file financial records with India or any other government. There are no known public accounts.
Many countries the Dalai Lama visits, establish a non-profit company to receive ticket sales, donations and sponsorship fees. The Dalai Lama isn’t a director of these not-for-profit companies but he and his staff have influence over the people appointed as directors.
The alleged Bronfman $1-Million donation would not be unique. It cannot be expected that the Dalai Lama can travel around the world with his entourage and maintain his government in exile and his monastery entourage without donations or fees.
The donations and fees, however, are made to a variety of trusts, never to the Dalai Lama personally.
In the Bronfman matter, the Dalai lama’s secretary, Tseten Samdup Chhoekyapa, said:
“[T]he Dalai Lama never takes an honorarium or fee of any sort, nor does he require that any payment be made to charities or organizations, as a condition of his making a personal appearance. … Neither His Holiness the Dalai Lama nor the Dalai Lama Foundation ever received the alleged $1 million in connection with His Holiness’s appearance in Albany.”
The question not yet answered is: Did the Bronfmans part with any money [$1 Million or maybe even $2 Million?] which went to any organization [not necessarily the Dalai Lama Foundation] before or after the Dalai Lama appeared in Albany on May 6, 2009?
Since there are people who claim that the Dalai Lama’s appearance in Albany was an endorsement of Keith Raniere, it is of public interest.
It is a matter of record that Keith Raniere and NXIVM used the Dalai Lama’s appearance in Albany as a promotional tool to recruit new members to NXIVM.
One Expian told Frank Report that when she was recruited, the two big items NXIVM used was that actress Kristin Kreuk was a coach and that the Dalai Lama endorsed Keith Raniere.
My sources say the real reason D. Lama came to Albany was for a chance to meet Kristin Kreuk. Smallville was big in Tibet.
If Kristin was used as recruiting material, she sucked at it. I used to frequent her forums quite a bit several years ago (more so than today), and I can tell you almost all of her fans despised her association to NXIVM and made their opinion known by posting about it. Even when her website “Girls By Design” was still around, most of the girls who she came to know didn’t want anything to do with it. The only person I think she successfully recruited as a long term participant would be Allison, and she has made her own bed which had nothing to do with Kristin. Also, I think it is pretty clear that Kristin doesn’t believe in a polyamorous lifestyle (being in at least two long term monogamous relationships), nor did she find the statutory rape allegations against Raniere something worthy of a so-called ethical leader. I’m basing this conclusion on a recent article here: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/television/2017/12/09/i-never-felt-safe-on-set-canadian-actors-on-changing-the-culture-of-harassment.html.
In it she says the following:
And she says the culture is changing as well. “Being female, the minute I was 14 or 15 years old, it starts by being bugged on the street the minute you hit puberty by adult men when you are so clearly a child,” Kreuk says.
“So it starts happening when you’re so young. And as I grew up I started to believe that it was part of my job to handle that. And going into the industry that it was normal.
So, from these words alone, it is obvious to me at least that Kristin would find the notion that Raniere manipulated a twelve year old girl who he was tutoring into having sex with him when he was around thirty years old rather apalling.
KR needed some publicity to keep his mission going and money flowing. Maybe he thought the Dalai Lama would help him as well as Ms. Kreuk. In the end I am not sure about either of them. Dalai Lama expressed concerns about the still ongoing rumors back in 2009, while Kristin Kreuk never rose to the position of Scientology’s Tom Cruise.
And in all the following years he never managed to get endorsed by really influential people or recruit am A-list celebrity to take over where Kristin left. Allison, Nicki and all these celebrities around him never managed this kind of breakthrough. Maybe he hoped to land Ms. Park as she has quite some successes on the small screen with most of the shows she is and was in.
In the end he never made it out of Vancouver to Hollywood, where the big money is and never managed to transform Albany in NXIVM’s version of Clearwater. Maybe he is not so smart after all.
The wording of this is very subtle. It’s understood that he takes no fee, but the language that states that a condition is not “required” doesn’t preclude the notion that large charitable donations influence and sway him to make appearances.
So, this statement doesn’t really answer anything. Yes, it’s been known that Dalai Lama doesn’t take “personal” fees. But someone’s got to pay the bills of his living and travel expenses and all of the other things his monks do, and this is done via the charitible organizations and trusts. The question isn’t whether it was required or not. The question is whether such a sizeable donation was made to influence his decision and effectively grant his tacit support to Keith Raniere and NXIVM, and the answer appears to be yes. Obviously, if he knew about the near vaginal branding and slavery he wouldn’t have. So, perhaps he was naive in trusting certain members of his delegation. It’s likely just a case of a person being duped into believing NXIVM was something it wasn’t like other normal people before him. Unfortunately, this doesn’t remove the stain that exists because of it and the fact that they were swayed by such a large donation also sullies their name.
To me, the best answer to the situation would have been, yes we accepted the donation, but in response, we thought we were supporting someone who promoted ethics, and due to recent revelations, were duped into believing it was something it is clearly not. We hope to use the money for the benefit of real humanitarian goals for the Tibetan people and others around the world.
But I’m not a PR person.
Even if you knew whether the donation was made after The Dalai Lama made his appearance in Albany, it wouldn’t prove anything. I would assume a lot of these decisions are made well before hand, and a promise of the sort to Lama Tenzin could have incentivized him enough to arrange the meeting I believed he has been accused of doing the same with other wealthy people, and was hence fired for the same. He had after all taken the ESP trainings, and had been programmed to believe KR is an ethical person.