This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Rigpa's board of directors commissioned the London law firm Lewis Silkin LLP to investigate allegations against founder Sogyal Lakar following a July 2017 letter from eight current and former students detailing alleged physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Sogyal Lakar responded to the allegations in a letter to the Rigpa community dated 20 July 2017, stating he was clear in his own mind that he had never, ever, acted toward anyone with a motive of selfish gain or harmful intent; he did not deny the specific allegations against him.
Lewis Silkin's report, published in August 2018, found on the balance of probabilities that some students within Sogyal Lakar's inner circle had been subjected to serious physical, sexual and emotional abuse by him, and that senior Rigpa figures were aware of at least some of these issues and failed to address them. Rigpa fully disassociated from its founder afterward, adopting recommendations that included no further contact between Sogyal Lakar and Rigpa or its students, leadership changes, a written safeguarding policy and an external abuse helpline.
The Charity Commission for England and Wales' own statutory inquiry, opened November 2018 and published November 2020, reached the same substantive finding through a separate process, and formally sanctioned two former trustees, permanently disqualifying Susan Burrows and disqualifying Patrick Gaffney for eight years, for their own failure to act on knowledge of the allegations. Sogyal Lakar died in August 2019 without facing criminal charges; this atlas states these as an investigation's and a regulator's findings, not as an adjudicated fact.