Use of an actual sexual partner (as distinct from a visualised one) in the completion stage of highest yoga tantra, including by lamas who were publicly monks.
Material type
Transmitted technique
Restricted to
Advanced tantric practitioners and their consorts
Restriction mechanism
vow, oral_only
Stated reason
Highest yoga tantra practices are bound by samaya and disclosed only to qualified initiates
Tradition origins
8th century (transmission to Tibet)
Recorded practice status
Practiced
Provisional: no dated status evidence is linked.
Status as of
Not recorded
Status claims
Not recorded
Disclosure dates, source publication dates, tradition origins and dates of practice are separate.
What this disclosure covers
The existence and secrecy of one lama's consort relationship; no ritual instructions
Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Winter 1996; interview held in New York in June 1996. Read on 2026-11-04.
Claims about this item
These claims may cite other sources for the same restricted item. Supporting and contradicting evidence remain separate.
CLM-0071 · Content
June Campbell, Kalu Rinpoche's translator, says she was his secret sexual partner from her late twenties, when he was nearly seventy and regarded as a celibate monk. She says that although texts may present the consort as visualised, having an actual sexual consort was treated in practice as the most important part of the tantric path, and that both monks and married lamas kept such partners hidden.
Claim support
Single source
Record review
Reviewed
Period
1970s–1980s
Locators
SRC-0069: answers on her relationship, its secrecy and consort practice
Testimony. Her book (SRC-0070) is by the same witness and is not independent. The interviewer notes that Tibetan lamas called her account a fantasy; no named rebuttal is recorded yet.
SRC-0069: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0069: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0033: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
CLM-0072 · Suppression
Campbell says she was sworn to secrecy by Kalu Rinpoche and by a member of his entourage, and was told of a woman in a past life whom he had cursed and who then died. She compares this to the warnings abusers give their victims.
SRC-0069: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0069: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0033: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
Evidence qualifications
SRC-0069 · source_authenticity_unassessed: Source authenticity is unassessed; this is separate from the truth of its assertions.
SRC-0069 · source_without_content_hash: No source-level content_hash is recorded; linked artifact hashes may identify excerpts, derivatives or metadata instead.
ITEM-0033 · status_without_dated_evidence: The recorded practice status is provisional: no dated status claims are linked.
Reviewed means checked against a source. It does not establish source authenticity, independent corroboration or present-day practice.
