05/18/2024
**IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT LEGAL ACTION**
RE: HERMITAGE/DHARMA FELLOWSHIP OF HIS HOLINESS THE GYALWA KARMAPA
To: Friends of the Hermitage and/or The Dharma Fellowship of His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa
From: Lama Rodney Devenish
Dear Friends,
Some of you may recently have received an email communication from a group of individuals calling themselves the “Dharma Fellowship of BC” asking you to support a “restored” Dharma Fellowship of His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa. They write: “For the present, our primary objective is to recover the assets of the society, particularly the Hermitage property, and to this end we have filed a lawsuit.”
For 20 years the Hermitage on Denman Island was a meditation retreat centre owned by the Dharma Fellowship of His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa, a Buddhist society with a 40-year history. For anyone who does not know what this means, the Karmapa is the traditional spiritual leader of the worldwide Ka’gyu order of Tibetan Buddhism. The present holder of the title is now the seventeenth in a line of succession that goes back some nine hundred or more years. There are hundreds of centres spanning the world which are under his guidance.
Due to a financial crisis, the Dharma Fellowship was forced to sell the Hermitage in April 2022, and in 2023, the Dharma Fellowship of His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa was itself dissolved.
Now a group of people calling themselves the “Dharma Fellowship of British Columbia” have filed a lawsuit against the Board of Directors of the dissolved society, with the stated objective of recovering the Hermitage property from its present rightful owner. They are inviting you to become members and/or directors of their allegedly “restored” society, and asking that you contribute financially to their cause, which includes their lawsuit against the Board, the current Hermitage property owner, and Crystal Mountain - A Society for Eastern and Western Studies, that received a donation when the Society was dissolved. I would advise you to be wary, and do your due diligence before making any such commitments.
In the response to this legal action, the dissolved Society's Board of Directors make the case that the group calling itself the "Dharma Fellowship of British Columbia" lacks legal standing to take action as the legitimate board of the Dharma Fellowship. It is the dissolved Society’s Board’s position that this group has acted contrary to the Dharma Fellowship’s constitution, its bylaws and the Societies Act, the legislation which governs non-profit societies in British Columbia. If this interpretation is correct, then the group has no authority to manage the Dharma Fellowship of British Columbia, nor are they authorized to accept donations or issue charitable tax receipts on its behalf.
The dissolved Society's Board’s position is that while it wholeheartedly encourages this group to take the necessary steps to found their own society— one that aligns with their personal vision, it cannot support their illegitimate takeover of the Dharma Fellowship of His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa’s 40-year legacy. Nor can it condone any attempt to “recover” the Hermitage property, which was sold legitimately, and purchased by its current owner in good faith.
The email you received states that their group cannot discuss the lawsuit, but the “restored" Society's legal claim, and all filed responses to it, are available to the public through the British Columbia Supreme Court registry. Please contact us if you would like to receive copies of these documents. Also available is the Dharma Fellowship of His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa’s Constitution, which has now been altered beyond recognition, and the original Bylaws, which have now been revised so as to strip away the entire spiritual foundation of the Society.
Please email: DharmaFellowshipHHGK@gmail.com
Yours sincerely,
Rodney Purcell Devenish
Spiritual Director of the Dharma Fellowship of His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa
[Please note that we will not be responding to comments on this forum or commenting on the legal action that will be up to the courts to adjudicate. The court documents fully outline our response.]
