Adele Tomlin: Dakini Translating or Madam Hearsay Interpreting?

When asked numerous times about Adele Tomlin and her self-promoted website Dakini Translations and Publications, I must admit I have serious reservations about her motives despite her exaggeration of her Tibetan lingual proficiency, that I suggest she had better change her website name to “Madam Hearsay Warped Interpretations & Publications.”

If anyone wishes to incorporate the use of a spiritual text into daily practice in the hope of real spiritual progress, they should first question the source and the translator. Even though the newly translated or transcribed texts by Adele Tomlin appear to have originated from the Karmapa, she doesn’t have any formal authorization from the Karmapa himself. Without this essential authorization, people using Adele Tomlin’s texts can be certain that they are taking her as their guru, a mara who pretends to follow the Karmapa. No formal authorization means she can freely modify, add, leave, or distort the entire teachings. The most dangerous lies are not blatant lies, but rather lies mixed with partial truths - you can hardly separate the two. Doesn’t it sound fishy that no lineage master endorses her works? How could anyone ensure Adele Tomlin’s perverted twisted mind laden with the presumption of guilt wouldn’t corrupt her translation /transcription texts as she believes lineage and root guru are irrelevant in spiritual progress as evidenced by her indulgence in gossips, reporting unsubstantiated claims against many different Vajrayana lineage holders? Unless you have genuine faith in Adele Tomlin’s motives, would you want to establish any karmic connection or become karmically indebted to her by using her free texts? Please, readers, go to official sources by the Karmapa himself for any transcriptions, translations and teachings. Absorb powerful authentic teachings without third-party fishy distortions and unforeseen karmic repercussions from getting entangled with Mara.

Even though I don't know Adele Tomlin personally, I simply pay attention to any incongruencies in written texts to judge her trustworthiness. Having decades of experience in forensic criminal psychology, I can determine not only the veracity of a story but also uncover malicious intent besides serious psychological disorders. This technique is easy and can be applied by anyone with any background. All it takes is mindful practice and a willingness to trust your innate perceptiveness while dealing with incongruencies of any sort in your life.

If you really want that much to trust Adele Tomlin's works, get closer to know her, and make friends with her personally. See for yourself her true personality. Feel for yourself whether indeed she is an unapologetic narcissist that you want to get entangled with for the rest of your life. At least, you get to count on your own judgment. Don't blindly take my word. However, you might want to forearm yourself with some knowledge about the dangers of dealing with narcissists. It can potentially bring lifelong traumas affecting your healthy functioning.

Adele Tomlin came to my attention when she wrote a story about her sexual relationship with Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche. The overall tone of her story is baselessly divisive. She twists readers’ minds in warped logic only a pervert can condone. The story contains many loopholes if you look closer. For simplicity, I will only mention three. First, she says Rinpoche is aggressively pursuing her sexually to the extent of swearing to Buddha and Tara that she is the only woman in his life, which she finally accepts. Do you notice how she implies that men "beg" to sleep with her? Now, as a woman, do you accept any sexual pursuit merely for sworn words? As a man, do you need to beg and swear just to get laid? We are all reduced to sex-starved incompetent thinkers - a condescending projection of her own truest baseline! Next, she says she demands Rinpoche to prostrate to her and he complies. This statement is enough to show her desperate attempt to gain validation from you readers by creating a false image that even Rinpoche submits himself to her feet. Isn't her tone outright filled with self-adoration and infallibility? How on earth a decent normal human being would request another person to do prostration to her? Does this ever cross your mind when you are arguing with someone? She has to see herself as an omniscient God! Finally, Adele Tomlin says she is being threatened by Rinpoche’s side that her nude photos will be exposed. If this sexual abuse were really occurring, wouldn’t spreading her nude photos be harming Rinpoche himself? Do you threaten anyone by doing something that will hurt only yourselves? Does this story make any sense? Revenge for unreciprocated obsession by fabricating such twisted lies to paint herself as an infallible God for us to worship? If you turn the question from whether it is true to what power does she gain, you can no longer ignore the fact that her public persona depends on moral exceptionalism. To remain relevant in a saturated spiritual media sphere, she must routinely position herself as both the exposer of rot and the voice of conscience. So when she fabricated or amplified sexual abuse allegations against Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche, it wasn’t mere obsession but calculated narrative warfare. Furthermore, her tactic of blaming others to deflect from her own predatory behavior has been repeatedly caught on videos - most disturbingly during sacred empowerments, where she openly objectifies lamas and publicly indulges in sexual gratification, desecrating the sanctity of the event. Is this the behavior of someone traumatized by sexual violence or someone exploiting it for strategic gain?

Adele Tomlin’s dis-integrity is also evidenced by promoting the Karmapa’s teachings while being convinced of the sexual allegations against him. Paradoxically, Adele Tomlin sounds condescendingly jealous of any Westerners who get any chance to serve the Karmapa by questioning their identities, backgrounds, and qualifications – insinuating how she fares manyfold better than all of them. In spite of painting him in such a negative light, why does she take pride in compiling, transcribing, and translating the Karmapa’s teachings without formal authorization by shamelessly competing with his official websites? The Karmapa has his own office and translation crew, exactly what role does Adele Tomlin fit in here other than parasitic redundancy? Hijacking his followers, distorting his teachings, taking donations, what else does she not do but exploit the Karmapa's prominence to take advantage of devotees' receptiveness to authentic Buddhadharma? Since Adele Tomlin views the Karmapa as guilty in the sexual allegations, which are proven otherwise in the court document by the way, why is she promoting his teachings? What is her message here? That we should still embrace the teachings of anyone we consider corrupt? How can we still become receptive to someone we view negatively? Perhaps this is what she demands of us readers – to embrace her warped views despite finding her disgusting. An imbecile might succumb to such demand because any healthy-functioning mind can never tolerate cognitive dissonance without proper behavioral adjustment: to view a teacher purely positively and learn from him or to dissociate completely from a corrupt person not worthy of following. Either Adele Tomlin herself never experiences any cognitive dissonance or she handles cognitive dissonance twistedly differently. Does Adele Tomlin still appear trustworthy to you? Does she sound like a reasonable healthy-minded person?

Despite claiming to have several alleged academic associations, where is the scholarly spirit of open discussion can we find in Adele Tomlin? I am taken by surprise how a so-called fair-minded scholar would block and delete dissenting views on Facebook so promptly in a matter of minutes if not seconds. Shouldn’t Adele Tomlin keep all comments intact and let readers decide? How would you expect such an insecure narcissist to preserve the integrity of transcription /translation texts? Wouldn’t it be just as likely as how she deletes dissenting comments? With her identity highly fixated on external validation via self-proclaimed scholarly associations, no wonder Adele Tomlin's behaviors reflect not the slightest trace of a genuine spiritual practitioner! How is Adele Tomlin contributing to the legacy of selfless Buddhism while she blatantly sows discord and contempt in posts related to the Dalai Lama, the Karmapa, the Sakya Trizin, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche, Kalu Rinpoche, etc.? Doesn’t she actively provoke disharmony and divisiveness among our sangha (one of the five heinous deeds according to Buddhadharma)? Is promoting new translation simply a facade to sneak into Buddhist network circles to incite conflict, dualistic judging and labeling, and unrest in the Buddhist community? How is publishing numerous accusations and judging against numerous lineage holders on Adele Tomlin’s official website relevant to translation work? “Dakini Translations & Publications” sounds misleading; “Madam Hearsay Warped Interpretations & Publications” fits exceptionally well.

Becoming a Buddhadharma vajrayana translator requires not merely lingual proficiency, but also pure genuine spiritual cultivation with samaya mindfully guarded at all times. Why? Without genuine spiritual practice, latent mental /emotional /psychological conditioning /imprints may insidiously cause a translator to misinterpret, producing unintentional erroneous translations. While samaya acts as a protective shield on the heart-and-mind bond between a guru and a student, ensuring authentic lineage transmission, thus preventing misleading translation. Adele Tomlin’s flagrant narcissism is sure to disqualify her as a Vajrayana translator. Never have I seen any Buddhadharma translator acts so obnoxiously arrogant, unashamedly ramping up the impression of a holy self even higher brighter wiser than all lineage gurus. What about her samaya? How is Adele Tomlin’s samaya kept intact with Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche all the while trashing him so shamelessly? Is her samaya pure by compiling the teachings of the Karmapa while simultaneously criticizing his social ineptitude besides believing the sexual accusations thrown at him? Is this how she maintains the samaya of pure perception towards a guru? Most importantly, how would Adele ensure that those who use her texts will not have their samaya broken to a significant degree, obstructing real spiritual progress? Even in the secular world of law, all must be viewed as “innocent until proven guilty,” which is quite similar to “pure perception” in the Vajrayana buddhist view, yet Adele Tomlin–claiming to be an ex-lawyer–frequently views all religious figures, if not anyone including you and me, as scandalous and needed to be exposed even if based on mere hearsays, or worse, on her own fabricated twisted stories. How exactly do her fabricated stories work to benefit us readers magically other than ruining our faith in authentic lineage gurus, thus obstructing spiritual progress? Is she not Mara, then who is?

Those who blindly click likes and share Adele Tomlin’s posts on social media are harming the Buddhadharma. Why would you want to propagate the work of someone so questionable as Adele Tomlin? Despite claiming the Karmapa as her root guru, Adele Tomlin's actions reflect nothing but outright defiance against his sole wish to benefit beings, leading us to painfully conclude that the Karmapa is merely an instrument for her to gain entry into our communities to further her malicious self-serving agenda. Would anyone who has a root guru or has benefited from Buddhadharma be that heartless to repay the kindness of all Buddhas by planting seeds of doubts, propagating presumption of guilt, annihilating readers’ rights to construct their own meanings, inciting disharmony among Buddhist sangha? Root guru isn’t someone we keep stating verbally so. A root guru is someone embodied and reflected in our being. Moreover, it is clearly stated on her Facebook page, “first female-founded (and solo-authored) online resource for new translations and research on Buddhism and Vajrayana,” – she has no guru but herself, the God, remember? Not surprising given how frequently she despises lineage gurus, even past enlightened masters by criticizing how they should have behaved differently. Are you sure you want to invite such a mara into your life?

Sadly, as gullible people engage with her Facebook posts /stories /texts, they are allowing their minds to be vulnerably poisoned with perverted karmic imprints, unknowingly but surely leading to utter demise. You have two choices: assimilate Adele Tomlin's perversion by following her as your cult idol or trust your inner wisdom by cutting Adele Tomlin off your “following list,” or best, block her beforehand as she might intrude unexpectedly on your feeds somewhere somehow like an unyielding pest – you have been warned!

Update April 28, 2025:

Ever since the publication of this post in around mid March 2025, Adele Tomlin has begun to actively mention the Karmapa as its root guru in all its posts. Readers can verify this by cross-checking the publication dates of its website posts. Around similar timeframe, the user Tsering Wangmo, who is proven to be Adele Tomlin itself, posted a comment mentioning root guru is always vajradhara alone. Observing the posts written by Tsering Wangmo, readers will unearth some disturbing patterns of thoughts all throughout.

Update July 28, 2025:

What emerges from an audit of her 899 posts is deeply disturbing, yet it makes perfect sense once you view its Facebook Page Transparency. Everything falls into place; no speculation, just plain facts.