Technically, it is almost impossible to draw a clear differentiation between a cult and a religion, one may even want to challenge the necessity of such differentiation, for example, he/she may ask "why a cult cannot be treated as a newly formed religion?" The fact that some "cults" draw their doctrinal inspirations from those established religions also makes it harder for outsiders to tell the differences.

There are several Buddhist cults too. As many of them talk about Buddhist concepts, it is indeed very easy for outsiders or people who are new to Buddhism to get confused, especially those who in the West.

We believe the cult issue is not simply a question of "the old ideology meets the new", nor is it a "traditionalist" concern. Those groups which borrow Buddhist concepts but indeed sell different things are indeed very problematic. As a common definition of cult is that it brain washes, it is therefore potentially dangerous to the society. Some of the questionable schools we will look at do associate with a series of accusation of corruption or sexual abuse for examples.

Generally speaking, teachings of such questionable schools are not accepted by other Buddhist schools as authentic representation of the Buddha's Dharma, but for most people, it is very hard to judge whether or not a school represents a right understanding of the Dharma, as sometime a person may deliberately mix different schools of thoughts or even invent what he claims to be the "higher" teachings, and this is usually very confusing for those who are still searching. And once a person "committed" to any specific school, it will be even harder for him to discover its problems.

Quite often, founders of such schools associate with a series of scandals, such as corruption or sexual misconduct. Although some of the cases have been made known to the public, it is still hard to say that a school is a cult, unless it is legally proven that senior members or even the founder himself has committed such things. However, as pointed by a scholar who has been looking into the cult issue, as many of those questionable schools do not display any serious harm to the stability of the society, at least on the surface level, it is hard, from the social standpoint, to say that those schools are harmful to the society, although from the doctrinal or even spiritual standpoint, one can find such schools very questionable.

It takes us back to the basic question: what is the right understanding of the Dharma and what is not? Western ideology tends to believe that it is an open ended question, rather than there is a definite answer. That makes the definition of a Buddhist cult even more difficult.

The whole point of publishing this website is not to attack the followers of those schools, but only to make it clear that certain schools are NOT considered to be branches of Buddhism (some of them are getting popular in the West, some Buddhists, without being aware of certain facts, see such schools as different forms of Buddhism). However, as everyone has the right to decide what he/she chooses to believe to be true, and some followers of those schools may be at least learning some Dharma (even though it is highly distorted or misinterpreted) and do some good things to the society, we respect their choice.

Let us not forget that at the time of the Buddha himself, the Sangha was not totally against followers of other beliefs but instead still communicated with followers of different traditions.

This website is still under construction. For the time being, please read these articles for an overview of some of the most popular cults of today, which are often confused with proper Buddhist schools but in fact teach very different things:

- an article from the Taiwanese magazine "Sinorama", Taiwan New Age Cults, gives us an overview of some of the most popular cults. It addresses this issue from a journalist standpoint but the arthor did not attempt to look into the matter from a more doctrinal or even spiritual point-of-view (for instance, in the story of a very suspcious "master" of a Buddhist cult, there are accounts such as Fairyland Gold Mother opened the his "Deva-eye" at the Taichung's Jade Palace Temple, anyone who has a right understanding of the Buddha's Dharma can point out that it is borrowed from Chinese folklores rather than a proper Buddhist thought). The article also overlooks the scandalous things associating with those schools;

- a website written by a Singaporean Buddhist, Buddhist Cults A - Z, discusses several Buddhist cults from a more authentic Buddhist perspective. A very informative page for those who are new to Buddhism, especially those who in the West;

- we have gathered much information from various sources in the Asia region, including a series of newspaper articles regarding founders or senior members of the cults being accused of committing crimes. We are finding translators to help us to translate them into English so that such information will be available to the seekers in the West in the future