The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Attempts to resolve a dispute between Kalu Rinpoche and a Bhutanese couple in Perth, Lhaki Dema and Tashi Dorji, over the management of the Druk Community Center Australia (DCCA) and statements made by Kalu Rinpoche on TikTok have failed to produce an agreement.
Lhaki Dema and Tashi Dorji, under legal advice by their legal team, plan to file a defamation case against Kalu Rinpoche in Australia and also a criminal case on the threats received by the family as a result of the video. The case may be filed within the next two or three weeks.
On their part, the Kalu Rinpoche’s team and representatives, in the form of his sister Dolma Choso and her husband Thinley Palden Dorji, said that if cases are filed then they have a legal team (Bennet Law) ready, and in fact their team would approach various regulatory and legal authorities in Perth against the DCCA and its management.
Lhaki Dema said when there were mediation efforts, they already made it clear that they want Kalu Rinpoche to make another video withdrawing his statements on Tiktok, asking his followers to delete their videos and some financial compensation for the damage caused to their L&B Global business. She said only if the three above conditions are met then there will be no legal case.
Mediation efforts
The couple had served a legal notice in mid-August and had given time till 8th September to respond and extended it by two more days till 10th September on the request of the other side.
However, there was more delay as there were mediation efforts and calls that took more time.
The couple said they were contacted by Bhutanese people and also various Bhutanese associations to negotiate the matter out of court. One of those who offered to negotiate was former President of Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa, Kinga Tshering.
However, the two sides could not reach common ground on how the negotiations would be done and so it failed.
The couple’s legal firm Needham Ainsworth in a letter to some Bhutanese associations said that mediation had been proposed in the matter but did not proceed. It said this was because Kalu Rinpoche did not offer to attend himself at the mediation proposal prior to the appointment of his Australian solicitors.
It said their clients required a signed mediation agreement containing acceptable mediation terms, such as confidentiality, to be entered before any mediation took place. No such mediation agreement was entered into.
On 8th September, there was a joint appeal letter from all the Bhutanese associations in Australia in Brisbane, Perth, Canberra, Armidale, Melbourne and Tasmania to the two sides, with a copy to the Bhutanese Ambassador asking for both sides to resolve the matter amicably between both sides rather than making it public on social media, which can have ramifications on Bhutan and Bhutanese living abroad.
The letter said it may also undermine public confidence in other Buddhist centers, religious organizations, community associations and charitable institutions.
The letter called for dialogue and requested both parties and their supporters to exercise restraint in public and social media communications that they say may further divide the community.
The letter said the Bhutanese associations and community organizations stand ready to provide neutral support in facilitating dialogue or mediation. The letter asked for both parties to respond to the appeal in writing.
The associations issued another letter on 16th September where it said Kalu Rinpoche ‘responded promptly’ and that ‘the other party, Lhaki and Tashi have chosen not to respond’ which was sent to the six associations with a copy to the Ambassador.
In response the couple’s legal agency Needham Ainsworth wrote to the associations saying such identification of the couple and a copy to the Ambassador showing them as unwilling to engage is not only incorrect but also defamatory.
The legal firm said that letter to the community associations is not an offer of settlement, but it is directed at an audience and is not evidence of good faith.
The legal firm also objected to both the letters being copied to the Bhutanese Ambassador and said this was not a neutral act.
Lhaki Dema says they are willing to step down
In the meantime, Lhaki Dema said that the DCCA has 44 members including both Bhutanese and non-Bhutanese Buddhists who had filled the membership forms during the holy relic tour.
She said her husband, her daughter and she are willing to withdraw from the executive committee, and they will let the annual general meeting of these 44 members decide who will be the new executive committee members and what to do with the AUD 261,000.
Thinley Palden questioned the 44 members of DCCA, saying these could be friends and people known to the couple. Here, Lhaki said they were registered during the holy relics tour and are neutral. She said around 50,000 people attended the holy relic tour in Australia, and so how can Thinley Palden say these people are friends when they had registered at the time.
One idea had been to donate the money to a chorten in Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) but the proceedings are taking time, and so the AGM will take the final decision, according to Lhaki.
Lhaki said she wants to hand over the DCCA executive committee to a neutral body and not to Kalu Rinpoche and his supporters who may misuse the funds.
Lhaki said that a legal suit may be filed within the next three weeks depending on their legal firm.
In the meantime, Thinley Palden Dorji said that this non-action cannot continue forever as the AUD 261,000 fund can get depleted as rent would have to be paid, and there was probably salary being drawn too.
Here, Lhaki said they are hosting the DCCA office for free with no rent and none of the executive members are drawing a salary. She said this showed the ignorance of the other side on how non-profits are run in Australia.
Lhaki asked if Kalu Rinpoche and his family were so concerned for DCCA, why did not even follow the DCCA page and why did they not even share posts of DCCA for the holy relic tour awareness despite requests.
Lhaki said her family is not interested in controlling DCCA, but they want DCCA and its fund to be managed by a neutral group and not Kalu Rinpoche, and his group who already wanted to use the funds for purposes other than the community center like asking for payment to be made to Karma Kelvin, etc.
More allegations and counter allegations
Lhaki said that in his posts so far, Kalu Rinpoche talked about the DCCA funds, but he never talked about the huge amount of envelopes that was personally offered to him during the holy relics tour and that he took.
Here, Dolma Choso said that while some devotees did offer Rinpoche money as personal offering, there was far more offered in the DCCA box.
Dolma said the funds were raised on the initiative of Kalu Rinpoche for the community center and it cannot be privatized by one family. She said Rinpoche simply wants the funds to go back to the public.
Dolma said they have not heard from the other side including their legal team in Australia. She said she was not aware about demands of an online apology, deletion of videos by supporters and financial compensation, but Lhaki said the other side had been made aware about this.
On why the 27 Bhutanese who filled the form to be DCCA members on 21st March 2026 were not accepted around the time when Rinpoche wanted a transition and new team, Lhaki said even though they filled the form they struck out the part that requires them to pay AUD 20 as a monthly membership fee. This makes them ineligible.
Dolma again brought up the issue of AUD 38,500 charged by the couple to the fund for registering DCCA as a non-profit, and she said the actual registration charge is only AUD 250.
Thinley Palden said that one could ask for extra charges if a unique governing legal document for the registration had been designed but he said it had been copied and pasted from the model rules on the regulator’s website. He, in fact, challenged that he could get a non-profit registered for AUD 250 only.
Here, Lhaki said, if it was so easy then why did Kalu Rinpoche and his team not do it themselves and she pointed out that it took the ABPI Association in Perth more than 10 years to get registered as a non-profit organisation. She said the registration requires extensive paper work and legal work and a fee was charged for that.
Thinley Palden said that during the holy relic tour the L&B company put in visa charges of AUD 1,000 per person when other firms do it for AUD 350 to 500. He said this money was taken from the fund.
Here, Lhaki said that AUD 350 to 500 is charged when a client prepares and provides all the documents and paper work, but during the relic tour she said all they got sent was the passport copy and so they had to fill in and do everything else, for which the charge is higher.
Background
Kalu Rinpoche posted a video post on Tiktok on 6th August saying that the couple are refusing to transfer the ownership of the DCCA and AUD 261,000 collected in the Buddha Holy Relic Tour in January 2026 done by the French Buddhist Union at his request. He said the money was intended for a community center for Bhutanese in Perth, as he had previously announced.
The video subsequently attracted widespread attention on social media.
Then on 9th August, Kalu Rinpoche conducted a live TikTok discussion concerning the matter.
On 14th August, a document was posted on kalurinpoche.org in the form of an online petition. The petition drew 21,786 people who said their support and donations were intended for the DCCA associated with Kalu Rinpoche’s vision, and not for Tashi and his wife.
A short while after the video went viral, the couple issued a statement through their company’s Facebook account disputing aspects of Kalu Rinpoche’s account. They said they had obtained legal advice and were considering legal options, including defamation proceedings.
According to a person familiar with the couple’s account, Lhaki Dema and Tashi Dorji had hosted Kalu Rinpoche in his first-ever visit to Australia in July 2025 funding his accommodation and domestic air tickets, and during this trip, all offerings were kept by Rinpoche.
The person said that after announcing the DCAA during this trip, Kalu Rinpoche sought the help of the couple who looked for the land and also set up the DCAA as a non-profit organization after extensive paper work. The person said the couple and their family worked hard to do the logistics and bookings of the holy relic tour.
A total of AUD 525,435 were collected, and after various expenses of the tour were deducted, AUD 261,000 was left with the DCCA.
While Rinpoche’s position is that the couple should hand over DCCA to a new management, the couple feel that Kalu Rinpoche already started ordering payments from the DCAA, not in keeping with the purpose and local regulations.
