This is our first article about Madi Nolan.

In our world, having a PhD from Harvard is different from having a mail-order Phd. Knowing this difference helps us chose carefully which person with a PhD we might go to for information, help, even medical or mental health advice.

With Tibetan Buddhists, a similar system exists. A monk or teacher can only perform the traditional healing ceremony of Empowerment, called a Wong, if he is given permission by his own teacher.

We demonstrate our ability by providing the public or potential employers with our degrees; Tibetans give an oral testimony at the beginning of every teaching. This testimony names the lineage and personal teachers who taught the person you are about to listen to.
It is the verification, the certainty that what you about to hear from this person is genuine, the real deal.

Here in
smalltown Stouffville, we have fake Lama, and a woman at that, passing through. Her name is Madi Nolan. She bills herself as a Lama Rimpoche and lists monasteries in Nepal as her spawning ground.

Anyone who understands Tibetan Buddhist is immediately suspect: monks go to monasteries. For women, there are nunneries.

Why would she say she's been to a monastery?

In addition, when you read her google sites, (hit her name and you'll find them) she sites White Cloud monastery as her place of learning.

The only White Cloud Monastery that exists is in Beijing, and is Taoist.

This woman is clearly a product of Barnum and Bailey!

She proceeds to explain how her Wongs are full of healing, yet if you examine what the Wongs she gives involve, it is all object driven: sell your house faster, acquire that new car, get the partner of your dreams.

Nowhere does she mention the personal mentor, or the lineage who came before her. Nowhere does she state what kind of meditation she has actually practiced. No where does she reveal what actual methods she uses to help people heal.

Tibetan Buddhism is about meditation and healing. Period. No teacher worth his or her salt will ever go at aquisition of things as the end result of a meditation process.

Every teacher worth his or her salt will state easily and clearly: this is the lineage I learned from and here are the names of my teachers.

Madi Nolan does none of these things. That is because Madi Nolan is a fake, pure and simple.

I suppose there is one born every minute, but I hope all of us work toward preventing fools from being taken advantage of.

If you encounter someone who claims to be a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, demand their lineage and the names of their teachers. Ask pointed questions. Use your critical thinking to help you decide whose Wong is Right.