Complex sentence: At the time, the notion of a Buddhist teacher establishing a private practice went against accepted convention; it caused much controversy in 1996, when he presented the idea to the Buddhist Teachers Conference, but has since been adopted by many teachers.
Split into simpler sentences: At the time, the notion of a Buddhist teacher establishing a private practice went against accepted convention. It caused much controversy in 1996 when he presented the idea to the Buddhist Teachers Conference but has since been adopted by many teachers.