The Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhists’ foremost non secular chief, apologized Monday after a video of him kissing a boy and asking the kid to “suck my tongue” drew widespread condemnation.
The footage from an occasion on the Dalai Lama’s temple in northern India reveals him inviting the boy as much as the stage and asking for a kiss on the cheek. “Then, I believe proper right here additionally,” the non secular chief provides, touching his lip. He grasps the kid’s chin and pulls him near kiss him on the lips as adults chuckle.
The boy pulls away, and the Dalai Lama tugs him again so their foreheads contact. “And suck my tongue,” the chief provides, protruding his tongue and leaning ahead. He and the boy contact foreheads for just a few seconds earlier than the Dalai Lama thanks him.
The workplace of the Dalai Lama stated Monday that the boy had requested the non secular chief for a hug on the Feb. 28 occasion on the Dalai Lama’s temple. The Dalai Lama, 87-year-old Tenzin Gyatso, “needs to apologize” to the boy, his household and others around the globe “for the damage his phrases could have precipitated,” his workplace stated.
“His Holiness typically teases folks he meets in an harmless and playful method, even in public and earlier than cameras,” the workplace stated in a press release. “He regrets the incident.”
The occasion within the hillside metropolis of Dharamsala was a gathering with college students and others related to the M3M Basis, the philanthropic arm of an Indian actual property firm. The inspiration stated afterward that the Dalai Lama had blessed greater than 120 college students that day.
Representatives of the M3M Basis on Monday didn’t instantly return a request for touch upon the video.
Followers of the “Yellow Hat” college of Tibetan Buddhism imagine the Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of the 13 Dalai Lamas who got here earlier than him. He has led a authorities in exile in India since 1959, when he fled Tibet throughout an rebellion in opposition to Chinese language occupation of the area.
The Dalai Lama has attracted different controversies, together with in 2019 when he advised the BBC that “If a feminine Dalai Lama comes, she needs to be extra enticing.” In 2018, he stated that “Europe belongs to the Europeans” and to not refugees from different continents.
