Dalai lama regrets letting boy lick his tongue

AFP The Dalai Lama last December in Bodhgaya, India

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 13:26

The Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, has apologized for a video of a boy licking his tongue. The footage shows the Dalai Lama kissing a boy on the lips at a public meeting and then asking him to lick his outstretched tongue.

The video was widely shared on social media and caused quite a stir. The 87-year-old Dalai Lama responded via his Twitter account that the boy asked him if he could give him a hug. Why the Dalai Lama then asked him to lick his tongue remains unclear. The Dalai Lama says he regrets the incident.

The response also read that the Dalai Lama “more often teases the people he meets in a mischievous and playful manner, even in public and in front of a camera”. He apologizes to the boy, his family and “his many friends around the world” whom he hurt.

On social media, many users have expressed shame at the incident, describing it as “inappropriate” and “disgusting”. Others say it is an ancient Tibetan tradition. For example, in Tibet it is customary to greet each other by sticking out the tongue.

HAQ Center for Childs Rights, an Indian children’s rights organization, has reacted disapprovingly to the images. The organization tells news channel CNN that the video is “certainly not about a cultural expression” and that “even if it were, such expressions are unacceptable”.

fuss

It is not the first time that the Dalai Lama has been discredited. In 2019, he also had to apologize after a high-profile interview with the BBC. In response to questions about his possible successor, he said that if the next Dalai Lama was a woman, she had to be attractive or people wouldn’t want to look at her. A few years earlier, in 2015, he also said that a female Dalai Lama had to be pretty, otherwise she would be “not much use”.

Source