The Dalai Lama issued a public apology Monday after video of him kissing a young boy on the lips and asking the child to “suck my tongue” prompted outrage online.
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Over the weekend, footage circulated on social media showing the Tibetan Buddhist leader interacting with the boy, first raising his chin to kiss him before audibly making the request for the child to suck his tongue. The Dalai Lama then sticks his tongue out as other people in attendance can be heard laughing.
“A video clip has been circulating that shows a recent meeting when a young boy asked His Holiness the Dalai Lama if he could give him a hug,” the apology statement read. “His Holiness wishes to apologize to the boy and his family, as well as his many friends across the world, for the hurt his words may have caused.”
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The statement continues to say that the Dalai Lama “often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras. He regrets the incident.”
The apology did not clarify which “words” he said during the interaction, and it did not disclose where or when the incident took place.
But media reports suggest the clip was actually filmed in late February at the Dalai Lama’s temple in Dharamshala, India, where about 100 students attended an event after graduating from the Indian M3M Foundation.
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According to the BBC, sticking out your tongue is a traditional greeting in Tibet dating back more than a thousand years to the ninth century. Longer video footage of the Dalai Lama’s incident with the child appears to show the boy not actually going through with the spiritual leader’s tongue-sucking request with the pair hugging afterward.
This isn’t the first time the Dalai Lama has apologized for sparking uproar. In 2019, his office put out a statement saying he was “deeply sorry” after saying in an interview that if a woman was to succeed him, she should be “more attractive.”
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The apology explained the Dalai Lama “has a keen sense of the contradictions between the materialistic, globalized world he encounters on his travels and the complex, more esoteric ideas about reincarnation that are at the heart of Tibetan Buddhist tradition.” “However, it sometimes happens that off the cuff remarks, which might be amusing in one cultural context, lose their humor in translation when brought into another. He regrets any offense that may have been given,” the apology read.
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The 87-year-old was enthroned as the 14th Dalai Llama in 1940 and assumed his full political duties in 1950 at the age of 15. Following the failed uprising in Tibet against Chinese occupation in 1959, he has lived in exile in India.
