In a video of the incident dating back to February 28, the Tibetan spiritual leader sticks his tongue out at the child, visibly taken aback by the monk’s request.
The Dalai Lama, Tibetan spiritual leader, apologized to a little boy, Monday April 10, for asking him about him “tongue sucking”a few weeks ago, during a hearing. “His Holiness would like to apologize to the boy and his family, as well as to his many friends around the world, for any pain his words may have caused”recounts a press release published on its official Twitter account, which simply evokes a “cuddly”.
“His Holiness often teases the people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and in front of the cameras. He regrets this incident”, can we still read in the press release. In a video that has gone viral, the Dalai Lama, 87, sticks his tongue out at the obviously taken aback child, just after asking him “Can you suck my tongue?”triggering the hilarity of the assembly.
This video was shot on February 28, during an audience with the Dalai Lama in McLeod Ganj, on the outskirts of Dharamsala, in northern India, where he has lived in exile since the failure of the 1951 Tibetan uprising against the Chinese power. Netizens described his attitude as “disgusting” and D’“absolutely unhealthy”.
A fading aura
In 2019, the Dalai Lama apologized for saying that if a woman were to succeed him, she would have to be “seductive”. These remarks, made in an interview with the BBC, had caused controversy.
The Dalai Lama universally embodies the movement for Tibetan autonomy, but the international aura from which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 has withered and the deluge of invitations addressed to him by leaders, personalities and stars all over the planet has shrunk a lot.
This decline in interest is partly explained by the age of the monk who had to limit his travels, but also by the growing economic and political influence of China. Beijing accuses him of wanting to divide the country and regularly calls him a “wolf in monk’s robe”.