I was twelve pages into my book when I had to stop reading. After my unfocused but not unusual Twitter break “reward” for starting the book, I came across something about the very subject of the book I was reading: a deeply unsettling viral video of the Dalai Lama from February at the Tsuglagkhang temple in Dharamsala.
For those unaware, the Associated Press summarizes the disturbing content of the video:
The Dalai Lama invited the boy up toward the platform he was seated on. In the video, he gestured to his cheek, after which the child kissed him before giving him a hug.
The Dalai Lama then asked the boy to kiss him on the lips and stuck out his tongue. “And suck my tongue,” the Dalai Lama can be heard saying as the boy sticks out his own tongue and leans in, prompting laughter from the audience.
I was sickened, hardly able to watch the video. Already actually sick, I almost vomited for real. I hoped the boy was okay, somehow not traumatized by the breach of power from His Holiness. I feared he wasn’t. Sexual assault and harassment often leave indelible scars and create unmoveable traumas. The headlines felt straight out of The Onion: “The Dalai Lama Asks Boy to Suck His Tongue.” What the fuck.
The book I was reading was Alexander Norman’s The Dalai Lama: An Extraordinary Life. Safe to say, I no longer had the appetite for the valorizing biography.
I desperately searched for an excuse, something that could culturally explain away the leader of Tibetan Buddhism’s creepy but audible words to this little Indian boy. Religion News Service covered it only through the syndicated AP article. The New York Times and other major secular outlets also merely puppeted the sensational drama by sticking to the facts of what made the video so grotesque. The journalists I found on Twitter seemed more culturally sensitive—occasionally mentioning how Tibetans often stick their tongues out at each other as a greeting, though that’s very clearly not what’s happening here—but Tibetan and Buddhist voices were totally absent from the news analysis.
I found nothing beyond the uncomfortable possibility that a man of another faith that I’ve long thought of as a hero might actually be a sexual predator. As a Roman Catholic, I’ve grown sickeningly used to this problem, even looking up clerical authors before I read a spiritual text. Can anyone be trusted?
Eventually, I thought of visiting Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, the only English-language Buddhist analysis site I’m aware of. (The same site that religion reporter Daniel Burke left CNN for.) There I found Joshua Brallier Shelton’s thoughtful analysis of the horrific and potentially predatory situation that centered both sex abuse survivors and Tibetan culture. Shelton is a doctoral candidate in Buddhist studies and masculinity studies, as well as a practicing Buddhist; he speaks Tibetan and has lived in Dharamsala, India, which is the home of the Tibetan government-in-exile and the residence of the Dalai Lama.
Most of the coverage from mainstream outlets that I saw also failed to collect the expertise of scholars familiar with sex abuse and power. But from his background in masculinity studies, Shelton keenly notes the Dalai Lama’s actions do not line up with those of the vast majority of predators, who assault in private and against those who they have built trust with, not strangers.
I fully recommend his entire article, but the following (lighly condensed) three paragraphs are key:
I want to acknowledge that the Dalai Lama’s actions in the video were downright weird and deeply uncomfortable to watch. Simply hearing that “the Dalai Lama asked a boy to ‘suck his tongue’” was enough to make my stomach turn. …
I do not mean to erase or dismiss what unfolded in the video. But I do think that the context reveals clues as to the Dalai Lama’s intention: in my view, this was not a man acting out of a perverse desire, but a non-native English speaker who, in trying to be lighthearted, made a mistake in judgment that crossed vast cultural horizons.
But to me, this video is not evidence of a child abuser driven by a craven desire. True to his longstanding playful character, he was being jocular, following a Tibetan cultural script between grandparents and grandchildren that begins with a hug, moves to a kiss, and ends with a tongue grab. He clearly knows he made a mistake in discernment and has issued an apology. We should not jump from the display of one weird, inappropriate, or objectionable event to the imputation of an entire problematic character.
A “tongue grab” (Che le sa), according to the Tibet Rights Collective, should be translated as “eat my tongue” rather than “suck my tongue.” It’s a loving jest, usually said from grandparent to grandchild following a “pop kiss” and the giving of candy (from mouth to mouth), meant to communicate something like “I’ve given you all that I have. All that’s left is my tongue.” In other words, I think the most likely reason for the startling comments is mistranslation and cultural insensitivity by the Dalai Lama himself (the child was Indian, after all, not Tibetan). I do not think the leader of Tibetan Buddhism is a sexual predator, though he is a flawed human capable of careless transgressions.
There’s also the speculation about China’s involvement. Why was the video going viral two months after it occurred, in a conveniently edited format that ripped it from much of its context and made the inappropriate comment appear more predatory than it was? Likely to sow distrust in the Dalai Lama.
At the end of the day, I still don’t know what to think. Shelton’s convincing, but His Holiness still used his power to make a child uncomfortable. That’s very clearly not okay. I guess I wrote all of this to finally parse through my own perplexing thoughts.
I’m still unsure if I will ever read that Norman biography.
Joshua Polanski (’20) is a freelance film and culture writer who writes regularly for the Boston Hassle and has contributed to the Bay Area Reporter, In Review Online, and Off Screen amongst other places. His interests include the technical elements of filmmaking and exhibition, slow and digital cinemas, cinematic sexuality, as well as Eastern and Northern European, East Asian, and Middle Eastern film.
