Dalai Lama apologizes to boy’s family for viral video showing kissing him
Dharmshala: Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama apologized after outrage over a video of him kissing a child on the lips and asking him to ‘suck his tongue’. He made an apology to the boy and his family. The top Buddhist leader said that he often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before the camera. “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. 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. His Holiness often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras. He regrets the incident,” an official statement read.
The video shows that Dalai Lama was kissing a young boy on lips and then touching his foreheads with him. “Can you suck my tongue?” the top Buddhist leader further said while sticking out his tongue.
Since being circulated on social media, the video triggered a huge backlash and Twitter users call it ‘disgusting’. “Asking a young boy to “suck my tongue” is so inappropriate that accountability cannot be denied even if intention wasn’t wrong. Dalai Lama has lost whatever goodwill he had earned in his life with this one particular action,” a Twitter user said. “Lama is a learned man..quite the enlightened one…he should understand whatever the Tibetan customs are..ppl ard the world may not be aware of them..lesser so children…quite clearly the young boy was taken aback..this would b a kind of trauma he will carry for the rest of his lf,” one more person tweeted.