The Dalai Lama was caught on camera sexually assaulting a boy. He is a pedophile of the worst degree. He must disrobe and the world must denounce him.
If you believe that story, congratulations: you've fallen for the Dalai Lama Deception.
The Business of Attention and Agendas
The video clip purportedly documenting the Dalai Lama's interactions with the boy has been shared around the world by the mainstream media and on social media. But like the Rodney King beating footage, the clip was deceptively edited for maximum sensationalism.
There are several variations of the infamous Dalai Lama video clip circulating on the Internet. One of them pixelates the boy's face and mutes the entire interaction. Another variation cuts out the lead-up to the moment, showing the boy asking for a hug. Yet another version cuts the lead-up and everything that follows the kiss.
Why was this footage cut out? Why was the boy pixelated? Why was the sound muted? To make the interaction seem more sinister than it truly was, and to deprive you, the viewer, of vital context needed to understand the situation.
Since the media won't show you the full unedited video, here it is:
The mainstream media is not in the business of truth. It is in the business of attention and agenda-setting. The media runs sensational stories to drive clicks and eyeballs, so they can sell advertising space and promote agendas. Over the past decade, the media has been caught in countless lies. The Steele dossier, Hunter Biden's laptop, 'mostly peaceful protests', and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Beyond simply attracting attention, the media promotes falsehoods wholesale to promote a political agenda.
The media is also conspicuously silent on matters of great public interest—including pedophilia. Children in drag performing stripteases in gay clubs, adult men in drag exposing themselves to children, pornographic books in school libraries, the Epstein client list. The media won't touch them, or will spin them in a positive light.
But now we're supposed to believe that the mainstream media is telling us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, this time.
What about social media? Again, it is in the business of attention and agendas. Social media content is optimised to engage short-term attention at the expense of effortful, rational thought. It hooks users through the constant dopamine drip that comes from consuming a never-ending supply of short, punchy posts. Consume enough content, and your thoughts are forever shaped by the content.
You won't find nuance on social media. Nuance requires effort and lengthy content, the opposite of what social media is optimised for.
When assessing any incident, you must take the source into account. The source of this controversy—legacy and social media alike—are not reliable sources. They are biased towards generating outrage and controversy. You will not find the whole truth there.
Where can you find the truth?
From the people.
Context, Context, Context
When news of the controversy hit, Tibetan YouTuber JigJag published a video explaining Tibetan customs. He begins by discussing the significance of kissing on the lips in Tibetan culture: as an expression of love and affection, even among family members.
The modern West sees kissing as an expression of romantic or sexual love. Other cultures view kisses differently. The Bible records the holy kiss or the kiss of peace as a greeting among ancient Christians. During the Cold War, socialist leaders greeted each other using the socialist fraternal kiss, with leaders who were especially close to each other kissing each other on the lips. In Europe, kissing on the cheeks is a traditional greeting among friends.
The Dalai Lama is a Tibetan. He does not think in terms of Western culture. How he views a kiss would be shaped by his own culture. It is reasonable to believe that he views a lip kiss the way his fellow Tibetans do.
From 5:02 to 6:00, JigJag re-enacts a specific Tibetan tradition: when a child asks an elder for something, the elder playfully teases the child, asking him to kiss him on the cheek, then to touch his nose and forehead, kiss him on the lips, and finally to eat his tongue.
Re-watch whichever video clip prefer of the boy and the Dalai Lama, and compare it to JigJag's re-enactment. You will immediately see the similarities. Especially the part when JigJag stuck out his tongue.
The Dalai Lama is not a fluent English speaker. When interacting with an English-speaking audience, he often has translators to assist him. It is again reasonable to believe that something was lost in translation when he said 'suck my tongue'.
A friend of mine is a Tibetan Buddhist. He called attention to a specific gesture during the interaction: the Dalai Lama touched his forehead to the child's own.
"It is a blessing," he said.
In Tibetan Buddhism, this gesture is imbued with significant ritual connotations. Lamas greet each other, and their students, with a forehead touch. This is a gesture of warmth and affection, signifying closeness. When a lama receives a gift, he touches it to his forehead. This is an act of ritual blessing. Lamas usually do not touch foreheads with random strangers.
The Dalai Lama, however, freely touches foreheads with everyone he interacts with, including strangers. This is well documented in many, many photos across the decades. In doing so, he spreads joy and loving-kindness—and blesses those he touches.
A Tibetan Buddhist would recognise this gesture. But the media didn't ask a Tibetan Buddhist—or even a Tibetan—on the significance of the interaction.
After all, the media is not in the business of truth.
A Question of Timing
This incident took place on 28 February 2023. Five weeks later, a video clip of the event suddenly came out. If the Dalai Lama had done something reprehensible then, in front of a live audience, wouldn't the clip have been released earlier?
On 28 February, the Dalai Lama greeted 120 college graduates, members of the M3M foundation, and their family members in his main temple at Dharamsala, India. You can find a write-up of the event on the Dalai Lama's website here.
The official photos show that the Dalai Lama was surrounded by monks, staff members, college graduates, and journalists. The boy's mother was seated close to the Dalai Lama. According to JigJag, the event was broadcast live around the globe.
India had no problem with the event. Tibet had no problem with the event. No one, not even the monks, the attendees, the boy's mother and the boy himself, had a problem with it.
Then suddenly a video clip appeared five weeks later, and the West is in uproar.
JigJag believes that this was a Chinese psychological operation. A week ago, the Dalai Lama identified the reincarnation of the leader of the Mongolian branch of Tibetan Buddhism. Such an act was bound to anger Beijing, because the Chinese Communist Party seeks tight control over Tibetan Buddhism, including the right to recognise the reincarnations of high lamas. The video clip, JigJag argues, was an act of retaliation to discredit the Dalai Lama.
If it were a psyop, it is a masterful play. The video clip is tailored for a Western audience ignorant of Tibetan culture. Clerical sexual abuse of children is a long-standing fear in Western society. Social media users reward clickbait and outrage, and ignores context and nuance. The Internet is the perfect engine to generate a Two Minute Hate, allowing mobs to quickly organise and swarm the designated target. The Western media promotes sensational narratives at the expense of truth.
And the greatest weakness of American culture is the belief that its culture reigns supreme, and all nations follow American cultural norms.
A Westerner would see the kiss, hear 'suck my tongue' and fly into a black rage. A Tibetan would recall his interactions with his parents and elders, and smile.
What the Dalai Lama said and did would certainly be politically incorrect by Western norms. But at the time the incident took place, he was in India, in his own temple. Why would he act according to Western norms in those circumstances? Furthermore, how many Westerners had thought to step outside their cultural paradigm and ask a Tibetan for his opinion? It certainly hadn't occurred to any American, or Western, or Westernised, 'journalist' to do this.
After all, that would be inconvenient for the narrative they are trying to build.
Patterns—and Lack Thereof
You may not believe the psyop theory. You may not even believe that Tibetans have customs unusual to Western eyes. Then allow me then to draw your attention to one last piece of evidence.
Or, rather, a lack of evidence.
The Dalai Lama assumed his duties at the age of 16. For the past 71 years, he has never been accused of sexual abuse. This is despite the fact that his official position would give him access to countless men, women and children around the world, both in public and in private.
In the age of the Internet, it has never before been easier to accuse a public personality of sexual abuse. #MeToo, Bing Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, the list goes on. Even Tibetan Buddhism is not exempt. Some lamas and gurus have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct over the decades.
And yet, the Dalai Lama has not been accused of any kind of sexual misconduct.
Predatory behaviours do not occur in isolation. When assessing a person, analyzing a single action without context may lead to misinterpretations. If a man rubs his hands together, is he cold, anticipating something pleasant, or scheming to harm someone? You won't know without the context.
To assess a perosn, you should look for clusters of behaviours in various contexts. If someone displays clusters of predatory behaviours in multiple contexts, you can be confident that he is a predator.
Consider President Joe Biden. For years, even before he became President, he was captured on camera sniffing, touching and kissing children in public. He has been accused of inappropriately touching adult women too. He has made bizarre and creepy comments in public about females. His daughter, Ashley Biden, wrote in her diary that he showered with her when she was young.
In Biden, we see a cluster of suspicious behaviours stretching back for decades. In contrast, the Dalai Lama has shown no such behaviours. He has led a high-profile life, and yet until now he has never been filmed or photographed doing anything inappropriate. He is, however, well-known for teasing everyone he encounters, even during high-level diplomatic meanings. Some of these stories are recounted here.
What's the difference between Biden kissing a child and the Dalai Lama kissing a child?
Biden is an American and kissed an American girl. They know full well the significance of a kiss in American culture. The Dalai Lama is Tibetan, and kissed an Indian boy inside his temple in India. Tibetans view kissing differently from Americans.
Not only that, Biden was clearly creeping on the girl and making her uncomfortable. In Buddhist terms, he was taking what was not offered. In contrast, the boy asked for a hug, and the Dalai Lama gave him one, and showered him with the affection in the way an elder Tibetan would show affection to a child.
The Dalai Lama has consistently displayed clusters of affectionate, compassionate and playful behaviour towards everyone he meets, adults and children alike. He has never been accused of sexual abuse. A single outlier, in the form a deceptively edited clip spread by biased media, does not form a new pattern.
But it does point to something more sinister.
The Unasked Questions
There are so many questions that should be asked. What is the context of the video clip? What is the source of the clip? What is the full length clip? Who were the people shown on screen? Why were they there? What is the Dalai Lama's history of behaviours? Most importantly: how do Tibetans express affection?
The activists and the journalists that should be asking these questions are instead condemning the Dalai Lama as a sex predator. They are so filled with outrage that they stopped doing their jobs. Or, rather, they are doing their jobs, which is to fuel the fires of anger and spread the clouds of ignorance.
After all, they are not in the business of truth.
Buddhism teaches many things. Compassion, insight, wisdom, patience, empathy, logic. In this light, I am going to ask you this question.
Had an 87-year-old Tibetan monk, who has never before shown any sign of sexual interest, who has never before been accused of even the slightest hint of sexual misconduct, who is deeply grounded in a religious philosophy that teaches how to transmute destructive emotions, who is known to consistently act in a playful and affectionate fashion towards everyone he encounters in line with Tibetan Buddhist cultural norms, suddenly abandoned the teachings, discovered his sex drive and the energy to act on it, developed pedophiliac tendences out of the blue, and acted on them in front of over 100 witnesses, inside his own temple, during a live global broadcast?
Or was the video clip deceptively edited to discredit the Dalai Lama?
Which is more likely?
