I was thinking of writing something about this and then I happened to come across this post by @meno. I wrote a pretty long 813-word comment to his post. Since that comment put me a most of the way towards a post, I think I pretty much have to do one now, don't I?

I'm going to try to offer a balanced look at this thing. You who know I am a Sōtō Zen Buddhist may expect me to be defend the Dalai Lama. Those who know Zen better may expect the opposite. A Zennie defending the Dalai Lama would be like a Baptist defending the Pope, after all. Let's see if I can defy both of those expectations.

I should cover the event in case some of you are unaware. There was an event in February where the Dalai Lama asked a boy to suck on his tongue. We have it on video, including the boy's somewhat confused reaction, and you can hear him clearly. We know it's not a deepfake because the Dalai Lama has issued an apology; we'll get to that. So there's no question that it happened.

As we might imagine of any news story today, it has instantly divided people along what are becoming very familiar lines. On one side we have many liberal organizations defending him, because in the liberal mind Buddhism can do no wrong. On the other, we have many conservative organizations attacking him viciously. With US conservative groups especially, it's interesting that they tend to attack any religious figure for anything except their own which they defend blindly. Anyway, we have this instant tribalist take which again is becoming sadly familiar in today's world.

I want to try to get past this dualistic, tribalistic view.

Now I don't really care about the Dalai Lama at all. Tibetan Buddhism is about as far from Zen Buddhism as you can get. There isn't much in common between them beyond the very tenuous link of honoring the Buddha. Most Zennies are actually pretty indifferent to the Dalai Lama, some may even be downright hostile towards him. I want to try to avoid that as well. Buddhism is all about the middle way, so let's try to find where that is.

Three Sides

^{Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash}

One of my teachers liked to say that there are always three sides to anything: the first two are what both sides say about the thing and the third is what actually happened. Sadly the third side is usually unknowable, even by the actors in it, as memory is not reliable and tends to be quickly corrupted by both outside and inside influences; even video of an event doesn't show the whole story, so we are often left to guess at what the third side actually was.

If you watch the full video, not the clipped one, the Dalai Lama is clearly playing. He pulls the boy close and pushes him away, and the boy is laughing. We know he has an odd sense of humor and he has gotten in trouble for that many times in the past. The boy's mother is sitting just a few seats down and she seems to be enjoying the event along with everyone. The boy also seems to be enjoying the play. It is only when he is asked to "suck his tongue" that the boy looked unsure. In that light, it's not a stretch to say it was a joke, albeit a very strange one. But was it? Or was everyone watching just as shocked as the boy but unsure what to do?

If it was a joke, it was a pretty bizarre one. It's worth noting that the kiss may not mean much. In many places a kiss has no sexual (or pedo) implications or intentions. Now I don't know if that is true in Tibetan culture or not. That aside, I don't think the kiss tells us anything. It's the suck the tongue thing that was weird.

So, is he a pedophile?

^{Image by Alexa from Pixabay}

I don't think we can really make a claim either way. Maybe he is, maybe not. The video might show an old man who is losing his marbles and making a strange joke, or it might show a closet pedo who is so confident in his power that he isn't even trying to hide his wicked ways. Two sides, both extreme. Clearly the truth is in the middle, so we should deny both the most negative interpretation and the most optimistic one (if losing your marbles is an optimistic one). Unfortunately that doesn't help us find the truth, but it does help us avoid falling into the same untruth that everyone else is falling into over this event.

Let's look at what we know for sure. We know the Dalai Lama is the leader of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. We know he is very smart, holding a Geshe degree which is said to be a few levels above a PhD. We know he is as much a political figure as a spiritual one and that the Chinese government despises him. It is interesting that this event occurred in February but didn't come to light till now. There are suggestions that the Chinese government is behind the release. That doesn't take away from what he did, but it does add another layer to this thing. I'm sure they are overjoyed that the story has caught on in the West.

We know the Dalai Lama has a long history of making strange statements that get him in trouble and having strange friends that turn out to be not nice people. We know he deliberately made this public turn towards being a guru to the West fifty or so years ago as a very political move against China.

So where does that leave us... a smart guy who China hates and the West (usually) loves. A guy who usually gives us feel good inspirational (if sometimes nonsensical) statements most of the time but also makes weird statements or does weird things on a fairly regular basis that usually blow over and are forgotten within a few weeks.

Sorry, did you expect me to make a pronouncement and give you answers? That's not the Zen way, my friend. You decide for yourself. I just want you to reject most of what the tribes on either side are yelling and look at it for yourself.

The Zen take in general is that we shouldn't put anyone on a pedestal, as many do with the Dalai Lama. He is human, he makes mistakes, like all of us. He may be a bad person, he may not be. I don't think we can really make a judgement about this from the video. Now you might say even if it was a weird joke, he should have been savvy enough to realize it would look weird to people in the West. Maybe so. That could go back to the whole senile idea, or it could show that he thought it was so innocent that he didn't even consider people might see it as weird or otherwise.

Killing the Buddha

^{Image by Helena Cuerva from Pixabay}

Ninth century Chinese monk Linji Yixuan (called Rinzai Gigen in Japanese), the founder of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism, famously said "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him," or "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha." Far from teaching violence, he was teaching to kill all our preconceived ideas about things, our ideas that we understand it all. When we think we know the Buddha—when we think we understand something—that is when we are led down the wrong path.

We might apply that to this situation. We don't know what happened, but we do know our guesses are probably wrong. As I said above, the 3rd side is often unknowable. What happened doesn't interfere with our own practice. We don't ignore the Dalai Lama's actions, but we don't let them affect us either. We can try to understand them without leaping to any assumption.

Well, anyway, that's a few thoughts. I tried to organize them, but if anything I wrote is confusing, feel free to leave a comment asking me to clarify. Again I have no answers. If it was a weird joke, well that was dumb of him. And if he was a pedo, well I think people will be watching him a little more closely now so any future hints of this perversion won't be missed. You decide for yourself which is true, but I urge you to try to take the middle way in your thinking and not immediately leap to either extreme.

I do think this will blow over eventually. The liberal media will probably keep mostly defending him and the conservative media will stop attacking him so much as soon as they realize that their hatred of China makes him more ally than foe. And he will probably do something else weird in due time, and the cycle may start all over again. Fun times.

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.