In light of recent discoveries, Broadly cannot verify that the man in the photo is the Dalai Lama during his visit to Cambridge in 1973. However, the women in the photo swear that’s who he claimed to be. This is their story.
In a BBC interview last month, the Dalai Lama suggested that, if his successor were to be a woman, she would have to be attractive, otherwise “not much use.” With the breathy, halting chuckle of a man whose joke did not land, he doubled down on his assertion. “It’s true!” he stammered, as the interviewer tried to change the subject.
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Reception to this interview ranged from shock to anger. For decades, the Dalai Lama has been the most universally well-liked religious figure and public figure in general. How could he say something so inflammatory and backwards about women? Has he always been like this, and we just never noticed?
While social media affords us an intimate—if often one-sided—relationship with celebrities, figures like the Dalai Lama still prove impregnable despite their attempts at candor. It’s one thing to watch someone live-stream their colonic on Periscope; it’s another to simply spend the day with them. Forty years ago, my mom did just that. According to her, she went on a date with the Dalai Lama.
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At the time my mom was studying at the Architectural Association in London; the Dalai Lama was visiting Cambridge to meet with Sir Karl Popper, David Bohm, and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker of their astrophysics department in an effort to find common ground between science and Buddhism.
Tenzin Gyatso was identified as the 14th Dalai Lama at age two, taken to Lhasa to be educated by monks in a 1,000-room palace, and instated as the political leader of Tibet at age 15.
When he and my mom met, he had been in exile for 14 years, living in India.
My mom was 22. She was living on Regents Park Road with two other women in what was essentially a one-bedroom apartment with a large closet that could hold a twin bed. She and her friend Daisy—who was in London to study opera—slept in the bedroom together. They had many short-term sub-tenants. But that fall, they hosted an art history grad student named Carolyn. And Carolyn set up the date with the Dalai Lama. “He wanted to meet some American women,” my mom recalled.
In a 1993 interview with the New York Times, the Dalai Lama said, “Even in the 1960s and 1970s, I didn’t have much knowledge of [women’s issues].” This is putting it mildly, according to my mom. “He seemed very naive…maybe a little shy around girls,” she said.
In some ways, the date was fairly ordinary: Carolyn, Daisy, and my mom took the train to Cambridge to go on a walking tour of the campus with their gentleman caller. In other ways, it was less so—he introduced himself to them as the Dalai Lama, sticking to formalities. “I didn’t know how to address him, so I just waved when I wanted his attention,” my mom said.
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In addition to the walking tour, my mom and her friends were treated to a tour of his room, where he had set up a shrine with “ancient artifacts,” which he told them were “from B.C.” Then he and my mom went out on the River Cam. “He did not do any of the work,” she recalled. “I had to do all the punting.” My mom punted the small boat along the river while the Dalai Lama sat cradled on the cushioned bench, remarking on the Cambridge scenery.
“He was a little weird and hard to talk to,” my mom said, so his recent comments didn’t surprise her. And widespread shock seems a little late in the game, at this point. The truth is that the Dalai Lama has made this “joke” about a female Dalai Lama many times: with Larry King, with German Buddhist writer Michaela Doepke, with the Sunday Times—to name a few. In his BBC interview, he makes this joke in reference to some half-forgotten interview he did in Paris with a French women’s magazine 20 or 30 years ago.
It’s also perhaps misleading to label this viewpoint a joke, since he makes the same argument earnestly in his autobiography, My Spiritual Journey. “Beauty is one of the eight qualities of a precious human body on the physical level,” he wrote. “It is obvious that if a female Dalai Lama is ugly to look at, she will attract fewer people. The aim of a female reincarnation is to transmit the Buddhist teachings to the public in a convincing way.”
For all his demi-divinity, the Dalai Lama is certainly not above a dick joke.
And the Dalai Lama makes no secret of the way that attractive human bodies affect him. In a New York Times interview, when asked about his weaknesses, he replied, “Of course, sometimes beautiful women…But then, many monks have the same experience. Some of it is curiosity: If you use this, what is the feeling? [Points to his groin.]” For all his demi-divinity, the Dalai Lama is certainly not above a dick joke.
The Dalai Lama is the successor in a line of incarnations of the Buddha of Compassion, Avalokitesvara. The Avalokitesvara is variably depicted as male or female, but in Tibetan Buddhism, he is always male. Professor Rita Gross, author of Buddhism After Patriarchy, notes, “Tibetan Buddhism is very patriarchal.”
This strain of Buddhism was established in the 14th century. The title Dalai Lama arose in 1587, and by 1641, the Dalai Lama—this one was the fifth—had complete political and religious authority over Tibet. He was considered to be Tibet’s greatest leader, until Tenzin Gyatso.
In the past, Dalai Lamas indicated where they will be reincarnated by writing a letter to be read after their death, or a prominent lama will have dreams of the child’s house, or heavenly signs will surface. In the case of the current Dalai Lama, an omen predicted his identity. Eighteen months after the death of the 13th Dalai Lama, Tibet was in political turmoil. The monks consulted with the Dalai Lama’s embalmed body, which was set up in the lotus posture gazing southward for meditation. When a few observant monks noticed that the figure’s head tilted eastward, even a day after their correction, they were convinced that his successor would be found in the east.
In many ways, the reincarnated form the Dalai Lama takes is a reflection of the needs of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism at the time. The Dalai Lama before Tenzin Gyatso left Tibet in turmoil, and a successor—the right kind of successor—had to be found immediately. As Gross puts it, “All religions reflect their social settings.” And Tibet has a tradition of thinking of women as inferior. The word for “woman” in the Tibetan language literally translates to “born low.”
This hierarchical attitude is at odds with what Gross calls “the true Buddhist teachings.” “Buddhists can’t come up with the same excuses for male dominance.” Yet reincarnated leaders almost always take male form. The institution of reincarnation essentially upholds the status quo. However, Gross goes on to say, “There has been some shift among some of the more prominent leaders of the Buddhist world.”
In his biography, the Dalai Lama said that the next Dalai Lama could be a woman or a man.
The current Dalai Lama has made conflicting comments regarding his successor. In his biography, he asserts, “I have told the Tibetan people that it is up to them to decide whether they want another reincarnation…Reincarnation is about continuing your work from the previous life. If they think my work is important and relevant, I will reincarnate.”
But later, in an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntagg, he suggested that he believes that, “the institution of the Dalai Lama has served its purpose. We had a Dalai Lama for almost five centuries. The 14th Dalai Lama now is very popular. Let us then finish with a popular Dalai Lama.” In the meantime, the People’s Republic of China has stated that they will be choosing the next Dalai Lama after Tenzin Gyatso passes away.
In his biography, the Dalai Lama said that the next Dalai Lama could be a woman or a man, that “the institution of the Dalai Lama must change according to the times.”
“That’s come a long way for popular Tibetan Buddhism,” says Gross. “Whether it’s going to amount to anything, that’s an open question.”
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the Buddha of Compassion has a female aspect called Tara. Often called the Mother of all Buddhas, some stories trace her back to an original princess who attained a high level of enlightenment. A group of monks suggested that she should pray to be reborn as a man, so that she could progress further. Tara refused, saying that those who see gender as a barrier to attaining enlightenment are “weak-minded worldlings.” She resolved to always be reborn as a woman. The current Dalai cited Tara as an example of “a true feminist movement in Buddhism.”
Women can be symbols for worship, but they cannot be leaders with legitimate political and religious power.
In Tibet, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, nuns were prevented from receiving the highest ordinations. At the same time, there are lineages in the Tibetan tradition of female high reincarnations. In short: female practitioners are kept from power; female figures enjoy reverence. Gross notes that Tara is the most popular deity in Tibet—male or female. Again, there’s a difference between the letter of Buddhist teachings, and how they’re carried out. Women can be symbols for worship, but they cannot be leaders with legitimate political and religious power.
For his part, the Dalai Lama has stated that he is a feminist. “Isn’t that what you call someone who fights for women’s rights?” he asked during a 2009 speech at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN.
Gross is optimistic: “I think the Dalai Lama is sincere. The real question is whether the Tibetan people would accept.”
After their day with the Dalai Lama, my mom and her friends returned to their tiny apartment. “We didn’t make fun of him. Probably we giggled about him afterward,” she said. And then the calls started. He called them more than three times, asking to “get together again.”
“It was kind of like having someone’s little brother call you for a date,” my mom said.
When I asked her why she didn’t take him up on his offer, my mom replied, “It didn’t seem appropriate. Because of who he is and was. And because he did seem so boyish. It was peculiar.” For someone with inherited centuries of wisdom and decades of Buddhist study, the Dalai Lama lacked one thing: He couldn’t speak to women. Couldn’t make conversation with them, couldn’t relate to them, and certainly couldn’t hit on them. As my mom said, “He was just a pest.” Forty years later, not much has changed.
Upon reviewing this article, Wangdue Tsering, Secretary of The Office of Tibet, London—the official representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the UK—said, “There was no date with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Moreover, it is clear the man in the photo is not His Holiness the Dalai Lama.”
