Today I heard the news that the Dalia Lama said to a child “suck my tongue.” This certainly sounds like sexual abusiveness, however we definitely need to consider our cultural bias and the possibility that this statement suggests something quite different.
Even our Judeo-Christian culture includes notions that drinking from the mouth of a sage provides transmission of wisdom. A perfect example is found in the gnostic corpus of early Christian gospels discovered in Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945. In one of the text, The Gospel Of Thomas, we read: “Jesus said, He who will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.” Consider the possibility that the Dalia Lama may be saying the same thing in a similar code.
Cesar Bujosa
Milford, PA