Jigme Ugen - Dalai Lama - The Opinion And The Other Opinion

31:12But there were certain things that we didn't agree on, but that was off the record. Yeah, this is really a very core, a core part of the truth, if you want. Because remember, my objective here is to try and tell people, don't take things without verifying the truth of them. And so a big part of the truth is that it's contextual. So, so like you rightly said, in Tibet, in Spain, okay, a father would kiss his son on the lips, right? That's actually very, very, very normal in many countries around the world. In Spain, for example, when you hug a young child, you slap them on the face a few times, like Mocha, you're my friend, right?

31:57You know, in some cultures that would be considered abuse, in other cultures it wouldn't, right? Like you rightly said, you know, squeezing the cheeks is quite Egyptian as a matter of fact, right? My elder brothers would tickle me until I can't breathe. Literally, like until I can't breathe, right? And in a very interesting way, there might be a country around the world where if a brother did that to his younger brother, it would be considered misbehavior or wrong. But in other cultures, it's considered okay. Now, I'm going to unfortunately start with a very stark description. So in the Tibetan culture, you don't bury your dead.

32:37So in the original... There was sky burial, and there's a story behind it too, because our ancestors believed that, you know, now that your soul and spirit has left the body, the body is nothing but a vehicle. And let that vehicle be of use even after death. So your body is offered to vultures and all of that so that even in your death, you are of some use to somebody, your body. So it's like the concept of just like universal love of like just being out there. So let me explain this to our listeners because the first time I was exposed to this, it appalled me. So the way the Tibetans would honor their dead is to actually offer them to the vultures.

33:23So the body would be eaten by the vultures. And I asked, and I said, with curiosity, remember there is curiosity because there is context. It's not our actions that define us. It's the intentions behind our actions. And in my questions, I was like, this is wrong. Like, how can you do that to the body of someone that you love? And the answer was exactly what you just said. It was basically, well, the body is not the person, okay? The body is just the vehicle of the consciousness or the spirit of that person. And accordingly, that vehicle is empty of the person. It's just basically honoring them by saying, like the West would do, the highest honor for someone would be to say, okay, I donate my organs to others.

34:12Okay. When I die, take my liver and give it to someone else that can live with it or take my heart and give it to someone that can live with it. That's a bit, it's a lot actually. If you think back in the 50s where organ donation wasn't a possibility, the Tibetans would simply donate the entire body to another form of being because of the Tibetan belief that it's a vehicle, it's empty of the identity of the person that they love and it can be of use to the rest of us because we are all one, including the vultures. okay now that's a big stretch for a western culture but it is so beautiful when you understand it in a very interesting way it's basically saying we're all one me and the vulture are one okay i may have been a vulture in another life and as a result of that by the way why not donate the body to the vultures instead of the whatever is going to eat it in the ground or to the wind And after I cremate it, I basically, at the end of the day, it is the intention behind it.

35:22So this within context becomes, okay, I can listen to that out of context. And again, if you see some of the movies we've recommended to you, you would think of it as a very, very unusual thing. Tibetans also are very, I mean, at least the ones I have met, it's hard to generalize. So let's not make any assumptions because this is a podcast about learning to find facts. But the ones I have met have been quite touchy, right? So his holiness kept touching me. Everyone hugs everyone. Everyone squeezes the cheeks of the kids and so on. And in some cultures, it's like, hold on, this is my personal space.

36:04But it is a form of showing affection, at least with the people that I met. Tell me a bit about that. It's very true. Mo, as you were talking about one thing about the sky Iberia, one. The other example is in Hinduism, too. A lot of cremation are done halfway and is fed to the fish. That's the body, you know, it's out there. So there are a lot of practices, a lot of them ancient and like for all the reasons they believed in that and moved on. But as we adapt, things are different. But now going to the Tibetans being touchy, yes, we grew up that our parents would say your baby cheeks will never go away because people were always carrying you in your arms, right?

36:46And there's a belief that if you don't walk a whole lot when you're growing up, your baby cheeks would remain. So I guess I have a lot of baby cheeks, so I guess I was carried around and passed around a lot. But it is true, our elders have this permission. Like it is like they can, well, like when I remember when I was a child and my parents would take me to a neighbor or someone's house, the first thing they would go is like, I'll respect the elder, go touch your forehead with him and he would be like, give me a kiss and then he would just literally kiss your mouth and as a kid we would be like, but he would hold you and he would kiss you and the parents would be like, stop moving, he's loving you.

37:34It was like, as a kid we were like, what is happening? These were all there. And it was a sign of love. And these people, even my grandparents, like, you know, and it was what they did. We were brought up in that culture. But it is not true for like a brother or sister or brother or brother, you know. There's a level on that, you know. But our physicality is mostly with the elders, our parents who do that. And many a times I've been there stories like, you know, I was just here. I mean, my daughter was born in Minnesota. her grandmother who came to exile from Tibet when my daughter was young and she would be sick have a flu she would literally her grandmother would suck the snot out of her mouth and I would be like why are you doing this exactly I was like why and I saw it and I was like what is happening what are you doing this for and she said like if you keep rubbing her nose too much this is gonna to hurt so we do that it is that that level of love and intimacy with the people that you care about that there are no boundaries like the forehead thing is it's very common it's actually a sign of respect it's like in india uh a younger person would go touch uh an elder's feet you know there's so many signs of respect in korea japan you bowed out and like the lower you bow the lower you go, eventually you're down on the floor as a sign of respect.

39:03So we have that. We have so many signs of respect and more when you're in India, probably a lot of people who are like, Tashi Dile, and not because they are like, you know, you are a holy man or anything. This is like, because they're respecting you. They offer you stuff. We will, in our culture, brings out the respect and love in such a physical way that we are immediately attached. Like, I keep saying this, I don't know Tibetans saying, I love you. It's not something that we say. We don't need reinforcement of like, I love you, or my parents don't say I love you. Now, our parents showed their love in various ways that you would be convinced.

39:48So, yeah, I mean, my example, I grew up in Kelingpong, And when they say in the West, you know, like in Africa, it takes a whole community and a village to bring up a child. I am that byproduct. I am that byproduct. I grew up in my neighbor's house. They fed me. They took care of me. My parents would freely leave them there. I would eat food with them. They would feed me with their hands. Like all of this love and affection was like what brought us up. And I think that is in us, in the space of giving, understanding, loving, that we grew up with now. It's like a formidable part of our being as Tibetans.

40:30So, you know, of course, again, because I have, I always say I grew up in the East and then I learned and worked in the West. So I have a very reasonable view of the polarity between them. I think you have the same. It is actually quite an interesting dilemma because when I went to visit my grandma when I was a child, my father had seven brothers and sisters. And I am told to have been a cute child. I cannot believe that looking at me now. But I, yeah, it seems I was cute. And I promise you, when we were driving there on Friday, I would beg my dad and say, please protect me because they all squeeze my cheeks.

41:17And I know that it is normal for cheeks to be squeezed. But when there are seven of them, it's just a little bit too much. Right. Now, here is the interesting question. If I had ever gone on one of those Fridays and none of them squeezed my cheeks or one of them didn't squeeze my cheeks, I would feel that something was very wrong. Yes, yes. Like, did I upset anyone? Is there something wrong? Am I not cute anymore? Now, let me go into the video that has been circling the Internet from that context. Okay. So for those who haven't seen it, it is a short clip of his holiness, the Dalai Lama, kissing an Indian child in a conference in front of probably hundreds of people.

42:09So kissing him on the lips and then the child retreats a little bit. And then his holiness sort of basically says, no, no, hold on. I want more or something like that. And basically says, now, now you should suck my tongue. You should suck my tongue, right? Which of course in Western culture is positioned very, very strongly as child abuse. I mean, absolutely, no doubt about it. If an adult does that to a child behind closed doors, it's absolute child abuse, right? Or anywhere it's child abuse. So this short clip is not the entire video. So would you tell me a little more about what you posted on your coverage of the issue and how the whole story played out.

42:57Sure, Mo. And just a little bit of backdrop on why and how this happened. So for almost decades now, the Chinese government, they have launched one of the most sophisticated cyber warfare and sort of like a digital espionage targeting His Holiness, the Tibetan community and the Tibetan movement. And for years, they have tried to use various ways to manipulate, to disparage the Dalai Lama and to create confusion within the community. And this video, like you rightly said, was actually about six weeks ago. It happened six weeks ago. And most of His Holiness' teachings are a live telecast. I mean, not most, all of His teachings are a live telecast because there's very minimum of, because of his age, he turns 88 years old in three months.

43:51You know, I mean, he can barely walk and he's losing his hearing, you know, and through COVID, I heard that he really felt unease that he was not able to share. So he went through Zoom and all of these. Now he still wants to go out because he loves being around people, you know, talking to them, you know, understanding. And so it was one of those moments where there are about 120-odd graduate students, Indian graduate students, come in, their teachers, their advisory board. All of them were there, including His Holiness' entire group and other Tibetans who were followers sitting there. And this happened about six now, about seven weeks ago.

44:34And it was online available for everyone to see. I remember watching it, and like every Tibetan, I was like, oh my God, that boy is so lucky. He must have had good karma to get such an audience, such an intimate audience. And that's what we believed in. And more like, you know, in Tibetan belief, like, you know, Dalai Lama is a godlike figure for us. when there's an older person who is in the last stages of life their request is His Holiness blow in their mouth their children with illness their parents take it and this is not like a religious conceptual thing but rather like a blessing so we have all of these in our culture and our religion and more people know about it they'll be like why do you do that and there is a philosophy and a thought behind it Now, in this instance, the young Indian student, the child gets up and says, can you hug me?

45:37More interestingly, just yesterday, I found out. I've been investigating on this event and the details. First of all, the child's mother is on the stage right next to His Holiness. Okay. And she was one of the main organizers. And all the organizers are sitting next to His Holiness. and Professor Sandor Rinpoche is sitting next to His Holiness. The child actually, I found a video footage that I just posted. During the welcome ceremony, the child was actually the one who presented gifts to His Holiness. In the beginning, he brings gifts. His Holiness tickles him under his chin and starts poking him and tickling him.

46:23And then the child bows down to touch His Holiness' feet, and His Holiness brings him in and hugs him. And he's wearing a hematial hat that the organizers had offered him. He takes his hat off, and he touches the child's forehead, and then shares a very interesting story about his growing up as the younger siblings, and how his brother would, when they would harass him, he would use the side of his head to rub his head. So he did that to the child. And the child has little pain, they laugh, and the child moves on. This happened earlier that we found out. And then during the question and answer session, the child again gets up and says, can you hug me?

47:09I think what he said was, can I hug you? Yeah, can I hug you? It's actually different. Can you hug me? It's different than can I hug you. Oh, no, no, can I hug you? I'm sorry, can I hug you? So the child is saying, I want to hug you. Yep, can I hug you? I'm sorry, that's exactly. And it took a little while for His Holiness to understand and he's losing hearing on, I think his left. And then the interpreters had to like literally tell him what happened and His Holiness says, come. And at that point, I have to point out that the mother of the child, because I speak Hindi, is saying, have you gone insane?

47:47Right? And like shaking her head. And when His Holiness has come, she's like, what? And the child moves up and then His Holiness is holding his hand. Come here, give me a hug. I'll give you a hug. And then like I explained in my video before I talk about the concept, what a lot of our elders would do is when I would go to my grandfather or like my neighbor's grandfather or my friend's grandfather and say like, can I get so-and-so? They'd be like, okay, but first you give me a kiss. You know, you would do this to your own child here, right? Growing up. That is very common there. And then there's a sense of a trade, a barter.

48:26I'm going to give you this candy, but first let me bite your cheeks. Our people just don't pull cheeks. They bite until their teeth marks on your cheeks. So your Fridays would have been worse if it was in my community. It would be like, literally eat pot. I remember I used to do that. I have one of my favorite photos of all time was my little daughter, Aya, which was very, very cute, literally on her tiptoes. And I'm sitting up with my cheek a little bit tilted, telling her more, more, more, because she asked for something. And I was basically saying, you have to kiss me on the cheek for that.

49:07It's very typical. And one of my favorite pictures, she also loves it whenever she sees it. It's basically that idea of, I want more from you. Yeah, yeah. It's just like, so this is what His Holiness, it was a very grandfatherly affection, love, kindness shown to this child. And when the child came in, they rubbed their forehead. Again, remember, this is the second time. I'm just, a lot of light bulbs are coming in my head. But then this was the second time His Holiness was, come on in, right? Right. Literally a few, a couple of later to come on in, hugs and says, now give me a kiss. Right. And the child's like, and he pulls like, no, give me a kiss.

49:49You know, and then now he's like, suck my tongue. Right. Now suck my tongue. And as the child is like leaning in, his holiness immediately goes back and is like, gotcha. sort of that moment right and the video is cleverly edited to his holiness sticking his tongue out he said gotcha and then even taps the boy on his shoulder starts laughing the entire audience is laughing right they are clapping they're applauding you know uh it was a fun event now this is very like there is uh an intent and an impact to this right when we talk about it and And how a lot of people saw that. And obviously watching a 20-second clip without context, without understanding what happened in the beginning, forget that the child had hugged His Holiness earlier in the day.

50:46That don't matter. But what matters is what happened after that too. His Holiness jokes, pulls him in, hugs him, takes his little hands, puts him on his cheeks, and says a little prayer. and then gives the child a personal advice of like, don't look up to men who kill or something to that. I've seen that, yeah. Look up to people who are good, all of those, right? And then hugs the child and they move away. Now, the child's mother is right there. In fact, I understand his grandfather was sitting right next to the mother, 120 people, live telecast, all of those. And after all of this, they interviewed the child.

51:27they asked him, how do you feel? Like you just got hugged by his older man. He's like, it is a life-changing experience. I cannot stop smiling. This is the best time and the best thing that happened to me. The child says that. The mother said it was beautiful. It was something that we had waited for so long. And these interviews have actually just released them more of both the mother and child after the day of the event. So, it's been six weeks, 120 people, various dignitaries, teachers, the mother, grandfather, the child, nobody raised any concerns. Nobody. All of a sudden, we see a 20-second manipulated, tailored clip going out with very persuasive language attached to it, really changing the context of how people were perceiving it.

52:18So that's why when I talk about the cyber war that China has launched, This is exactly it. And we... We don't know that for a fact. So let me be, again, just in favor of talking about investigating the truth, right? All that you've mentioned so far is available in video clips online. So you can see it with your own eyes. You can know that this is the truth, right? We don't know the source of the video, right? It could be... We do, actually. Do we? We do. We do. And in fact, I just released a video on that. I've spent a lot of time around and asking people and people who are smart on the computer than me helping figure out.

52:59And we nailed it down to one account, a fake account, Yunsun. That video was posted on April 8th. And there was a massive amount of bot and work around it where immediately it got to 7 million views. It was pushed to make it look like there was a lot of support around it. And then there were a lot of sort of self-proclaimed influencers who have a history of being mouthpieces of the CCP government. All of them, we can, my video actually, I actually expose all of them. People like Samira Khan, who's been talking about how the occupation or the colonization of Tibet was a good thing, right? That is the message, because the Dalai Lama is a CIA agent.

53:47All of these that the Chinese propaganda has been used, they've been doing it for ages. And right now, if you go to their account, you will see it coming back again. They're using this opportunity to do that. So we've been able to find out who did it. And in fact, if I can tell you this, it's extremely important. For over 60 years, in the Chinese internet world, the Dalai Lama did not exist. at all. For Tibetans living in Tibet, in occupied Tibet, carrying a photo of the Dalai Lama, mentioning his name, praying to him, talking about him, would put you in slave labor camps. A photo of the Dalai Lama would almost get you executed.

54:34There have been cases of execution. listening to his teaching impossible right the dalai lama is banned in tibet in china they don't they don't even know like the dalai lama is there so that is the kind of the push they have done to cover the dalai lama now watch this after 60 years weibo is one of the largest social media platforms in China. Guess who is the most trending name? Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama. And the only available photos are his interaction with this little child, kid boy. Only that. And then there are a lot of fake ones that are coming. And I've put that all on my video too, with proof.

55:24And these were pushed out to a point where actually CCP verified accounts were pushing this. On Weibo, it was trending number one, hashtag Dalai. Where a lot of Chinese, those folks online have been saying, wait, is he still alive? Those were the responses that were coming in. so in Tibet we have a saying since the Dalai Lama is banned and again on my video I show many cases of people being prosecuted imprisoned and killed for anything related to the Dalai Lama we have news clips of all of those every time the Chinese spoke ill of the Dalai Lama our people in Tibet knew that he was doing well and even in this case where they were sharing pictures with the child's face blurred so that you can't even see.

56:21There was absolutely no contact with the tongue. None of those. And the beauty and the resilience of our people is they were so happy that they finally saw His Holiness on this computer screen. Got an audience a blessing of their guru. They looked at it that way. Not a drop of doubt of this happened and they knew this was completely manipulated. Of course, there was a lot of fake ones, and they've got like His Holiness and Joe Biden kissing, you know. And in fact, that photo was retweeted by Elon Musk with two little fire emojis. And that screenshot is being shared all across in China. So that if we are looking for evidence, if we want to know who's behind it, nothing could prove it more than this.

57:13So again, I mean, I'm being the advocate of verifying the truth here. All that you share is evidence or, you know, that proves the hypothesis that of course the Lai Lama is being targeted, right? We understand that. But to be able to say this video was released by China, to me, as a scientist, basically, there needs to be an actual observation of who released it and that it's related to that. In any case, to me, this is not the core of my topic today. The core of my topic today is this. Everyone will tell you the part of the truth that serves their agenda, okay? And the only way for you to see the whole truth on the internet or to get closer to the truth is what we used to call the long tail, right?

58:06So basically the idea is that the wisdom of the crowd, if you combine all views of a topic and average them, that average is normally closer to the wisdom than any one extreme view of a topic. Okay. So basically what I'm encouraging people to do is to take information like what you're sharing and saying, why is this trending in China as compared to nothing about the Dalai Lama for 60 years? You know, why is it coming from a fake account? Why is the child's face blurred? Why is this? Why is that? So my tendency when I look at situations like this is I put things in my mind in three compartments.

58:48Okay. I actually wrote six chapters in a book that I call compartment two and I never published it. But the idea here was this. There are very, very few things that we know are true. And there are very, very few things that we know for a fact are false. And the majority of life is in what I call, if truth is compartment one and false is compartment three, the majority of life is in compartment two. And in compartment two, to say that something happened or didn't happen is an assumption. In compartment two, all you can do is to say the probability of this happening is higher than the probability of it not.

59:31The probability of it being released by an enemy of the Dalai Lama is higher than not and so on and so forth. And so what is compartment two? Compartment two are things that you can't prove for or against. So interestingly, to say that Tibet has been occupied in 1959, that's compartment one. It's a fact. We know that. right? We know for a fact that his holiness has enemies, right? Like any other political leader, like any other spiritual leader, right? We know for a fact that children are treated in a certain way in certain cultures and that kissing on the lips is not seen as a different thing, right?

1:00:11The intentions of any person are in compartment two. I can never allow myself to say, and the intentions based on what I see, what's inside that person is A, B or C, right? I cannot allow myself to say, and by the way, with certainty, this has been an act that was orchestrated by this specific department of this specific government. But I can say within compartment two that it's likely that this is that way. It's likely that the intentions of an 88 year old person who has been among all his life and so on and so forth, the probability is that he's probably not a child abuser, right? And I think people need to start to look at things in two ways.

1:00:59One way is to try and average all of the possible available information. And two, which is my favorite, one of my top three books of all time is Freakonomics. And in Freakonomics, they talk extensively about the fact that when something is presented to you, it is not to serve you. It's to serve the objective of the presenter, right? If, you know, if I am marketing a product to you and saying, this is going to make your life funnier, right? I don't give a damn about your life. I'm, I'm marketing it for you because I want you to buy it. My objective is different than what you think. And free economics goes into this in very, very interesting way.

1:01:45Basically says your doctor, most of the time has no intention of curing you. Your doctor has an intention of finishing as many appointments as he can today to make as much money as he can. Your real estate agent has no intention of maximizing the price. If he's representing you to sell, his intention is to sell so that he can get his commission. Even if your price is down by 50 ,000, his commission is down by 500. He doesn't really care that much and so on. And so what I'm asking people to do is to look at this as an example of the amount of fakeness that we have in the world and say, who has intentions that could serve that video surfacing, okay?

1:02:29That could be served by this video surfacing. And how many other views around that video are out there and how much of it is true and how much of it's fake and how much of it is in compartment too beautifully said no beautifully thank you thank you and uh my community is hurting of course in pain there's a lot of rallies uh around india as we speak people are hurt because of the misunderstanding. And I use this example is His Holiness, not just a global icon, but someone that has been such a radiance on this world that we as humanity should be happy that we're living in the same era as Him. So for us, when we see all of these, we say, you're trying to shine a flashlight at the sun.

1:03:28But the sentiment around it is painful. The way the media has been pushing this without investigation. I understand in your compartment too, there are human beings and people with doubts, history, trauma that they bring. But within the media world, there has been no investigation. They ran with this 20-second clip. and then the apology letter from the Dalai Lama, the Dalai Lama didn't apologize for kissing, he apologized for hurting people, right? In fact, we know that the mother, the family of the boy, in fact, sent a letter to His Holiness apologizing him for causing distress. It is to a point where, like, how this was flamed up, how it became a clickbait, sensationalized to benefit the people, like you said, who are pushing this and people profiting out of this to create a sort of a frenzy without proper work.

1:04:33So our pain is not just with the people who are responsible for this, but the people who fanned it out. And it was clearly the media. how could the media i mean if someone like you sends your video clip or a few facts maybe not the entire 17 minutes but a few short clips to say here are to the bbc and say here are actual facts that you're ignoring in your story how can they not take that into consideration that has been said that has been said mo but like for me it was like when if if i'm in in my press room and someone sends me a 20-second clip and I see that it is everywhere online, I will not jump on it, especially when it comes to someone like the Dalai Lama, you're making an accusation.

1:05:20If I, as an ordinary person, go on YouTube and find details, I'm sure the media people have much more experience and research in front of them. None of that was done. They just went with that. And everywhere they started showing the photo. And like you and I, we know that people who watched the complete unedited video, their minds changed. I am certain, Jigme, that one day soon, because Western media also have a benefit in attacking China, sadly. It's not because they have a benefit in saying the truth. that one day soon, one reporter will come out and say, hey, by the way, the Dalai Lama, which we positioned as evil, let us tell you about the bigger evil, okay?

1:06:10And the bigger evil is this and that. Can I ask you, have you been getting lots of hate messages? Oh, I mean, if I go to my YouTube, I could just bawl my eyes out. Never in our lives. My parents, not my parents, my daughter's grandmothers, they are in tears. People aren't able to sleep. I haven't been able to sleep. I can't eat well. It is worrying. The things that I'm reading that how would anyone say anything like this to anyone? And then at times I open those accounts and they were created yesterday. Some of them are monthly. You know, these accounts. I mean, these are not just trolls. These are bots.

1:06:59We are seriously talking. When I talk about cyber espionage, this is real. And if your listeners can go to my page on YouTube and just open up any hate comment, right? And all the Tibetans are saying there is long live the Dalai Lama. Because it's like to a point where like these things have been moved on so quick right now. there's such an investment what's happening in china what's happening on twitter facebook tick tock all of these my daughter says she can't go to take talk anymore she's inundate right and the the the cancel culture and the two second click i i know everything because i watched this mindset uh this government is really tapping into that and using it to a whole advantage Me and my activist friends, we are saying that this is going to be bigger across the world.

1:07:58We feel like we might be the test subject. On many occasions, we've had been that. But this is going to happen to an unprecedented scale across the globe, across countries, communities, and groups. And this is going to, I'm not even talking about deep fakes. It's the way they took this clip and not only made it persuasive, but the way they promoted and pushed it. It is unreal. So everyone listening, if you're still here after an hour and 20 minutes, then you must be interested in what we're saying. They're about to cancel me, which I have to tell you, I was thinking of taking a vacation from slow-mo.

1:08:37So if you don't want me to be canceled, rate this five stars. I think that would be the only way to sort of balance it out. In a very interesting way, I will tell you openly, I don't mind being canceled in favor of the truth, right? And I will say openly, I can never know the truth, but I know that the person I met was wonderful, okay? That's my truth, if I can put it this way. And, you know, it's funny when I was asking you, do you get hate speech? because I have a very interesting policy on social media, which is to never answer a negative. So, you know, when people put negative comments, which is very rare, surprisingly, I get when at the beginning, when I started working on happiness in 2017, I would get one of every four comments would be devastating.

1:09:28And I'm like, why? I'm trying to make a billion people happy. Why are you doing this to me? Right? And then I simply stopped responding to any negativity at all. I read them and I pray for them and I just, you know, ignore them completely. And sometimes my community would respond to them and I would sort of respond to my community and say, thanks for the support. It's okay to have a disagreement in opinion. And that dampened. So I now get a negative comment every maybe two, three weeks. I think I'll get negative comments on our conversation, you know, much more often than that. But here is the thing, Jigme.

1:10:09So the interesting side is that I thought you would say I get a lot of hate speech because it comes from people who are traumatized. So, you know, people who, of course, sadly, I mean, we have to acknowledge the fact that at least one of every four children has been abused. That's shocking. It's shocking when you think about that. It happens every day. Yeah, it's like, what has humanity come to? right? But so you could expect that one of every four of anyone that sees my posts or, you know, any of my listeners or any of my followers will have unfortunately been abused as a child. And, you know, it's the proper level of compassion to say, I feel your pain.

1:10:54Okay. And I understand you're angry at this and I understand you're against the idea of child abuse. The question is, is this person worthy of your anger or are there others that are worthy of your anger who are using the concept of child abuse to steer your emotion, right? But what you're saying is even more eye opening that the hate speech that you're getting is not even from real people. It's orchestrated to create negativity around your attempt to say, but here is a bigger chunk of the truth that people need to be aware of. Absolutely. And like I've been saying from the start, His Holiness was getting these even before this.

1:11:35Oh, yeah. Right. Even in its purest sense. So I see all of these and I do about five, six thousand comments at this point. And my video has been downloaded and pushed in. Other people have been doing that. And I see hate speech there too. And those are people, names cleverly put in, put in a little bit of y 'all, sort of like, you know, but then misspell some words, but like, make it sound like it's coming from Americans, right? Very typical. And like, you know, talk about a little political piece in America and like, make it sound like the Americans are opposed to it. So there's a very, like you said, orchestrate and very much synchronized work happening here.

1:12:17and meanwhile through all of these our Tibetan people I keep saying like His Holiness' legacy will remain intact because we the 6 million people believe this like I said when our country was invaded nobody believed us when our country was destroyed nobody believed us when it was plundered and of late 168 Tibetans some as young as 14 year old burned their ourselves calling for freedom in Tibet. How many people in the world know about it? Nobody. I remember when Muhammad Buazizi, self-immunited, and President Obama came out and the Arab Spring started. 168 Tibetans, men, women, lay, monks. How many people know about that?

1:13:08More as we speak right now, one million children, Tibetan children, some as young as four years old, have been forcefully taken from their families and put into re-education camps to erase their language, their culture, their religion, and to oppose the Dalai Lama. This is happening. The UN came out with a report that this is appalling. Like I said, we, I, all of us believe in child abuse and neglect. It should never happen. We are fully opposed to it. But then when this is happening, where are people who are supporting us? We're still alone. We're fighting this battle alone. And that's why my people are like, we will get through this alone because none of us.

1:13:55No, I don't think you should. I don't think you should. And I don't think that should be your prayer. I think your prayer should be. No, no, it's just like, it's not a prayer. It's just like at a certain point when the very thing that you, like, you know, being people with no country, I mean, the Dalai Lama is not just the Tibetan people's leader. He's the manifestation of an entire nation. He's everything that who we are, our culture, our history, our identity is in this one individual. And he has been attacked for obvious reasons. And when it gets played out like this, it hits us on every angle, every trauma.

1:14:36I mean, our people are happy, compassionate, even though we lived a life of trauma and we have to go through this with humor, right? The only positive side that I told you in all of this I've seen is my siblings in occupied Tibet finally got a grace of His Holiness as his photo without getting prosecuted. That is my silver lining. And this is what we look at. Yeah, so beautiful. What would you wish for pray for, for all of those others like you who are hurting? I, you know, you said time where the media will come out and attack China. For me, we believe like the truth and the sun cannot be covered.

1:15:24It will come out. They will do everything. And like, we don't have to like, we are making the world understand who the Dalai Lama is, our culture. We are not there saying we're fighting for the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is bigger than anything. He doesn't need any one of us to fight. We're fighting for our culture, our identity. Right? And what I pray for with people like me and the people around is like, we as human beings of this planet, my people, we are disappearing. We are literally disappearing in front of your eyes. And what is happening is it's been expedited. And that hurts. Knowing that a future generation of mine will Google and find this.

1:16:12Or your future generation, Mo, will think of the Dalai Lama as this. It doesn't hurt him, but it hurts of our identity as Tibetans. Right? When we say we are Tibetan, people say, oh, Dalai Lama's people, very good, kind people. We will lose that. We will lose a time when His Holiness can be Himself around people. His best self. We will lose a time when our children cannot be freely around the Dalai Lama. And that hurts. And that is what is more painful than what is out there. And that's what we're trying to protect and preserve. Yeah, I pray for your hearts to find peace and for people to see your truth.

1:16:58Because I have to say, I actually have never met a Tibetan person I didn't like. Never. It's the truth. Honestly, when I was thinking, I mean, unfortunately, there are not so many of you anymore. But, you know, wonderful, wonderful, compassionate, kind, polite, loving seekers of the truth and enlightenment. Even the ones that don't practice have a tradition of being wonderful. What would you pray for those who are going to send you the next hate speech? I pray for their peace and the truth. if someone has so much hate it is coming out and if they are real people it is coming out from a place of pain of trauma, of suffering and I hope they find peace in that because till you don't find that peace it will continue, it's a cycle and that is something that His Holiness is teaching is about bridging between nations religion, finding that harmony because if we don't do that if you cannot attend your own peace, you cannot bring peace.

1:18:08So I pray for people to find peace and their own power of truth, their justice, their closure on everything. And that's something that I hope they will, I mean, for my people, we will in this way pray and we'll move on knowing that nothing, like His Holiness, just the day before yesterday, I think he gave another teaching to about 350 people. I talked to some people around. It's like he's in good spirit. And that's what it is. If he could forgive the greatest enemy anyone could have, who took his house, home, country, people away and forgive them, the rest of the world is just like nothing. He's just like, I keep saying, he's probably already forgiven all of you and said, oh, someday you'll know.

1:18:54Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's honestly the example in that way. The Four Noble Truths will tell you that suffering persists. There is always suffering. And in an interesting way, I have to admit, my experience in the time I have spent in Dharamsala is that, you know, if suffering persists, somehow you start to get acquainted with it. You know how to deal with it. You know how to handle it with calm and peace and compassion. And interestingly, I will say this, most people listening may not believe that because of my deep voice and my sometimes very complex explanations of your concepts and so on.

1:19:38The easiest way to deal with this world that we're going through is to be a child. It's to let your inner child be alive and laugh at all of the irony. And he's a brilliant example of that. I go back to my original story where just weeks before I was meeting heads of states and royalties in my position as a Google executive, and everyone is so serious and everyone is so unreachable. unreachable and you sit next to this really spiritual symbol, idol for so many people around the world. And he's just a little kid. And I really honestly believe that he managed to find that freedom within him to say, I don't have to be serious to have an impact.

1:20:29I don't have to be, don't have to stop being playful to make a difference. Okay. And in a very interesting way, I think when you say that he's now back talking to 350 people and teaching while he's still 88, it's perhaps that childishness of like, yeah, this is okay. I mean, I broke a glass yesterday. Who cares? Right. You know, there will be another glass or the world will see that they didn't really need the glass or that I actually didn't break it. So we'll find out. With this, can I share a quick ad? Because the viewers, I mean, like they don't follow the Dalai Lama like we do and everything that he does.

1:21:11One of his best friends who passed away was Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Yeah, I loved that. And I met, yeah, yeah. If you see the two of them interact, they are like little children. And there are so many photos of His Holiness wanting to kiss the Archbishop. And the Archbishop is pushing him away. He's like pointed finger. And at times Archbishop wants to kiss him. And like, yeah, he has all of this. Just recently, our previous prime minister shared this story, which I thought your viewers would like. So this was when like, you know, when we had President Obama in America and President Obama wanted an audience to meet his holiness.

1:21:54And this. Yeah, I mean, they met a couple of times, actually. The first time it was like the Chinese government were up in arms, like we were all hopeful. The entire world was waiting with a weighted breath on what's happening, you know. And so they are meeting. Then I heard that when His Holiness met President Obama, the first thing he said was, you have very big ears. That is such a serious point of geopolitical changes. the first thing he said, you have very big ears. And Pritharov said, I've been told. So that is how His Holiness is. If the world understands and recognizes Him for who He is, beyond just being a child, an innocent, naive, humorous, affectionate, kind, if you go in there like this, He will rub your head.

1:22:56The words would be like, where's your hair? And like, you will pull your beard. Like, he does that. Like, in fact, right now, you will see that right after like the Indian boy, the kissing and the tongue thing isn't sticking a whole lot. There's a new clip of His Holiness and Lady Gaga that you'll see surface very soon. Is that true? Yeah. I mean, Lady Gaga was wearing ripped pants, you know, jeans. His holiness is sitting next to her and like putting his finger in that, between the ribbons and swing, you know? And I think it was all in fun and they made it into a sexual harassment for Lady Gaga.

1:23:39And you will hear about it a lot more. You see, this is the point. This is the point. I want to close with this. The reality is we suspect that people do what we are surrounded by, right? So honestly, if you think of everything as sexual harassment, it's because you're surrounded by sexual harassment all the time. And I think when the West positions some of those things in a way that is so aggressively against, it's sadly because the West struggles with those being phenomenas that are everyday life, actually. And I pray that this is not the case. But once again, I want to go back and say, this was my contribution to a statement that I learned in Islam, which is, if someone who's known to lie comes to you with news, verify before you start hurting people and regret in the long term.

1:24:48In Arabic, it's a very, very deep saying that basically says, there are people that you know are not telling you the truth. You know who those are? Mainstream media and the internet. Okay. So next time you're given a piece of news about his holiness, about the next big person, about Elon Musk, about whatever, verify, verify. And the way to verify is in my approach, two ways. One is to find the wisdom of the crowds in the long tail, is to listen to every part of possible information, even if it appears to be at the extreme side of wrong, it averages you out to find the midpoint between all the madness and all the truth, to find the midpoint which is most likely the truth.

1:25:39And second is always look for the motive of the person spreading that message to you. If you're following an influencer on Instagram, remember they're doing, they're sharing content with you for the sole purpose of getting followers and views. Okay. If you're watching a news media, remember they're using negativity to keep you glued to the screen so that they can sell ads and subscriptions. If you find the pure intention behind the content that you get, you'll more likely average yourself closer to the truth. I don't know how to thank you for your courage. I don't know how to thank you for sharing your time with us.

1:26:19And I don't know how to thank you for taking all the hate speech and still sticking the course. Yeah. Thank you so much for being my guest today, Jigme. And I want to also thank Anahita Mugaddam for introducing me to you and you to me. I want to take the chance to thank my dear friend, Tupit Njimpa, which was my very first episode here on Slow Mo, who actually introduced me to his holiness. Tupit Njimpa was his holiness as a translator for 25 years. Wonderful human being with many, many wonderful books about compassion. And I want you all to, I want to thank you all for listening today, because I know this is a heated debate and a heated topic.

1:27:05And I want to thank you for staying with me for this long. Once again, even at the end of all of this, I can only tell you that in my heart, I believe that the Dalai Lama has a wonderful soul. Okay, but I have no way of verifying his intention. When I have no way of verifying anything, I use the theory of probabilities in mathematics when you cannot prove for or against anything, you stop assuming that it's false or true, that it's good or evil, you start to say how likely is it to be closer to one side than the other. This is going to be our way of finding the truth in this new world that we're living in that is entirely full of fake.

1:27:54And now, of course, because I have an agenda with this podcast, I will tell you that the only way to actually get closer to the truth is to slow down a little, to stop consuming so much crap, and to actually find topics that matter to you, and dig deeper, and listen to more views and find a rounded big scope with every input in it so that you can come up with not the truth, but your truth. What you believe is the likelihood of something to be on one side or the other. So whatever it is that you're doing today, I invite you to slow down. slow down stop getting all of this madness into your life and hey yeah by the way before you leave i want you to i want to remind you to back me up on this because i know i will get a lot of hate speech on this my intentions are pure i don't want to support anyone in specific i just want to support the idea of finding the truth i love you all for listening and i will see you next time