From : World Tibet News - August 27, 1997 - Compiled by Thubten (Sam) Samdup
[Following articles appeared in MSNBC on August 26, 1997 covering the recent trip made by Dan Haig and the company to Dharamsala to set up the Gangkyi (LAN) local area network. TS]

...
Question: What is the stance of Tibetan Buddhism on homosexuality, and how does that fit in with Tibetan Buddhism?
Dalai Lama: Sexuality?
Interpreter: What was the question again?

Question: With homosexuality-- with men and men and women and women having sex together. Is that, is that, how is that treated by Tibetan Buddhism?
Dalai Lama: I think we have to make different categories. The first way is celibacy. In that [category], any form of sex is prohibited. That could be using one's own hand-- any way to...
Interpreter: ... ejaculate...
Dalai Lama: ... or to increase sexual desire. So that is...
Interpreter: ... prohibited, not allowed.
Dalai Lama: Then, if the practitioner is sexual, it is not prohibited. But sexual includes homosexual also, and...
Interpreter: ... oral sex...
Dalai Lama: ... and the other hole. These, you see, even with one's own wife, of both sex is considered sexual misconduct. Then another category, no believer, no believer. I think, basically, the purpose of sex is reproduction. So in order to fulfill that purpose, man to man, women to women cannot fulfill-- so a little bit...
Interpreter: ... could be considered unnatural.
Dalai Lama: But at the same time, there are people, among men, among women, see. Again, I think we discussed before, the sexual desire is generally related to the body, the physical body. So then, under those circumstances if you stop, or try to stop, it may create more violent consequences. Then at least sexual misconduct...

Question: So even as a Tibetan Buddhist lay person, not a monk, it's better to avoid these things?
Dalai Lama: Better. [speaks to interpreter]
Interpreter: He says that amongst the Tibetans perhaps it is unheard of that sex.
Dalai Lama: But I don't know. [laughs] I've heard... stories... practices. But one thing I feel that as a human, with this body...
Interpreter: The desire for sexual intercourse...
Dalai Lama: ... the more the nature sort of comes, I think that it should be OK, it should be OK. But if we deliberately...
Interpreter: ... deliberately try to enhance these sexual desires...
Dalai Lama: ... then I don't know. I think sometimes, some part of Western culture, or modern culture, deliberately promotes that sort of sex life, or sex feeling. Then it goes too much, then it goes extreme. So often people say "love and violence" or "love and hatred"...
Interpreter: ... often you hear about love and hatred accompanying one another.
Dalai Lama: So I think a more gentle or a more natural sort of love is less extreme.
...

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