The Dalai Lama says he meant no offense in suggesting any female successor should be attractive.
"In responding to a question about whether his own reincarnation could be a woman, and suggesting that if she were she should be attractive, His Holiness genuinely meant no offense," the Dalai Lama's office said in a statement. "He is deeply sorry that people have been hurt by what he said and offers his sincere apologies.
"His Holiness consistently emphasizes the need for people to connect with each other on a deeper human level, rather than getting caught up in preconceptions based on superficial appearances," the statement continued.
The 83-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader made the comment last week during a wide-ranging interview with BBC where he also said migrants seeking refuge in Europe should return "to their own land" and called President Donald Trump's "America First" mantra is wrong.
"If a female Dalai Lama comes, she should be more attractive," he reportedly responded while laughing.
The statement suggested the monk made the comments in jest.
"His Holiness, a monk now in his mid-80s, has a keen sense of the contradictions between the materialistic, globalized world he encounters on his travels and the complex, more esoteric ideas about reincarnation that are at the heart of Tibetan Buddhist tradition. However, it sometimes happens that off the cuff remarks, which might be amusing in one cultural context, lose their humour in translation when brought into another."
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