Dalai Lama: “That’s a Silly Question”

Sometimes you try to be deep in front of the Dalai Lama and just end up sounding like a dork, and he teases you about it in front of a whole room of people – but you can still get spiritual enlightenment out of it.

In this video trending on Reddit today, the Dalai Lama was taking questions from the audience during a 2010 conference on compassion in Atlanta, Georgia. One guy asked him, “If you lived your entire life until this moment as a mute and you only had one moment to speak, what would be the message you would share?”

“That’s a silly question,” the Dalai Lama chuckled, and everyone had a good laugh about it.

He added, “Of course it depends on the circumstances. If at that very moment I was feeling very hungry, then I’d say I want some food.”

The man who asked the question probably wasn’t expecting to get teased, but the answer is pretty Zen if you really think about it – living in the moment and so forth.

He also fared better than this guy: