In this short video the Buddhist teacher and filmmaker, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, speaks about the place of Homosexuality in Buddhism.

Renowned for his sense of humour, Rinpoche was posed a question about homosexuality and spoke about it for the first time.

He says that no matter what you do, in regards to Buddhism, it doesn’t matter unless you see the truth in the world.

“In Buddhism, according to Shantideva, Wisdom is the most important thing. Everything else is secondary.The most important is to see the truth. If morality, discipline, and even meditation (as valuable as that may be) do not make you see the truth, you are only ‘your butt rot’ [literal translation], all you do is sit. It’s useless!”

Bro knows what’s up when it comes to lesbians… “Therefore, what I want to say vis-à-vis sexual orientation is that it has nothing to do with whether or not to understand the truth. You can be gay, or lesbian or heterosexual, nobody can say that will reach enlightenment first. Probably the lesbians [laughs].”

He also made some surprisingly feminist statements, “I remember that one day someone asked me why women could not enter the Gönkhang, the temple of the Protectors. The answer was simple: it is wrong! We must stop this! It is written in the Kangyur, nor in the Tengyur or in Tantric texts […] If you are part of a group of Buddhist misogynist, you should just be silent and be done with.”

Rinpoche then refers to sexuality as a variation of cheese preference, “You know, some people like goat cheese, some Swiss cheese, and others like them both! [Laughs] It’s that simple! And why not?
But I would also say to those who have these guidelines that they must be patient.”

He ends with reasoning why tolerance is not as good as respect, “If you tolerate this implies that you think it’s wrong, but you tolerate it. But we must go beyond that, you have to respect those people.”