The Dalai Lama will address campers at the Glastonbury Festival today after rapper Kanye West gave an expletive-filled headline show.

Speaking to the Press Association before he arrived at the rain-soaked Worthy Farm, he said he wouldn’t be seeing many of the performances while he was there.

“As a monk, actually not permitted,” he said. “But you see, nobody can stop (me) listen(ing).”

His appearance was officially announced on Thursday but had been speculated about for months.

In his address at the site’s Green Fields – the festival’s “spiritual zone” – the exiled Tibetan monk will promote his message of “compassion, non-violence and the oneness of humanity”.

He has dismissed criticism and protests of his appearance at the world-famous festival as “quite usual”.