The 14th Dalai Lama is not getting any younger and the lack of clarity over his succession has his followers worried about his overall health and the future of Tibetan Buddhists without him. However, the spiritual leader believes that now is not the time to think about the future as he has dreamed that he will live beyond 100 years.
When the Nobel laureate was asked about his health and how he was feeling after undergoing knee surgery in New York in June, he told news agency Reuters, “According to my dream, I can live to be 110 years old. Am.”
Due to knee surgery, the Dalai Lama had to stay away from the audience for almost three months. But now the 89-year-old has returned from New York to his Himalayan residence in the northern Indian city of Dharamshala, but is still walking comfortably with the help of aides, although he is transported in a golf cart for long distances. He resumed meeting his followers in September and now meets hundreds of people three times a week at his home surrounded by lush green and snow-covered hills.
“The knee is also improving… there is no serious problem,” he said after blessing the regular audience of over 300 visitors from India and abroad.
Concern over Dalai Lama’s succession
The spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism has for years discouraged those asking questions about his successor by giving similar answers. Although the Dalai Lama’s prediction that he will live for the next two decades is reassuring for his followers, more clarity on his succession – including whether and where he will be reincarnated – may come when he turns 90 in July. Deputy Speaker Dolma Tsering Tekhang said. The Tibetan Parliament in exile is also located in Dharamshala.
“We are just ordinary people, we cannot fathom his intelligence, so we are waiting for his clear guidance,” Tekhang told Reuters in his parliament office, about 2 km (1.5 miles) from the Dalai Lama’s residence. “
Tibetan Buddhists believe that learned monastics are reborn as newborn babies after death.
Tekhang said that although the thought of the current Dalai Lama’s demise brings tears to his eyes, a system is in place for the Tibetan government-in-exile to continue its political work, while officials of the Dalai Lama’s Gaden Phodrang Foundation Will be responsible. To discover and identify the next Dalai Lama.
According to its website, the Zurich-based Gaden Phodrang Foundation was established in 2015 by the current Dalai Lama to “maintain and support the tradition and institution of the Dalai Lama in connection with the religious and spiritual duties of the Dalai Lama.” Its senior officials include monks living in India and Switzerland.
“We can’t assume he’s going to live to be 113,” Tekhang said, referring to the lifespan the current Dalai Lama had previously predicted for himself, and pointing out that the previous Dalai Lama died earlier than expected at 58. Was born at age. ,
“Without His Holiness, Tibet’s struggle, I don’t know where it would go. But then I put my hope in the administration that he has built from zero to this level in 60 years.”
Born in 1935, the Dalai Lama was identified as the reincarnation of his predecessor when he was two years old. It is possible, Tekhang said, that before he dies he will leave clues about where and from whom his incarnation will be born.
He said that while earlier a regent would temporarily take over power after the death of the Dalai Lama, now this system remains in place.
Dalai Lama and India-China relations
His clarity on his succession plan becomes even more important as his institution and personality go beyond Tibetan Buddhism into the realm of geopolitics and, more relevantly, India-China relations.
The 14th Dalai Lama, Buddhism’s most famous living proponent, fled to India with thousands of Tibetans in early 1959 after a failed rebellion against Chinese rule. Beijing has been insisting that it will choose its successor, but the Dalai Lama has said it is possible his incarnation could be found in India and warned that any other successor named by China will not be respected. .
He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for keeping the Tibetan cause alive. Beijing views him as a dangerous separatist, although he has adopted a “middle path” to peacefully seek genuine autonomy and religious freedom within China.
The Dalai Lama congratulated Donald Trump on his victory in the US election last month and Tekhang said the incoming president could be good news for Tibetans “because he was always with Tibet, he was with human rights, he Were with the fact that there is no Tibet.” A part of China since ancient times”.
The prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Sikyong Penpa Tserin, has been in the US this month and met with officials including Uzra Zeya, the US special coordinator for Tibetan issues.
“Our Sikyong is there to find out how the changes are happening,” Tekhang said.
“I think Tibetans are very fortunate because successive Republican or Democratic administrations…no matter how big their differences are, but in the case of Tibet, they are always together.”
