He has experienced several US presidents or other world leaders, including Czech President Václav Havel.
Over the past decades, the Tibetan Dalai Lama has become a world celebrity, but from the perspective of China, for example, a dangerous separatist.
Thousands of monks in Dharamsal, India, have recently gathered at the celebrations of his 90th birthday. But in the shadow of the celebrations, there is an increasingly louder talk about who will be his successor, and who dares to decide on the next birth of the Dalai Lama.
However, this man known to the presidents, the Popes and the burning posters of Chinese propaganda, is still hiding a little boy, Lhamo Dhondub, son of farmers from the mountainous Chinese-Tibetan border. When he was two years old, his name ceased to exist. He was chosen as reincarnation 13. The Dalai Lama and since then he was no longer one of himself, but a country whose fate had escaped from his hands before he came.
The child became a symbol, a monk exile, a political problem from a spiritual leader. Today the world celebrates him as a voice of peace, but at the same time he is worried about what comes after it. Because the question is not just who will replace it, but who dares to decide on its rebirth. Whether it will be a spiritual tradition or Chinese power.
The name Lhamo Dhondub did not have long. When he was only two years old, a group of Tibetan Buddhists described him as the chosen as a reincarnation of 13. He was supposed to become a spiritual leader of the country, which at that time tried to maintain autonomy and break free from the historical shadow of Chinese influence. After formal recognition he got a new name: Tenzin Gyatso.
As a child he entered the world of prayers, rituals and philosophy. However, idyllic years of monastic studies did not last long. In 1949, the Communist regime took over power in China and a year later the Chinese army crossed the Tibetan borders, in other words, it began the invasion of Tibet. In 1951 Beijing introduced the so -called. A 17-point agreement that “voluntarily” attached Tibet to China. The reality was different, the signature of the agreement was forced under pressure, without the real possibility of resistance.
At that time, the Dalai Lama was only 15 years old and a purely spiritual figure suddenly became a formal head of state. However, he was political responsibility in the shadow of a foreign army. The tension grew, the country was full of Chinese soldiers and the domestic population felt more and more fear.
Exactly 10. March 1959 came an invitation, the Chinese general invited the Dalai Lama to present a dance ensemble. But among the Tibetans, there was rapidly the fear that it was a trap. Thousands of people gathered around his palace to protect him. Fears became a rebellion and a bloody hit.
The Chinese army has suppressed protests hard, and thousands of people have died. The Dalai Lama decided to escape at night, in his own words based on instructions from a personal fortune teller. Dressed as a soldier, he stolen between the crowd and, together with a small group of followers, passed a 15 -day march through the frozen mountains.
It was welcomed by the Indian army on the border. India gave him asylum and later a permanent home in Dharamšála, where the Tibetan government was established in exile. It was followed by approximately 80,000 Tibetans. For many of them, he was still a leader, but not in his own country. India is still one of the largest supporters of the Dalai Lama, also because of personal rivalry with China.
Tibet behind the walls of silence
In the meantime, the world that the Dalai Lama has left has become a closed zone. Internal Tibet today reminds the territory without a voice, with the settlements of monastic schools, where his name must not be remembered, with schools where the Tibetan language becomes a secondary language, and with temples where its portraits disappear. Any hint of loyalty to a man who lives beyond the borders is punished as betrayal. Faith is suppressed, the monument is erased.
While Tibet loses its own face, China is building a new one. The once closed communist country has become a superpower. The economy is growing, the army is expanding, diplomacy is becoming increasingly confident. The Dalai Lama follows it from a distance, with a peace that can be wrong. However, it repeatedly calls on Chinese leadership to choose: dominance or responsibility. The future of Tibet, says, will be a mirror of what China wants to be in front of the world and in front of him.
Adored in the west, criticized at home
Instead of radicalism, the Dalai Lama chose the path of peace. He focused on international pressure, persuaded the UN General Assembly, and listened to the world for a while, resolutions, words of solidarity were heard. But even though the world applauded, many Tibetans were just silent. When he announced that he did not want independence but autonomy within China, it was like a cool shower.
For many Tibetans, their idea of the Dalai Lama, an unreasonable spiritual leader, who will come back their country once, spilled very quickly. Some called it betrayal, others have a weakness. But for the Western world, it was at the moment what it ceased to be for the Tibetans, the symbol of hope.
In 1989 he won the Nobel Peace Prize. His peace, his teaching about compassion and his consistent resistance to violence opened the door to the hearts, the halls and the salons. The monk became an icon. Hollywood friend, a celebrity host like Lady Gaga and Martin Scorsese, a character that the West has turned into a spiritual ritual without a temple.
But even the life of the spiritual leader and the Nobel Peace Prize winner is not black and white. The Dalai Lama has also been accompanied by controversy in recent years, the most striking was the 2023 video that has flown around the world. He captures the moment he asks a little boy to “lick his tongue”. This scene has triggered the scandal and a wave of criticism that is still held today.
End of one era, the beginning of a geopolitical struggle
But everything is over. In 2011, the Dalai Lama announced his departure as political leader Tibeta and gave up his political powers he sold the Tibetan government in exile.
Today, the ninety -year -old Dalai Lama is on the symbolic interface between the past and the uncertain future. While world leaders like Barack Obama or Indian President Modi congratulate him and praise his lifelong efforts for peace, in Tibet there is a concern for what comes after him.
China has repeatedly claimed that the successor will determine exclusively Beijing, as in 1995, when she kidnapped a six -year -old boy Gedhun Čhökji Nima, whom the Dalai Lama acknowledged as 11th Pančenlam and replaced him with his own candidate. The real panchenlha, a key figure in recognizing the next Dalai Lama, has disappeared since and no one has seen him for almost 30 years.
Therefore, the Dalai Lama itself insists that its successor can only be recognized freely from exile. The question of who will be the next Dalai Lama is thus changing to a battle for the spiritual identity of the nation who refuses to submit to China.
