New Delhi:
The 14th Dalai Lama is no longer young, and the lack of clarity on his successor appears to have his followers worried about his overall health and the future of Tibetan Buddhism without him. However, the spiritual leader believes that now is not the time to think about the future as he dreams of living beyond 100 years old.
Asked about his health and how he was feeling after undergoing knee surgery in New York in June, the Nobel laureate told Reuters: “According to my dreams, I might live to be 110.”
Knee surgery means the Dalai Lama must avoid audiences for nearly three months. But now the 89-year-old has returned from New York to his Himalayan home in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala, still walking carefully with the help of an assistant, although for longer distances he travels in a golf cart . He resumed meeting followers in September and now sees hundreds of people three times a week at his home, surrounded by lush green and snow-capped hills.
“The knee is getting better too…it’s not a big problem,” he said after blessing more than 300 visitors from India and overseas in the regular audience.
Concerns about the Dalai Lama’s succession
For years, Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leaders have used similar responses to quash doubts about their successors. Deputy Speaker Dolma Tsering Teykhang said that while the Dalai Lama is expected to live for another two decades, reassuring his followers, by the time he turns 90 in July, he may A clearer picture will be given of his successor, including whether and where he reincarnated.
“We are just laymen and we cannot understand his wisdom, so we are waiting for his clear guidance,” Taikang told Reuters at his parliamentary office about 2 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the Dalai Lama’s residence.
Tibetan Buddhists believe that learned monks are reincarnated as newborns after death.
Dekang said that while the thought of the Dalai Lama’s death brought her to tears, the Tibetan government-in-exile has a system in place to continue its political work, and officials from the Dalai Lama’s Ganden Phodrang Foundation will be responsible for finding and identifying the Dalai Lama. The next Dalai Lama.
The Zurich-based Ganden Phodrang Foundation was established by the current Dalai Lama in 2015 to “preserve and support the traditions and institutions of the Dalai Lama in his religious and spiritual duties,” according to its website. Its senior officials included monks living in India and Switzerland.
“We cannot take it for granted that he will live to be 113,” Taikang said, referring to the lifespan the current Dalai Lama had earlier predicted for himself, noting that his predecessor died earlier than expected, at age 58. .
“Without His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I don’t know where the struggle in Tibet would have gone. But I put my hope in the government he built from scratch in 60 years.”
The Dalai Lama was born in 1935 and was recognized as a reincarnation of his previous life when he was two years old. Taikang said it was possible that before his death he left clues as to where his reincarnation would be and by whom.
She said that while earlier, regents would temporarily take over once the Dalai Lama died, the system had been in place for much longer.
Dalai Lama and India-China relations
The clarity of his succession plan becomes even more important as his institution and image move beyond Tibetan Buddhism into the geopolitical realm and become more relevant to India-China relations.
In early 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India with thousands of Tibetans after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. Beijing insists it will choose his successor, but the Dalai Lama has said his reincarnation may be found in India and warned that any other successor named by China will not be respected.
In 1989, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for safeguarding the cause of Tibet. Beijing views him as a dangerous separatist, even though he espouses a so-called “middle way” that seeks true autonomy and religious freedom peacefully within China.
The Dalai Lama congratulated Donald Trump on his victory in the US election last month, and Taikang said the incoming president could be good news for Tibetans “because he always supports Tibet, supports human rights and supports the non-existence of Tibet” This fact.
Sikyong Penpa Tsering, Prime Minister of the Tibetan government in exile, visited the United States this month and met with officials including Uzra Zeya, the U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibet.
“Our Sikyong is trying to figure out how these changes happen,” Taikang said.
“I think Tibetans are very lucky because successive Republican or Democratic administrations…no matter how big their differences, they have always been together on the Tibetan issue.”