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At 90, the Dalai Lama is finally about to escape his Chinese oppressors. Here's how
The Dalai Lama will be 90 on July 6. According to his doctors, he remains in 'excellent health', but following knee replacement surgery last year in the United States, his advancing age and frailty have become more evident.
It is a particularly significant age for the man who since 1959 has lived in India, having fled Tibet following the Chinese invasion of his country.
He has said that his 90th birthday is when he will make the decision, based on the Tibetan Buddhist belief in reincarnation, about his own future, and the future of the Dalai Lama as an institution.
It is a decision that calls into play a religious tradition going back 800 years, the fate of a six-year-old boy described as the world's youngest political prisoner, and the Chinese Communist government 's efforts to neutralise the influence of the man whom it has long considered the greatest obstacle to its control over Tibet and its people.
The Dalai Lama lives in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamsala, in a former colonial officer's residence, now known as the Heavenly Abode.
When, in 1993, I first travelled to Dharamsala to meet him, I joined a large group of pilgrims for one of his regular public audiences, which were then held in the gardens of his home.
There were Tibetans who had recently evaded Chinese border controls to make the perilous journey across the Himalayas, their faces deep brown and weather-beaten, along with others from the 100,000 refugees who had followed the Dalai Lama into exile, in a diaspora which has spread throughout India and Europe.
They formed a long, patient line as he walked past, receiving their khatas – white silk scarves which are offered as a sign of honour and respect – clasping their outstretched hands, exchanging comforting words. As low as they bowed to him, he bowed lower to them.
Many, face to face with the living embodiment of their spiritual beliefs and their hopes for a free Tibet, had tears in their eyes. It was a deeply moving spectacle.
At that time, some 1,500 to 2,000 people a year would cross the border into India. But following the popular uprising in Tibet in 2008, Chinese surveillance has intensified, and punishments increased, and fewer than 40 people a year arrive having dared to take the daunting and extremely dangerous journey.
Now, rather than greeting pilgrims in the garden, the Dalai Lama is helped by attendants to a chair in an audience room (for longer distances he is driven around in a golf cart). All private meetings and interviews have been cancelled. A request by The Telegraph was declined with the customarily impeccable Tibetan expressions of apology and regret.
Dreams, divinations and prophecy play a critical part in Tibetan Buddhism. Previously, while answering questions about his health, he has replied that visions he has received in dreams and meditation have suggested he will live to 113.
Nevertheless, as the Chinese increase efforts to dominate the Tibetan people and quash internal dissent, there are pressing questions about his succession – and what will happen when he dies.
The moment China became 'obsessed with maintaining control'
One answer lies in the fate of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who, in 1995, at the age of six, was seized by Chinese Communist officials from his home in a remote region in Tibet and placed under arrest. Neither he nor his family have been seen since.
Three days earlier, he had been recognised by the Dalai Lama as the 11th incarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second-highest spiritual authority in Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama himself.
A unique mixture of magic and politics, the practice of recognising reincarnated lamas has persisted in Tibet since the 13th century. In a monastic society where celibacy was the rule, it served not only to affirm the Buddhist teachings of a realised soul, choosing the circumstances of their rebirth for the benefit of mankind; it also ensured the continuity of a spiritual and political hierarchy, with the Dalai Lama at its peak.
Both the Dalai and Panchen Lamas are believed to be reincarnations of different aspects of the Buddha. In a relationship likened to the sun and the moon, over the centuries each has acted as mentor to the other, and often, but not always, played a key role in affirming the identification of the other's reincarnation.
The present, 14th, Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was born in 1935 and discovered at the age of two following the centuries-old procedures of following signs and divinations.
The first of these concerned the embalmed body of his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama, who died at the age of 57 in 1933. During its period of sitting in state, his head was discovered to have turned from facing south to north-east.
Shortly afterwards, the Dalai Lama's Regent, himself a senior lama, made the 200-mile journey to the sacred oracle lake of Lhamo Latso, an oval of azure water, ringed by mountains, at an altitude of 17,400ft, and which has historically been consulted in the search for the Dalai and Panchen Lamas.
There, gazing into the lake, he is said to have been gifted with a series of visions that led him to conclude the reincarnation would be found near an important monastery in the north-eastern province of Amdo – echoing the direction indicated by the deceased lama's head. Following the regent's instructions, a search party, travelling more than 400 miles on horseback, eventually came to the home of a young child named Lhamo Dondrub.
The child was given a traditional test of being presented with a number of items, including a bowl and prayer beads, that had belonged to his predecessor, along with similar items that had not. In every case, the child correctly identified those belonging to the 13th Dalai Lama, saying 'It's mine. It's mine…'
He was taken to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and installed in the Potala palace, the complex where the Dalai Lamas resided for centuries. He was just 15 when the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1950 and he formally assumed the role as the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people.
In 1954, at the age of 19, the Dalai Lama travelled to Beijing to meet Mao Tse Tung. Mao poured blandishments on the youth, but the Dalai Lama later recalled that his parting words shook him to the core. 'Religion,' Mao told him, 'is poison.'
Five years later, following a failed popular uprising against the Chinese, and fearing for his own life, he fled into India. Realising that a compliant Dalai Lama was necessary for the Chinese to control the most powerful force in Tibet – religious belief – Mao was said to have remarked, 'We've lost.'
'What he meant was, we've lost all legitimacy,' says Kate Saunders, the founder and director of Turquoise Roof, a research network of Tibet analysts. 'Ever since then, the Chinese have been absolutely obsessed with maintaining control.'
It is a policy they have followed with increasing ruthlessness.
Recognising that Tibetan independence is a vanished dream, since the early 1970s the Dalai Lama has sought accommodation with the Chinese, advocating what he calls the 'Middle Way approach', whereby Tibetans would live under the Chinese constitution, but maintain full, meaningful autonomy when it comes to the preservation and practice of their language, religion and culture.
For more than 50 years he travelled the world as a religious leader, giving talks and teachings emphasising the Buddhist creed of compassion, while at the same time – and to the growing anger of the Chinese – tirelessly reminding the world of the plight of the Tibetan people.
In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
His moral authority opened the door to Western leaders, lending legitimacy to his cause. But that door closed a long time ago, as appeasing China took precedence over principle.
The last British prime minister to greet the Dalai Lama in Downing Street was Tony Blair in 1999. When, in 2012, the prime minister at the time, David Cameron, took the precaution of meeting him at St Paul's Cathedral, China's foreign ministry complained the event 'seriously interfered with China's internal affairs' and 'hurt' Chinese feelings. Downing Street said the Dalai Lama was 'an important religious figure' but the UK did not want to see its relationship with China 'disrupted'. The Dalai Lama's last visit to the UK was in 2017, greeting faith leaders in a meeting room at the Houses of Parliament. It went virtually unreported.
The 'moon' to his 'sun'
There is a Chinese saying: 'If you plan for one year, plant rice. If you plan for 10 years, plant trees. If you plan for 100 years, educate mankind.'
In Tibet, this has meant a systematic policy of the assimilation of Tibetan education, culture and religion into those of the 'Chinese nation'.
Mandarin is the primary language taught in Tibetan schools and kindergartens. The practice of Buddhism has been ruthlessly curtailed. It is illegal to have pictures of the Dalai Lama, to read his books or follow his teachings.
The three major monasteries in Tibet – Gangden, Drepung and Sera – each once housed 8,000 to 10,000 monks. Now the numbers are capped at 500, with activities constantly monitored by CCTV and the so-called 'democratic management committees'.
Tenzin Kunga is the secretary of the Office of Tibet in London, which represents the Central Tibetan Administration, the government-in-exile of Tibet, based in Dharamsala.
'All Buddhist learning is tainted with political messages,' he says of the current regime. 'The Chinese decide on what is being taught, combined with education about the Chinese constitution, and how the monks must pay loyalty to the Chinese Communist party.'
Robert Barnett, a professorial research associate at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) University of London and an authority on Sino-Tibetan relations, says: 'The Tibet system is shifting to one which we could call primarily an extreme form of 'management' rather than outright repression. They stop Tibetans leaving, they stop them sending messages, they tell them what to think. One doctrinal change is the requirement, or technically 'advice', that people should realise that the purpose of religion is to have a happy life.
'What the Chinese leadership means by this is that laypeople are only supposed to practise religious teachings that improve their current life; they are not supposed to practise any aspect of Buddhism that involves or relates to the next life. This is a fundamental change to the nature of Buddhist belief.'
In particular, of course, to the belief in reincarnation. But ironically, there are no more devout believers in that than the Chinese Communist party.
'All members of the party are required to be atheists,' Barnett says, 'but for the party there is some value in supporting a popular belief in reincarnate lamas, because the party sees those lamas as essential to persuading Tibetans to accept Chinese rule, and it sees itself as able – in principle – to train, manage and control them.'
And for the Chinese, ever since the Dalai Lama left Tibet, there has been no reincarnate lama more important than that of the 'moon' to his 'sun' – and the man who would have the final word in the recognition of the next Dalai Lama – the Panchen Lama.
When the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet in 1959, the 10th Panchen Lama, Choekyi Gyaltsen, remained behind. Over the years he trod a fine line between attempting to make accommodations with the Chinese regime and criticising it. In 1964 he was arrested, spending 13 years in prison, 10 of them in solitary confinement. On his release in 1977 he disrobed and married a Han Chinese woman, who gave birth to a daughter.
Among Tibetans he remained a revered figure none the less, and to the Chinese, a potentially dangerous one. In January 1989 he made a speech saying the price paid for Chinese governance since the 'liberation' of Tibet had been 'greater than the gain'. Five days later, he died at the age of 50, amid suspicions he had been poisoned.
For both the Dalai Lama and the Chinese, the religious and political implications of what came next were to be of critical importance.
In 1991 the Dalai Lama conducted divinations that told him the reincarnation of the next Panchen had been born inside Tibet. This was in a period when there was a degree of co-operation between Dharamsala and the Chinese in recognising reincarnates. The lamas in Tibet would be allowed to search for and identify the new incarnation in accordance with tradition, but the final authority would lie with the Chinese. Through the Chinese embassy in Delhi, the Dalai Lama sent word to Beijing, offering his co-operation in the search.
That search was to be led by Chadrel Rinpoche, the abbot of the Panchen Lama's ancestral seat of Tashilhunpo, in consultation with the Chinese. In 1990 Chadrel Rinpoche had made the first of what would be three trips to look for visions in the oracle lake Lhamo La-tso, indicating whom the boy might be and where he would be found. It would be four years until his investigations were completed.
In January 1995, a list of prospective candidates was smuggled out of Tibet to the Dalai Lama. Foremost among them was Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the son of a doctor and a nurse from Nagchu, a region of central Tibet, whom Chadrel Rinpoche believed was most likely to be the true incarnation. Another high lama from the search party had met the boy and reported that he had shown particular signs affirming Chadrel Rinpoche's view.
All now depended on the Dalai Lama. Making his own divinations, he confirmed that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was indeed the correct child. But he made no announcement, choosing to wait.
In every way, the Dalai Lama's decision was incontrovertible. But the Chinese had their own plans. Word came from Tibet that they intended to usurp the entire process of recognition by employing a different method: a lottery of drawing ivory tallies, inscribed with the names of three prospective candidates, from what was known as the Golden Urn. This procedure had been introduced by a Qing emperor in the 18th century but had long since been disregarded.
From Tibet it was learnt that Chadrel Rinpoche had travelled to Beijing in an attempt to persuade the Chinese not to use the Golden Urn. Then there was silence.
'China has very conveniently disappeared a person from the face of the earth'
Fearing the Chinese would install their own candidate, on May 14 1995, having divined this was an auspicious date, the Dalai Lama formally confirmed the recognition of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the true reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.
The Chinese response was swift and merciless. Attacking the Dalai Lama's announcement as 'illegal and invalid', three days later, police and party officials seized the six-year-old and his mother and father at their home. Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, issued a statement denouncing the parents as being 'notorious for speculation, deceit, and scrambling for fame and profit', and condemning the child for having 'once drowned a dog'.
Chadrel Rinpoche and more than 30 monks at Tashilunpo monastery were arrested for collaborating with the Dalai Lama. He would spend the next six years in prison, and then under house arrest. He has since died.
That November, the most senior lamas in Tibet were ordered to assemble in Lhasa, installed in a hotel and told there would be 'an emergency ceremony'.
Among them was Arjia Rinpoche, the abbot of Kumbum, the secondary monastery of the Panchen Lamas. Since 1998, when he fled Tibet, he has been living in the US.
Talking by video call, he described to me how in the early hours of the morning they were woken, loaded onto buses and driven through the streets of the city, 'lined with soldiers, standing shoulder to shoulder', to the Jokhang temple, the most sacred in Tibet.
Inside, lamas were assembled on one side of the table where the Golden Urn was placed, on the other were Communist party officials.
A senior lama stepped forward and drew out one of the ivory tallies, wrapped in silk, from the Urn and handed it to a Chinese official. 'The lamas were secretly whispering among ourselves,' Arjia Rinpoche says. 'We could see that one stick was longer than the other. He intentionally picked that one.'
The tally bore the name of a six-year-old boy called Gyaincain Norbu, the son of a Tibetan government official, who was then enthroned as the 11th Panchen Lama.
A few days later, Arjia Rinpoche was summoned to Beijing, flying on a jet with two high-ranking Chinese officials. 'They were so happy because they thought they had successfully found the Chinese version of the Panchen Lama and their names would go down in history,' he says. 'Then one of them told me the reason one of the sticks was longer was because they had put some cotton at the bottom of the silk wrapping. I was so scared, because this was a secret,' he remembers.
Arija Rinpoche was told that he would have to be Gyaincain Norbu's teacher and that he would be rewarded with promotion to be a standing member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (NCCPPC), Tibet's top political advisory body.
'For the Panchen Lama ceremony, I had no choice but to attend,' he says. 'But when they appointed me as his teacher, I knew I would have to do whatever they said, so I escaped. I left my country, my monastery, my students, friends, family, everything. It was a dangerous situation.'
Nothing has been seen or heard of the true 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, or his parents, since. It is believed that he has been living under house arrest in a military compound in mainland China.
'This is like the greatest mystery of the 21st century,' Tenzin Kunga says. 'China has very conveniently disappeared a person from the face of the earth.
'Sometimes they would say he is completely focused on his studies and doesn't want any distractions. But over the years, they've said, 'He's just one among the 1.4 billion Chinese, what's so special about him? If you're talking about the Panchen Lama, they would point to their Panchen Lama, and say, 'He's here.''
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima's picture is banned in Tibet. But in October 2000, at a meeting with British Foreign Office officials, Chinese officials produced two photographs said to be of the boy, one showing him playing table tennis, the other writing Chinese characters on a blackboard. The Chinese officials refused to provide copies of the photographs.
Since then, only one other, poor-quality, picture has emerged, supposedly showing him with his parents and sister.
The geopolitical chess game
Gyaincain Norbu, the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama, is now 35. From the time of his enthronement, he has been living in Beijing, every aspect of his life closely supervised by the authorities. In early June, in a meeting with Xi Jinping reported by Xinhua, he vowed to 'firmly support the leadership of the Communist Party of China' and 'systematically promote' China's edicts over religious practice.
Trips to religious and official functions, with his retinue of security police and party officials, are carefully stage-managed, with crowds reportedly paid to line the streets to greet him.
'The authorities are making constant attempts to try to build up his spiritual credibility, by having him perform important ceremonies and rituals, so that wherever he goes ordinary people will flock to him,' Robert Barnett says. 'It shows a certain understanding that Tibetans tend to respect or venerate a lama only if he or she appears knowledgeable in terms of Buddhist practice and philosophy, but in this case it doesn't seem, so far, to be working.'
Nevertheless, Kate Saunders says, the Chinese see their Panchen as an important tool beyond the borders of Tibet. 'There is a huge push by the Chinese state in Buddhist diplomacy, sending high-ranking officials to countries like Bhutan, Singapore and Thailand, directly related to what's going to happen when the Dalai Lama dies, and trying to get those countries to accept an official visit by the official Panchen.'
This has not been a success. In May 2022 he was refused permission to visit the Buddha's birthplace, Lumbini in Nepal. And in December 2024 Nepal again refused him entry, supposedly following intervention by both the Indian and US governments, citing Nepal's policy of neutrality in religious matters.
In March 2011, at the age of 75, the Dalai Lama formally announced his retirement from political life, but not from his role as the spiritual figurehead for the Tibetan people and their aspirations. For all the Chinese efforts to condemn and marginalise him, he has remained the focus of Tibetans' protests and, secretly, their devotions.
'The Chinese know that since the Dalai Lama left they have not succeeded in completely gaining control over Tibetan hearts and minds,' Kate Saunders says. 'They are still baffled why whatever they do doesn't seem to work and people remain loyal to the Dalai Lama.'
In the geopolitical chess game that the subject of his reincarnation has become, the Chinese wait patiently for the Dalai Lama to die, while Tibetans wait apprehensively, fearing what might happen when he does.
In 2021 the US government adopted legislation making it official policy to recognise that the selection of Tibetan Buddhist leaders, including a future Dalai Lama, should follow the instructions of the current Dalai Lama, and the desires of the Tibetan Buddhist community, with no interference from the Chinese government. Furthermore, Chinese officials who carry out plans to appoint their own Dalai Lama in the future will be sanctioned.
China responded by legislating that no foreign entities should interfere with the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama, and making it illegal for any incarnation to be reborn outside the People's Republic.
'You have to ask, who has the right to choose?' says Tenzin Kunga. 'If you look at it from the human rights perspective, his Holiness has the inalienable right and the authority to decide where he wants to be reborn. That cannot be taken away from him by a Communist regime that is claiming the right to say who is the Dalai Lama.'
In 2011, the Dalai Lama issued a set of guidelines on his reincarnation 'so that there is no room for doubt or deception', saying that when he was 'about 90', he would consult with other high lamas and the Tibetan public and re-evaluate whether the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue or not. If it is decided it should, he will leave clear written instructions on the recognition being carried out 'in accordance with past tradition', and ensuring that 'no recognition or acceptance should be given to a candidate chosen for political ends by anyone, including those in the People's Republic of China'.
It is a statement he reiterates in his new book, emphasising that the next Dalai Lama 'will be born in the free world'.
However, for the first time in Tibet's history, the selection process would have to take place without the traditional sacred places and rituals in Tibet, or the affirmation of the Panchen Lama.
Robert Barnett does not see this as an obstacle. 'In reincarnation, things are not done by law but by custom,' he says. 'Customs are very flexible – and the Dalai Lama is probably the greatest living exponent of modifying and updating customs. So when the Chinese say the Panchen Lama is necessary for the recognition of the next Dalai Lama, that's wrong. It would be an asset if there was one, but there are other ways to go about it.'
Tenzin Kunga says, 'With the circumstances changing, and the realities we have to live with now, some of the processes will evolve and adapt. His Holiness says, 'We must be 21st century Buddhists.''
I asked Kunga, given the circumstances in Tibet now, and for the past 75 years of his life, does the Dalai Lama ever lose hope?
He answered patiently.
'He would take it as the factual reality and try to understand it from that perspective rather than look at himself and Tibetans as victims of political manipulation.
'Our struggle is for our country, and for the very survival of the Tibetan people. In Buddhism we believe very much in impermanence; good situations are not permanent, but nor are bad. His Holiness would say, 'You cannot ever lose hope.''
In person, the Dalai Lama presents a figure of estimable moral authority and, at the same time, of considerable worldliness. But you are always aware that he is the beneficiary of a lifetime's monastic training and practice.
In 2002, I was writing a book about another lama, the 17th Karmapa, and the politics of reincarnation, and travelled again to Dharamsala. I had been given a letter by a Danish Tibetan nun, concerning her dying mother, to give to the Dalai Lama. In our meeting he talked for almost an hour, before his secretary, glancing anxiously at his watch, pleaded with him to bring the conversation to a close.
I remembered the letter, and handed it to him, explaining what it was, and expecting him to hand it to the secretary and hurry along to his next appointment. Instead he opened the envelope, took out the letter and read it carefully. The nun had included a photograph of her mother in the envelope. The Dalai Lama placed it in the palm of his hand and studied it intently. The room had fallen silent. It was as if time had stopped. He replaced the letter and the picture in the envelope, and tucked it into his robe, next to his heart.
The next day, I received an email from the Danish nun. She had received an email from the secretary, saying the Dalai Lama had read her letter and wished her to know that she and her mother were in his prayers.
