Dalai Lama: Tibet’s spiritual head is 90

“In the past, he swung a white scarf around his shoulders to greet the guests. Today it takes over a monk,” writes the mirror. But he still has the sly smile that he has been using very successfully against the demands and reprisals of a world power for over six decades.

Dalai Lama is the official title of the Tibetan spiritual head. He is the highest master (Trülku) within the hierarchy of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism. A “enlightenment system” (Bodhisattva), an “oceangal teacher”.

Until the end of the 1950s he was also the secular ruler of Tibet, then the communist folk shelves under Mao Zedong won the final control over the Himalaya country, the Dalai Lama fled into exile and founded a Tibetan exile government in Dharamsala in northern Indian. Since then, the Chinese have been spider.

The 14th Dalai Lama (since 1474) was born on July 6, 1935 in a small village in the northeast of Tibet as the second son of a total of 16 children of a farmer family. He was less than two years old when a delegation of four Buddhist monks after mystical visions and oracle sayings found him as a rebirth of the 13th Dalai Lama, who died in 1933.

The child was bought free by his family. They took it to the capital Lhasa, where as a four -year -old monk he received the name Jetstün Jampel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso – “Holy Lord, kind gentleman, compassionate defender of faith, ocean of wisdom” – and was enthroned on February 22, 1940 in the Potala Palace. Ten years later, Tenzin Gyatso was also declared a secular ruler.

After his escape, the young man conquered the world outside the area of ​​influence of the People’s Republic of China with his smile. The question of whether the Dalai Lama was politically naive or witty was quickly answered – with his own words: “If you believe that you are too small to do something, try to sleep when there is a mosquito in the room.”

When he renounced political power in 2011, he had climbed a god -like level as the highest instance of non -violence, peace and tolerance. Nobody could be surprised that Dalai Lama is more popular with us in Europe than the Pope. “He has no reservations about anyone. He forbids nothing and he does not demand anything from his western supporters – especially not compliance with dogmas. His religion, Buddhism, does not claim a unique position. Faith is tolerant compared to other denominations and ways of thinking. This ideal image of a peaceful religion embodies the Dalai Lama.”

He is, of course, smiling, as everyone’s friend. “I am for them what they want to be for them,” he is said to have said “SPIEGEL”. Such sayings do not hear people from politicians or other religious leaders. In the meantime, the friendship with Dalai Lama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner from 1989, means an incomparable reputation and a high moral award. Who wouldn’t like his friend?

Hollywood star Richard Gere (75) has been friends with him for a long time. In 2018, the converted Buddhist and his pregnant third wife Alejandra Silva blessed their unborn child from Tendzin Gyatso. Gere lives in Dharamsala at times, he founded the Tibet House in New York and supports the exile government of the free tibet. When he criticized China’s Tibet policy as part of the 1993 Oscar ceremony, the irreconcilable Chinese declared the Dalai-Lama friend to be a persona non grata.

The Dalai Lama also maintains friendly relationships with German -speaking countries. This connection is primarily due to the Austrian Heinrich Harrer (1912-2006). The mountaineer, research traveler and author from Carinthia was on a German Himalayan expedition from 1939 when he was interned by the British in India with the outbreak of the Second World War. After his escape from the camp, he struggled to Tibet and finally got to know the eleven -year -old Dalai Lama in 1946 in the then forbidden city of Lhasa, who was revered like a god.

Harrer became his teacher and taught Tenzin Gyatso in English, geography and mathematics. He even set up a private cinema for the child’s monk. A friendship developed that should last for life.

In 1952 Heinrich Harrer returned to his homeland and wrote the book “Seven years in Tibet. My life at the court of Dalai Lama.” It was translated into 53 languages ​​and filmed in 1997 with Brad Pitt (61) in the leading role. The contact between Harrer and Tenzin Gyatso never tore off. In 1992 the Dalai Lama visited his friend for his 80th birthday in the Carinthian home town of Hüttenberg, in 2002 he came to his 90th birthday, and in 2006 he laid the foundation stone to the Tibet Center Hüttenberg four months after Harrer’s death.

The Dalai Lama is also friends with a former top German politician. With the former Hessian Prime Minister Roland Koch (67), a rather robust person met the Muddio of the Buddhist. Surprisingly, this has been harmonizing for over 40 years.

A few days ago, Koch defended his friend before the influence of China’s leadership. The current spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism must resist “resist” Chinese attempts to destroy religion “when looking for a successor.

The former politician alludes to the successor of the 14th Dalai Lama. On the occasion of his 90th birthday, Tenzin Gyatso announced on a video message to ensure the continued existence of the institution of the spiritual head of the Tibetans. When filling this office, the Chinese government also wants to get involved with Beijing. “The reincarnation of large Buddhist personalities such as the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama must be determined by loosening from the golden urn and then approved by the central government,” said the Foreign Ministry recently.

The point of view of the Dalai Lama is unusually energetic: the identification of the 15th Dalai Lama is “exclusively” at his office based in India. “Nobody else has any authority to interfere in this matter.” It seems that the 14th Dalai Lama already has a candidate in mind.

Apparently the supermache China fears the old man like the devil the holy water. He was a separatist, a “wolf in monk robe”, it sounds from Beijing, who not only wants to control Tibet politically, militarily and economically, but also spiritual. The successor of the Dalai Lama is a “strange competition”, observes the “Spiegel”: “A monk in flip -flops” against a world power.