Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama (1935-)

Taktser, 1935: the child who becomes "goddess who grants wishes"

Lhamo Thondup was born on 6 July 1935 in the hamlet of Taktser, in Amdo, then a border region between Tibet and China, into a family of small peasant farmers growing barley, buckwheat and potatoes^[6]. His mother, who would give birth to sixteen children of whom seven survived, would have four more sons and two more daughters; three of his brothers would themselves be recognised as reincarnate lamas in the Tibetan tradition^[7]. His birth name, Lhamo Thondup, literally means "goddess who grants wishes"^[8].

The 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, died in 1933. According to Tibetan tradition, the search for his reincarnation relies on several kinds of signs: after his embalming, the head of the deceased's body, initially turned towards the south-east, is said to have ended up facing north-east — an indication of the direction in which to look for the child^[9]. The regent Reting Rinpoche, entrusted with the regency during the future Dalai Lama's minority, is then said to have had a vision at the sacred lake of Lhamo La-tso: the Tibetan letters Ah, Ka, Ma, the image of a three-storey monastery with a turquoise and green roof, and that of a house with a distinctive gutter^[10].

The search party and the traditional signs

Three search parties were sent towards the north-east, east and south-east of Tibet. The one heading for Amdo, led by a lama from Sera Monastery disguised as a simple pilgrim, discovered at Taktser a monastery with a turquoise roof matching Reting Rinpoche's vision, then a child of about two who, according to the traditional account reported by the Dalai Lama's official website, is said to have spontaneously recognised the head of the expedition, crying out "Sera lama, Sera lama"^[11]. Then subjected to the classic test of recognising objects that had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama, mixed with similar but unfamiliar objects, the child is said to have correctly identified each of the authentic objects, repeating: "It's mine, it's mine"^[12].

The official public declaration recognising Lhamo Thondup as the 14th Dalai Lama dates from 1939^[13]. The young boy left Amdo for Lhasa, where he arrived on 8 October 1939 after a three-month journey^[14].

Enthronement in Lhasa (1940) and monastic formation

The enthronement ceremony took place on 22 February 1940 at the Potala Palace, in the Great Assembly Hall Sizhi Phuntsok, where the child was placed on the golden throne supported by eight snow lions before the dignitaries of the Tibetan government^[15]. On this occasion he received his full monastic name, Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso — "Gentle Glory, Powerful in Speech, Good in Intellect, Holder of the Doctrine, Ocean [of Wisdom]"^[16].

His formal monastic formation began at the age of six according to the traditional reckoning, in 1940, following a curriculum derived from the tradition of the Indian monastery of Nalanda, comprising five major disciplines — logic, arts and crafts, Sanskrit grammar, medicine, and above all Buddhist philosophy, itself subdivided into five sub-disciplines: Prajnaparamita (perfection of wisdom), Madhyamika (middle way), Vinaya (monastic discipline), Abhidharma (metaphysics) and Pramana (logic and epistemology) — and five minor disciplines^[17]. The regent Taktra Rinpoche succeeded Reting Rinpoche at the head of the Tibetan government during the young Dalai Lama's minority.

The final examination for the degree of geshe lharampa — the highest academic grade in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, equivalent to a doctorate — was held at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, during the annual great festival of Monlam Chenmo (Great Prayer), in February 1959, when Tenzin Gyatso was twenty-three^[18]. He passed with distinction.

Premature accession to temporal power (November 1950)

In October 1950, the army of the People's Republic of China crossed Tibet's eastern border and defeated the Tibetan army in Kham. Faced with this crisis, the Dalai Lama, then fifteen years old, was called upon to assume immediately full temporal authority over Tibet — eight years before the traditionally expected age of majority — on 17 November 1950^[19].

The 17-Point Agreement (May 1951) signed under duress

On 23 May 1951, in Beijing, Tibetan plenipotentiaries signed, under duress, the "Seventeen-Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" with the Chinese government. The Dalai Lama learned of the conclusion of this agreement by radio, without having been consulted on its content or on the use — later disputed — of Tibetan governmental seals affixed by the negotiators under pressure^[20]. The agreement formally recognised Chinese sovereignty over Tibet while promising to maintain the Dalai Lama's political status and regional autonomy — promises Beijing would not keep.

The Lhasa uprising and the flight into exile (March 1959)

On 10 March 1959, tens of thousands of Tibetans gathered around the Norbulingka summer palace to prevent the Dalai Lama from attending, unguarded, a reception organised by the Chinese military command — a move the crowd interpreted as a trap aimed at abducting him^[21]. The uprising spread over several days and turned into an armed revolt, suppressed by Chinese artillery.

On the night of 17 March 1959, the Dalai Lama secretly left Norbulingka Palace disguised as a simple soldier, began a fourteen-day march across the Himalayas, and crossed the Indian border on 31 March 1959^[22]. Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru announced to Parliament, on 3 April 1959, that the Dalai Lama and a group of eighty people had been granted asylum^[23]. On 26 March 1959, still on Tibetan soil, at Lhuntse Dzong, the Dalai Lama had repudiated the 17-Point Agreement as having been "imposed on the Tibetan government and people by the threat of arms"^[24] — a repudiation he formalised publicly at a press conference in Mussoorie on 20 June 1959, declaring: "since China herself had broken the terms of her own agreement, there could no longer be any legal basis for recognising it"^[25].

On 18 April 1959, at Tezpur, in India, before some seven hundred people gathered there, the Dalai Lama made a public statement recounting the circumstances of his flight^[26]. Nehru met him on 24 April 1959 at Mussoorie, where the Dalai Lama was staying with the industrialist G. D. Birla; their meeting lasted more than four hours^[27].

Founding the Central Tibetan Administration

On 29 April 1959, at Mussoorie, the Dalai Lama reinstated the Kashag — the Tibetan council of ministers, which Beijing had abolished on 28 March — laying the foundations of what would become the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government in exile. He settled in Dharamsala, in Himachal Pradesh, for permanent residence from 30 April 1960^[28]. Since then, this small mountain town, and in particular its McLeod Ganj district, has become the nerve centre of the Tibetan diaspora and the seat of the Tibetan government in exile.

The Middle Way: autonomy rather than independence

Faced with the impossibility of obtaining outright independence for Tibet, the Dalai Lama developed from the 1980s onwards a doctrine known as the Middle Way Approach, renouncing independence in favour of "genuine autonomy" for Tibet within the People's Republic of China. On 21 September 1987, before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in Washington, he presented his Five-Point Peace Plan, calling in particular for the transformation of the whole of Tibet into a "zone of peace", for an end to the Chinese policy of population transfer, and for respect for the fundamental human rights and democratic freedoms of the Tibetan people^[29]. On 15 June 1988, before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, he spelled out this proposal: the whole of Tibet (the three historic provinces of Ü-Tsang, Kham and Amdo) would become "a self-governing democratic political entity" in association with China, with China retaining foreign policy and defence, and the local government remaining based in Lhasa^[30].

"The whole of Tibet [...] should become a zone of ahimsa, a sanctuary of peace and non-violence where human and environmental harmony prevails." — Tenzin Gyatso, address to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Washington, 21 September 1987^[31]

Democratization and the 2011 political retirement

The Tibetan government in exile gradually democratized: in 2001, the Tibetan people in exile directly elected their Kalon Tripa (head of the cabinet, equivalent of a Prime Minister) for the first time^[32]. On 10 March 2011, on the occasion of the fifty-second anniversary of the Lhasa uprising, the Dalai Lama publicly announced in Dharamsala his intention to hand over his formal political authority to a democratically elected leader^[33]. On 19 March 2011, in a detailed speech delivered before the faithful gathered at the main temple in Dharamsala, he stated:

"It is entirely appropriate that I bring an end, on my own initiative, with joy and pride, to the dual authority of the Dalai Lama [...]. The leadership democratically elected by the Tibetan people should assume full political responsibility for Tibet." — Tenzin Gyatso, political retirement speech, Dharamsala, 19 March 2011^[34]

On 29 May 2011, he formally signed the document transferring his temporal authority to the democratically elected leader, bringing to an end — according to the official chronology — 368 years of tradition in which the Dalai Lamas combined the spiritual and temporal leadership of Tibet — since the 5th Dalai Lama in 1642^[35]. Lobsang Sangay was elected head of the government in exile on 27 April 2011 with 55% of the vote, taking the oath on 8 August 2011 as Kalon Tripa — a title later renamed Sikyong^[36]. Since that date, Tenzin Gyatso has described himself as fully "retired" from political life, retaining only his role as spiritual leader — just like, as he points out, the first four Dalai Lamas of the lineage, before the 5th unified spiritual and temporal powers^[37].

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Tenzin Gyatso the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize "for advocating peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people"^[38]. The committee stressed in particular his consistency in refusing recourse to violence in the face of the occupation of his country. The Dalai Lama received the prize in Oslo on 10 December 1989, in the great auditorium of the University of Oslo:

"This prize is a recognition of the true values of altruism, love, compassion and non-violence which I try to practise, in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha and the great sages of India and Tibet." — Tenzin Gyatso, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, 10 December 1989^[39]

In his speech, he recalled his proposal to turn the entire Tibetan plateau into a "zone of ahimsa", a sanctuary of peace and non-violence^[40]. In the following decades, the prize helped make him one of the most internationally recognized religious figures, despite — and because of — the constant diplomatic pressure exerted by Beijing on the states that officially receive him.

The Gelug school and the tulku system

The Dalai Lama is the spiritual head of the Gelug school (or Gelugpa, "the virtuous") of Tibetan Buddhism, one of the four great schools alongside the Nyingma, Kagyu and Sakya. The Gelug school was founded at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries by the reforming monk Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), whose full biography and doctrinal work will be the subject of a dedicated Ignispedia article^[41]. The system of succession through recognized reincarnation — the tulku — first appeared in the Kagyu school in the 13th century, with the recognition of the 2nd Karmapa as the reincarnation of the 1st; the Gelug school, which emerged later, in turn adopted this form of succession for its leaders, the Dalai Lamas^[42].

A tulku (Tibetan sprul sku, linked to the Sanskrit Buddhist notion of nirmanakaya, "emanation body") is an individual recognized as the conscious reincarnation of a previous spiritual master, destined in turn to be reborn after death in the service of beings^[43].

An emanation of Avalokiteshvara: the doctrinal foundation of legitimacy

The Dalai Lama is regarded, in the Tibetan tradition, as an emanation of Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig in Tibetan), the bodhisattva of compassion — a figure introduced into Tibet as early as the 7th century and which quickly became the most popular in the Tibetan Buddhist pantheon^[44]. According to Tibetan belief, each successive Dalai Lama consciously embodies this same bodhisattva, "a realized being motivated by the vow to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings, having vowed to be reborn in the world to help humanity"^[45]. According to the Dalai Lama's official website, Tenzin Gyatso is the seventy-fourth in a lineage of emanations going back to a young Brahmin at the time of the historical Buddha himself^[46].

From the 1st to the 5th Dalai Lama: from a posthumous title to the Potala theocracy

The first in the lineage, Gendun Drup (1391–1474), principal disciple of Tsongkhapa and founder of Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, never bore the title of "Dalai Lama" during his lifetime: it was attributed to him posthumously^[47]. It was indeed only in 1578 that the Mongol prince Altan Khan, inviting the third successor of this lineage, Sonam Gyatso, to teach in Mongolia, conferred on him the honorary title of "Dalai Lama" — "dalai" being the Mongolian translation of the Tibetan word gyatso, "ocean", hence the usual rendering "ocean of wisdom"^[48]. The title was then retroactively attributed to his two predecessors, making Sonam Gyatso the "3rd" Dalai Lama even though he was the first to bear the name in his lifetime^[49].

It was the 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682), known as the "Great Fifth", who united spiritual and temporal power for the first time: in 1642, at Samdrubtse Palace in Shigatse, the Mongol military leader Gushri Khan, after defeating the rival princes of Tsang, formally handed temporal authority over the whole of Tibet to the 5th Dalai Lama, establishing the government of the Ganden Phodrang^[50]. From 1645 onwards he had the Potala Palace built, essentially completed in three years but developed over nearly forty-five years, which became the seat of Tibetan spiritual and temporal power until 1959^[51]. This theocracy established in 1642 lasted, according to the Dalai Lama Bureau's official chronology, 368 years, until Tenzin Gyatso's voluntary political retirement in 2011^[52].

The current Dalai Lama: spiritual head, but not head of all Tibetan Buddhism

One clarification is needed for Western readers: the Dalai Lama is neither the "pope" of Tibetan Buddhism, nor even the head of all four Tibetan schools. He is the spiritual head of the Gelug school alone, distinct from the Kagyu school (whose head bears the title of Karmapa) or the Nyingma school. The Panchen Lama, the second-highest authority in the Gelug school after the Dalai Lama, traditionally occupies Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse — an institution whose contested succession is one of the major controversies documented later in this article. Within the Gelug school itself, official leadership falls to the Ganden Tripa, "holder of the Ganden throne", appointed for a seven-year term: the Dalai Lama is its most influential figure, not its hierarchical superior^[53].

The birth of an unlikely dialogue (1987)

In 1987, the Dalai Lama founded the Mind and Life Institute with the American lawyer and entrepreneur R. Adam Engle and the Chilean neurobiologist Francisco Varela, with the aim of organizing an ongoing dialogue between modern science and Buddhist thought^[54]. The first "Mind and Life Dialogue", devoted to Buddhism and the cognitive sciences, was held in October 1987 in Dharamsala over one week, bringing together six scientists and the Dalai Lama for five hours of discussion each day^[55]. The institute, formally incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1991, became a recognized player in the science-spirituality dialogue, funding more than 270 research projects in some thirty US states and twenty countries^[56].

Monks' brains under electroencephalogram

The most scientifically resonant dialogue concerns the research of neuroscientist Richard Davidson (University of Wisconsin-Madison), invited by the Dalai Lama in the 1990s to study the cerebral effects of meditation. The landmark study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2004, shows that experienced Tibetan Buddhist practitioners — some totalling between ten thousand and fifty thousand hours of meditation — produce, during compassion meditation, gamma-band brain oscillations of an amplitude never before observed in a non-pathological human brain, thirty times greater than in a novice control group — at least according to the account given by Scientific American^[57].

"The techniques, practised by Buddhists for millennia to calm, focus and develop the mind — the inner face of the brain — had changed the brain." — Scientific American, on the work of Richard Davidson and the Mind and Life Institute^[58]

In September 2003, one of the institute's most publicized dialogues, "Investigating the Mind", was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before some one thousand two hundred participants, bringing together the Dalai Lama, Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp and several leading neuroscientists^[59]. Other dialogues covered quantum physics and cosmology (1997, with physicist Anton Zeilinger among others) or "destructive emotions" (2000, a dialogue published by Daniel Goleman)^[60].

Works translated around the world

Tenzin Gyatso is the author or co-author of more than a hundred books. Among the most notable:

Cross-checked bibliographical sources^{[61][62][63][64][65]}.

Thomas Merton, "the introduction to the real meaning of the word Christian" (1968)

In November 1968, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, on his way to a monastic conference in Bangkok, stopped in Dharamsala and met the Dalai Lama three times, on 4, 6 and 8 November 1968, only weeks before his accidental death in Bangkok on the following 10 December^[66]. Merton, then aged 53, noted in his Asian Journal after their first meeting:

"The Dalai Lama is most impressive as a person. He is strong and alert, taller than I expected [...]. A very solid, energetic, generous and warm person, trying very skilfully to handle enormous problems — none of which he mentioned directly." — Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, entry for 4 November 1968, pp. 100-101^[67]

After their third and final conversation, Merton wrote:

"It was a very warm and cordial discussion, and at the end I felt that we had become very good friends and that we were, in some way, quite close to one another [...]. He remarked that I was a 'Catholic geshe', which, according to [my friend] Harold, was the greatest possible compliment from a Gelugpa — like an honorary doctorate!" — Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, entry for 8 November 1968, pp. 124-125^[68]

Merton died on 10 December 1968 in Samut Prakan, near Bangkok, in circumstances that remain disputed — officially an accidental electrocution, although the Thai police report also mentioned a heart attack, with no autopsy^[69]. The Dalai Lama, in his autobiography Freedom in Exile (1990), would describe this meeting as one of his "happiest memories of that time," stating that it was Merton who "introduced him to the real meaning of the word 'Christian'"^[70]. In 1987, speaking at Emory University, he went so far as to say:

"When I think of Christianity, I think of Thomas Merton [...]. If he were still alive today, his role in the dialogue between religions would be crucial." — Tenzin Gyatso, session with Trappist monks, Emory University, Atlanta, 19 September 1987^[71]

Papal audiences, between esteem and diplomatic caution

The Dalai Lama was received in audience by three successive popes, under conditions that reveal the Holy See's diplomatic caution toward China.

Paul VI received him first, on 30 September 1973, during the Dalai Lama's very first journey outside Asia. The pope told him:

"We thank you for your most courteous gesture in coming to visit us." — Pope Paul VI, address to the Dalai Lama, 30 September 1973^[72]

John Paul II received him several times between 1980 and 2003 — the press generally mentions eight meetings over this period — in deliberately discreet audiences, described by a Vatican official as a matter of "low profile" policy to prevent these visits from becoming artificial "publicity operations" for the Tibetan cause^[73]. Their last meeting took place on 27 November 2003; the Vatican spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, described it as a "short visit, of an exclusively religious nature"^[74]. The Dalai Lama then stated:

"I told the pope of my admiration for what he has done for peace and religious harmony in the world." — Tenzin Gyatso, after his meeting with John Paul II, 27 November 2003^[75]

On 27 October 1986, the Dalai Lama took part, at the head of a Buddhist delegation, in the World Day of Prayer for Peace convened by John Paul II in Assisi, alongside representatives of some twelve religions^[76].

Benedict XVI received him only once, in very discreet circumstances, on 13 October 2006: the meeting appeared neither in the papal schedule published that day nor in official Vatican bulletins, with no photographer and no statement — a deputy spokesman of the Holy See Press Office, questioned by journalists, merely confirmed a "private meeting"^[77]. A later audience, announced for 13 December 2007, was ultimately cancelled after strong Chinese protests; the Dalai Lama then commented with a hint of contained irony:

"In the past, whenever I came to Italy, I met [the pope]. This time, the pope encountered some difficulties [...]. I am sorry about that." — Tenzin Gyatso, December 2007^[78]

Pope Francis, for his part, would never meet the Dalai Lama. In December 2014, while in Rome for a summit of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, the Dalai Lama requested a private audience, which the Vatican declined; the Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, stated that Francis would meet none of the laureates present, while assuring that the pope held him "in very high esteem"^[79]. The Dalai Lama himself commented:

"The Vatican administration says it is not possible because it could cause problems." — Tenzin Gyatso, December 2014^[80]

In 2016, he was likewise not invited to the thirtieth anniversary of the Assisi Day of Prayer, organised by the Community of Sant'Egidio. On the death of Pope Francis on 21 April 2025, the Dalai Lama sent a message of condolence honouring a man who "revealed through his own actions how to live a simple yet meaningful life"^[81] — the two men would never meet in person.

The constant reason for this growing caution was, according to several analysts cited in the press, the Holy See's desire to preserve its diplomatic relations with Beijing, China systematically describing the Dalai Lama as a "separatist" figure^[82].

"The Good Heart" (1994): a Buddhist comments on the Gospel

In September 1994, at Middlesex University in London, the Dalai Lama was invited to lead the annual John Main Seminar, organised by the World Community for Christian Meditation in memory of the Benedictine monk Dom John Main (1926-1982), founder of that international network of Christian meditation^[83]. Before some three hundred and fifty Western participants, co-led by Fr. Laurence Freeman, John Main's successor, the Dalai Lama commented live on eight passages from the four canonical Gospels: the Sermon on the Mount, the parable of the mustard seed, the Resurrection, love of enemies, the Kingdom of God, the Transfiguration, the sending of the disciples on mission, and faith^[84]. On that occasion he stated:

"When I read these passages from the Gospels, I am reminded above all of the importance of tolerance and impartiality toward all creatures." — Tenzin Gyatso, John Main Seminar "The Good Heart," London, September 1994^[85]

The Dalai Lama himself acknowledged, during the seminar, the doctrinal limits of the exercise, affirming that "there is no such thing as a Buddhist Christian" and that "the two traditions must, at some point, diverge" on fundamental metaphysical questions^[86]. The exchanges were published in 1996 under the title The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus (Wisdom Publications, Boston, and Rider Books, London, 1996)^[87]. An evangelical Protestant critique published in the Christian Research Journal in 1997 reproached the organisers for blurring the doctrinal boundaries between Buddhism and Christianity, while acknowledging the quality of the biblical scholarship deployed^[88].

The "atheist system" controversy: John Paul II and the Colombo boycott (1995)

In 1994, John Paul II published, in the form of conversations with the Italian journalist Vittorio Messori, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (Varcare la soglia della speranza), a book in which he devoted a chapter to Buddhism. In it he wrote a sentence that would spark fierce controversy:

"Buddhism is, to a large extent, an 'atheistic' system." — Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, 1994^[89]

The pope added that "the fullness of this detachment is not union with God, but what is called nirvana, a state of perfect indifference toward the world," and described Buddhist soteriology as "almost exclusively negative"^[90]. The book's publication, a few days before a papal visit to Sri Lanka, triggered sharp indignation in the local Buddhist community: on 21 January 1995, in Colombo, all the Buddhist prelates invited to an interreligious meeting collectively boycotted the event, while the Hindu and Muslim delegations attended as normal^[91]. The pope offered no formal retraction, but improvised a conciliatory remark: "It is important that we are together. Not to be together is dangerous"^[92]. The Theravada Buddhist monk and translator Bhikkhu Bodhi published a corrective essay in response, Toward a Threshold of Understanding, judging the papal characterisation of Buddhism to reflect an outdated missionary view^[93]. No reliable source documents any specific public reaction by the Dalai Lama to this particular episode.

A rigorous Catholic encyclopaedia cannot limit itself, regarding Tenzin Gyatso, to a hagiographical presentation. Several matters, solidly documented by the international press and human-rights organisations, must be set out honestly.

The missing Panchen Lama: the case of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima

On 14 May 1995, the Dalai Lama officially recognised Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, born on 25 April 1989, as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama, the second-highest authority of the Gelug school after himself^[94]. Three days later, on 17 May 1995, the six-year-old child and his family were taken away by the Chinese authorities, officially for their "protection"^[95]. No independent observer has seen them since. On 8 December 1995, China installed another child at Tashilhunpo, Gyaincain Norbu, chosen by drawing lots from a "golden urn" — a historical procedure revived for the first time since the founding of the People's Republic^[96].

Beijing regularly states that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima "leads a normal life" and "does not wish to be disturbed"; in 2020, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian specified that he had "received free compulsory education as a child, passed the university entrance examination, and now holds a job"^[97]. On the thirtieth anniversary of his disappearance, in May 2025, Human Rights Watch reaffirmed:

"The Chinese government abducted a six-year-old child and his family, and has subjected them to enforced disappearance for thirty years." — Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher, Human Rights Watch, 15 May 2025^[98]

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanded his immediate release that same month^[99], and the European Parliament adopted, on 8 May 2025, a resolution condemning violations of religious freedom in Tibet and reiterating that demand^[100]. Gyaincain Norbu, designated by Beijing, met Xi Jinping on 6 June 2025 in Beijing, promising to "firmly support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party"^[101].

The battle for the succession: Beijing versus the Gaden Phodrang Trust

In 2007, China's State Administration for Religious Affairs promulgated "Order No. 5", requiring prior government approval for any recognition of a reincarnated lama in Tibet — a measure widely interpreted as aimed directly at controlling the succession of the Dalai Lama himself in the event of his death^[102]. Faced with this threat, Tenzin Gyatso published on 24 September 2011 an official statement on the conditions of his own reincarnation:

"Reincarnation is a phenomenon which should take place either through the voluntary choice of the person concerned or at least on the strength of his or her karma, merit and prayers [...]. The responsibility for this will rest primarily with the officers concerned of the Dalai Lama's Gaden Phodrang Trust." — Tenzin Gyatso, statement on the question of his reincarnation, 24 September 2011^[103]

He specified that, as he approached his ninetieth year, he would consult the senior lamas and the Tibetan public to reassess whether the very institution of the Dalai Lama should be perpetuated^[104]. On 2 July 2025, a few days before his ninetieth birthday, he released a new video statement confirming that the lineage would continue and that only the Gaden Phodrang Trust — the foundation he established to preserve the institution — would have the authority to recognise his successor, to the exclusion of any other entity, including the Chinese government^[105]. Beijing rejected this position: a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington described in May 2025 the idea of a "forced disappearance" of the Panchen Lama as a "lie without objective basis"^[106], while China claims a right of veto over any recognition of a reincarnation by virtue of its sovereignty over Tibet.

The Dorje Shugden controversy

In 1996, the Dalai Lama strongly discouraged, within the government and the monasteries under Tibetan administration in exile, the veneration of Dorje Shugden, a protective deity traditionally invoked in certain circles of the Gelug school, on the grounds that this practice encouraged sectarianism and risked degenerating into a "spirit cult"^[107]. The Dalai Lama himself specified that he had never used the word "ban", while acknowledging that he "strongly discourages" this practice^[108].

This position provoked lasting opposition from Tibetan and Western practitioners of Dorje Shugden, who accuse the Dalai Lama of violating religious freedom and document cases of social ostracism against devotees of this deity. On 4 February 1997, Geshe Lobsang Gyatso, aged 70, founding director of the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala and a close friend of the Dalai Lama, was stabbed to death along with two young disciples, a few hundred metres from the Dalai Lama's residence^[109]. The Kangra district police publicly named two suspects presented as linked to the Dorje Shugden association, without ever managing to arrest them; according to the press, they fled to China, where Interpol issued a Red Notice against them in 2007^[110]. The philosopher Georges Dreyfus (Williams College), while judging the hypothesis of a murder committed in the name of the deity by some of its followers "not unreasonable", stresses that it remains an inference, not an established judicial conclusion; the case officially remains unsolved, and the pro-Shugden groups publicly condemned the crime and denied any involvement^[111].

From 13 to 21 September 2015, several hundred members of the International Shugden Community demonstrated during a visit by the Dalai Lama to England — some 600 people gathered on 29 June 2015 outside the Buddhist centre in Aldershot, according to Hampshire police — demanding that this restriction be lifted^[112]. In December 2015, an investigation by the Reuters news agency claimed that the Chinese Communist Party was funding and coordinating some of these Western demonstrations as part of a campaign to discredit the Dalai Lama, without however producing direct proof of funding; the main organising group announced its dissolution in March 2016^[113]. The controversy has been the subject of academic analyses, notably by the anthropologist Martin A. Mills (University of Aberdeen) and by Georges Dreyfus, who highlight its dimensions that are both religious and political within the Tibetan movement in exile.

The 2023 video incident and the question of boundaries

On 28 February 2023, during a ceremony at the Tsuglagkhang temple in Dharamsala attended by more than one hundred and twenty students, a young Indian boy asked the Dalai Lama, then aged 87, whether he could give him a hug. The Dalai Lama invited him onto the stage, kissed him on the cheek and then on the mouth, before asking him to "suck his tongue"^[114]. The video, republished on social media in early April 2023, went viral and sparked international outrage. On 10 April 2023, the Dalai Lama's office published an official apology:

"His Holiness wishes to apologise to the boy and his family, as well as to his many friends across the world, for the hurt his words may have caused. His Holiness often teases, in an innocent and playful way, the people he meets, even in public and before cameras. He regrets this incident." — Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, statement, 10 April 2023^[115]

Tibetan commentators recalled that sticking out one's tongue constitutes, in Tibetan culture, a traditional greeting going back to a 9th-century legend about an unpopular king with a black tongue — an explanation that an Indian child-rights organisation, Haq: Centre for Child Rights, deemed insufficient: "this is certainly not a cultural expression, and even if it were, such a cultural expression is not acceptable"^[116]. No direct and seriously documented accusation of sexual abuse personally targeting the Dalai Lama has otherwise been established by a reference press source, apart from this incident.

The Dalai Lama has, on the other hand, spoken out on several occasions about documented abuses committed by other Buddhist masters, in particular Sogyal Rinpoche, author of the best-seller The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and founder of the Rigpa network, targeted in 2017 by an open letter from eight former students denouncing physical, psychological and sexual abuse^[117], confirmed in 2018 by an independent investigation conducted by the British law firm Lewis Silkin^[118]. In August 2017, the Dalai Lama publicly described Sogyal Rinpoche as "disgraced"^[119], and met in September 2018, in the Netherlands, with several victims of abuse in Buddhist communities, telling them: "you have given me ammunition [to act]"^[120]. He acknowledged at that time that he had been aware of such abuses since the 1990s.

Tibet under control: self-immolations and Chinese diplomacy

Since the first documented case in February 2009, the organisation International Campaign for Tibet has recorded at least 159 self-immolations by Tibetans, inside Tibet and China, as a sign of protest against Chinese policy — one hundred and twenty-seven of them resulting in the death of their author^[121]. The Dalai Lama does not officially encourage this practice, but Beijing regularly accuses him, along with the Tibetan government in exile, of inciting these acts. China systematically describes the Dalai Lama as a "separatist" figure and exerts documented diplomatic pressure on third-party states that officially receive him.

What Rome recognises: the seeds of the Word

The Second Vatican Council, in its declaration Nostra Aetate on the relations of the Church with non-Christian religions (28 October 1965), devoted to Buddhism a measured yet real recognition:

"In Buddhism, according to its various forms, the radical insufficiency of this shifting world is recognised and a way is taught by which men, with a devout and confident heart, may acquire the state of perfect liberation, or attain supreme enlightenment by their own efforts or through help from above." — Second Vatican Council, Nostra Aetate, § 2, 28 October 1965^[122]

The same paragraph immediately adds: "The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions [...]. However, she proclaims, and she is bound to proclaim unceasingly, Christ who is 'the way, the truth and the life' (Jn 14:6)"^[123]. This recognition belongs to the patristic doctrine of the "seeds of the Word" (semina Verbi), already present in Saint Justin and Saint Irenaeus, which acknowledges the presence of authentic traces of truth and goodness in the religious traditions of humanity, called to be purified and fulfilled in Christ.

Orationis Formas: a warning against fusing meditations

In 1989, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, published a Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on certain aspects of Christian meditation, known by its Latin title Orationis Formas, explicitly warning against attempting to fuse Christian meditation and Buddhist meditation:

"Others [...] are not afraid to place the imageless and conceptless absolute, proper to Buddhist theory, on the same level as the majesty of God, revealed in Christ, which towers above finite reality." — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Orationis Formas, § 12, 15 October 1989^[124]

The document specifies in a note that nirvana is "understood, in the religious texts of Buddhism, as a state of tranquillity consisting in the extinction of all concrete reality insofar as it is transient, and therefore deceptive and painful"^[125] — a definition a Catholic cannot confuse with the Christian beatific vision, a personal and non-extinctive union with a God who is love:

"'God is love' (1 Jn 4:8): this profoundly Christian affirmation can reconcile perfect union with otherness between the one who loves and the one who is loved, with eternal exchange and eternal dialogue." — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Orationis Formas, § 15^[126]

A difference of nature, not of degree

The esteem that several popes have shown for the person of Tenzin Gyatso — his constancy in non-violence, his commitment to peace, his sincere search for truth — therefore stems not from circumstantial diplomatic relativism, but goes together with a precise doctrinal distinction. Buddhism, in its Tibetan version as in its other forms, knows neither a personal creator God, nor a distinct immortal soul called to a union of love with him, nor the resurrection of the flesh: its soteriology aims at the extinction of the cycle of rebirths (samsara) in the emptiness (shunyata) of nirvana, not at the eternal communion of a beloved person with the triune God who is Love. The Church honours what is true and good in the Dalai Lama's moral discipline, universal compassion and spiritual search precisely because she believes that this partial truth finds its fulfilment in Christ — and not because she holds Buddhism and Christianity to be interchangeable paths towards the same goal^[127].

On the specific question of reincarnation, the very foundation of the institution of the Dalai Lama, Catholic teaching diverges radically: each human person lives only one earthly life, followed by the particular judgment, not an indefinite cycle of rebirths — a question treated in detail in the Ignispedia article devoted to the Catholic refutation of reincarnation. For the general doctrinal framework of Buddhism — the Four Noble Truths, non-self, karma, the great Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana schools — see the Ignispedia article devoted to Buddhism.

• Buddhism — general doctrine, history and Catholic critique
• Why is reincarnation a false belief? — detailed Catholic answer
• Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha — founder of Buddhism
• Bodhidharma — figure of Chan/Zen Buddhism
• Mohandas Gandhi — another great non-Christian religious figure of the 20th century