Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

Tenzin Gyatso is the fourteenth and current Dalai Lama.

Early years

The Dalai Lama was born to a farming family as Lhamo Dhondrub on July 6, 1935, in the village of Taktser in the northeastern region of Tibet. At the age of two the child was recognized as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso. Lhamo Dhondrub was elevated to the status of Dalai Lama and renamed Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso ("Holy Lord, Gentle Glory, Compassionate, Defender of the Faith, Ocean of Wisdom"). Tibetans normally refer to him as Yeshe Norbu, the "Wish-fulfilling Gem", or just Kundun, "the Presence". In the West he is often called "His Holiness the Dalai Lama".

Tenzin Gyatso began his monastic education at the age of six. At 23 he sat for his final examination in the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa, during the annual Monlam (prayer) Festival in 1959. He passed with honours and was awarded the Lharampa degree, the highest level geshe degree (a doctorate of Buddhist philosophy).

Political career

Tenzin Gyatso was only able to govern Tibet for a brief time. As well as being the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is traditionally also Tibet's Head of State and sole political ruler. However, the religious nature of the Tibetan regime caused friction with the emerging Communist-atheist movement in the Chinese mainland.

His political leadership among Tibetans became important especially after the People's Republic of China occupied Tibet in 1950. In 1954 he travelled to Beijing to negotiate with Chinese leaders Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping, but the talks were not fruitful. After a failed American-assisted uprising of Tibetans against the PRC in 1959, the Dalai Lama fled to Dharamsala, India, on March 17 of that year (entering India on March 31).

Mao Zedong (center) with the Dalai Lama (right), early 1950s

In 1989 Tenzin Gyatso was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, with the chairman of the Nobel committee saying that this was "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi."

On May 14, 1995 the Dalai Lama proclaimed 6-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the eleventh reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, but the PRC named another child, Gyancain Norbu.

International influence

Conversations with President George W. Bush in the White House

The Dalai Lama speaks English as a second language and has been successful in gaining Western sympathy for Tibetan self-determination, including vocal support from a number of Hollywood actors and other celebrities.

Tenzin Gyatso has on occasion been denounced by the Chinese government as a supporter of Tibetan independence. Over time he has developed a public position stating that he is not necessarily in favour of Tibetan independence and would not object to a status in which Tibet has internal autonomy while the PRC manages defense and foreign affairs.

There have been intermittent and quiet negotiations between the Tibetan government in exile and the government of the People's Republic of China. The Dalai Lama has generally wished to discuss the issue of the status of Tibet within China, while the Chinese government has insisted that negotiations be limited to the conditions of the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet.

Writings of the Dalai Lama

• The Art of Happiness, coauthored with Howard C. Cutler, M.D.
• Ethics for the New Millennium
• A Simple Path
• How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life. Translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, Ph.D.
• Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama, London: Little, Brown and Co, 1990 ISBN 034910462x
• An Open Heart, edited by Nicholas Vreeland.
• H.H. the Dalai Lama and Alexander Berzin. The Gelug/Kagyü Tradition of Mahamudra, Ithica, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1997, ISBN 1559390727

Other writings need to be added

Films about the Dalai Lama

Among the films that have been recently made about the 14th Dalai Lama are Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet.

References

1. Anti-Defamation League Commends Dalai Lama for Condemning Terrorism

See also

• Tibetan Buddhism

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama.

• Official site (http://www.dalailama.com/)
• Interview (http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4747271-108142,00.html) with The Guardian, 5 September 2003
• Interview (http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=7628) with The Independent, 7 June 2004
• Nobel Peace Prize 1989 (http://www.nobel.se/peace/laureates/1989/index.html)
• The Dalai Lama's views on war and Iraq conflict (http://www.tibet.com/NewsRoom/iraq1.htm)

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