Dalai Lama marks birthday amid rising China tensions

The Dalai Lama celebrated his 90th birthday yesterday as thousands of his followers gathered in a small Himalayan town in India, a landmark occasion seen as a test of his global influence and the intertwined geopolitical struggle.

- SHWETA SHARMA

World leaders and prominent figures from across the globe offered their support to the Buddhist leader, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and regarded as one of the world’s most influential religious leaders.

A packed crowd of his devotees and supporters, including Hollywood personalities, political figures, and hundreds of red-robed monks and nuns, gathered in Dharamshala to celebrate the Dalai Lama’s birthday.

His supporters were undeterred by heavy monsoon rain and thick fog in the Himalayan town of Dharamshala, where the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism has been living in exile since fleeing Chinese rule in Tibet in 1959.

However, the outpouring of support for the exiled Tibetan leader has set the stage for a political and geopolitical struggle over his succession, between the Tibetan Buddhist community in exile in India and China’s Communist Party, which insists it holds the sole authority to name the next Dalai Lama.

In his 90th birthday address, the 14th Dalai Lama called himself a “simple Buddhist monk” and shared a message of “compassion, warmheartedness, and altruism”.

“While it is important to work for material development, it is vital to focus on achieving peace of mind through cultivating a good heart and by being compassionate, not just toward near and dear ones, but toward everyone,” he said. “Through this, you will contribute to making the world a better place.”