Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists
You probably know that the pope is both the administrative and spiritual head of the Catholic Church. But that level of centralized leadership is rare — Catholicism is the only major religion with a single, global spiritual leader. Some smaller religious groups have recognized figureheads. For example, the Archbishop of Canterbury leads the Anglican Communion, which includes the Church of England.
But the other major world religions —Islam, Hinduism, Protestant Christianity, Buddhism — these are not led by a single individual. Instead, they are made up of various traditions, schools, or denominations, each with their own leadership structures.
But wait a minute—you might be asking—what about the Dalai Lama?
Buddhism has three primary schools. Theravāda is practiced mainly in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Laos, and Cambodia. Mahāyāna is most common in East Asia, including China, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. Vajrayāna, or Tibetan Buddhism, is practiced primarily in Tibet, Mongolia, Nepal and northern India—areas where Tibetan culture is strong.
The Dalai Lama—the name can be roughly translated as, “Ocean of Wisdom”—the Dalai Lama is the leader of just one of these schools—Tibetan Buddhism. The other schools don’t have a single figurehead.
There are about 500 million Buddhists worldwide, but only about 18 to 20 million of them practice Tibetan Buddhism.
So why is the Dalai Lama so famous, if he leads only a fraction of the world’s Buddhists? To answer that question, we need a geography lesson and a history lesson.
Tibet is a region in central Asia, north of the Himalayan mountains. It has some of the most striking and extreme geography in the world. It’s the highest and largest plateau on the planet, at about 4,500 meters above sea level—higher than many mountain ranges. There, you can find snow-covered peaks, glaciers, alpine lakes, and wide-open plains.
Tibet is part of China today. If you picture a map, it’s in the southwest part of China—just north of Nepal and bordering India.
That’s the geography lesson. The history lesson goes like this. Since about the 1400s, Buddhists living in Tibet followed a spiritual leader called the Dalai Lama. In the mid-1600s, the Dalai Lama took on both spiritual and political duties. Tibet was ruled as a Buddhist theocracy, with the Dalai Lama as both the spiritual leader and the head of state.
This Buddhist theocracy lasted until 1951, when China took control of the region by force. The Chinese government, then as now, placed strict controls on religious practices, limited the activities of Buddhist monasteries, and did not allow open recognition of the Dalai Lama’s authority.
At the time of the takeover, many Tibetan Buddhists refused to live under Chinese rule: they would have had to give up much of their culture and religion. So they fled to live in exile in neighboring countries like India. The Dalai Lama was among those who left. He was just 23 years old at the time.
So let’s return to our question. Why is the Dalai Lama famous, if he only represents a small fraction of the world’s Buddhists? It’s because he represents the Tibetan Buddhist cause. He’s a symbol of the Tibetan people’s struggle for religious freedom. He has spent decades promoting peace, compassion, and nonviolence—values that transcend religion.
He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and has met with world leaders, spoken at universities, and written best-selling books. For many people, especially outside Asia, the Dalai Lama is the most recognizable Buddhist figure in the world.
He will turn 90 years old in July 2025. He was enthroned in February of 1940, when he was just four years old—in other words, he has been recognized as the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism for 85 years.
For many of those years, he traveled internationally and maintained a high public profile. But recently, he has stopped traveling outside northern India, where he has lived since 1960. Who will assume the mantle when he dies?
Unlike Catholics, Tibetan Buddhists do not get a new leader immediately. Tibetan Buddhists believe that a Dalai Lama chooses to be reborn in the body of a new child, to continue his spiritual work. The child is already alive when the older leader is dying.
After the Dalai Lama dies, then, the spirit is alive in a new body. The job for the living is to figure out who the child is. Soon after a Dalai Lama dies, senior Buddhist monks begin the process of looking for the child who is the next incarnation. And this can take several years. In that time, the monks look for signs and visions. When they find a potential child, they give him tests to see if he can remember things from his past life.
When the monks agree that they have found the child who is the reincarnation, the child is officially recognized as the Dalai Lama, usually around age two or three. He begins years of training in Buddhist teaching and philosophy, and is given full political and spiritual authority as he matures.
The next transition will be the most difficult one yet. For the first time in 600 years, the Dalai Lama will die in exile—he will die outside of Tibet, the centuries-old spiritual and cultural home of Tibetan Buddhists.
And China has made no secret that it wants a role in naming the next Dalai Lama, the better to help it further bring Tibetan Buddhism under government control. The current Dalai Lama is considering his options. He says he might name the next Dalai Lama while he is still alive—this is called an “emanation,” like a pre-reincarnation. He said he might choose a boy, a girl, or an adult. He may also opt not to reincarnate at all.
Jeff’s take
A few more points for you. The first Dalai Lama was born in the year 1391. The first two were not given the title during their lifetimes. The first person to be given the title Dalai Lama—Ocean of Wisdom—was the third. The first two were given the specific title after their deaths. So this is a six-hundred-year religious tradition.
The current Dalai Lama is the fourteenth. Anyone under the age of 85 today would not have lived in a world with any other Dalai Lama.
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