The Life and Teachings of His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama: Tenzin Gyatso Biography

Posted On December 24, 2024

Last updated on December 25th, 2024 at 04:43 pm

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection. ~ Dalai Lama

The 14th Dalai Lama, as the incumbent Dalai Lama is the highest spiritual leader and the head of Tibetan Buddhism. He is 1989 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and has been named by the Time Magazine as Gandhi’s spiritual heir to non-violence. He travels the globe to teach Tibetan Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. He has been instrumental in uniting the Buddhist communities worldwide. Let us take a sneak peek into his life through this biography of Dalai Lama.

Life Story of the 14th Dalai Lama

Born on July 6, 1935, in a farmers’ and horse traders’ family, in a hamlet Taktser in Amdo, Dalai Lama’s birthname was Lhamo Thondup. He went on to be selected as the successor of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1937, and came to be known as the 14th Dalai Lama in 1939. He was ceremoniously enthroned on February 22, 1940 in Lhasa. He came to India in 1959, during the 1959 Tibetan Uprising, and in April of that year, he founded the independent Tibetan government in exile in Mussoorie, India. Since 1960, he has been staying in Dharamshala in India.

Story of Being Selected as the 14th Dalai Lama

Lhamo Thondup was one of the 7 surviving children in their family. His first language was Xining, a dialect of Chinese. The story behind how he came to be the 14th Dalai Lama is quite intriguing. It so happened that after the demise of the 13th Dalai Lama, search teams were sent out in the north-east, the east and the south-east, to look for his successor. Reportedly, the head of the embalmed body of the 13th Dalai Lama had turned to face the north-east, which was interpreted as the direction in which the next Dalai Lama would be found. During that time, the Regent Reting Rinpoche had a vision of a holy lake of Lhamo La-tso, which was interpreted as Amdo being the region where the next Dalai Lama would be found. The image in the vision resembled the house where Lhamo Dhondup lived. The search team members came to this house, one of them posed as a servant, and entered the kitchen. He held an old mala which belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama. Lhamo Thondup, who was only 2 years old then, asked for the mala. The search team member then said that if the child knew who he is, he could have the mala, to which the child supposedly replied, ‘Sera Lama, Sera Lama’. The search team then told who they were and asked if they could give the young boy some tests. In one of the tests, the boy was given different pairs of objects, where one object in each pair belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama and the other did not, and each time the boy selected Dalai Lama’s object. He was selected as the successor of the then Dalai Lama.

Warlord Ma Bufang, ruler of Quinghai, who had captured the north-east corner of Amdo, refused to send the selected boy to Lhasa and asked for proof that the boy was the next Dalai Lama. The Lhasa government pretended that the reason to take the boy to Lhasa was to take him through further tests before declaring him as the 14th Dalai Lama. Also it gave a ransom of 100,000 Chinese dollars to Ma Bufong, after which he allowed the boy to go to Lhasa. He was kept at Kumbum where two of his brothers were already studying as monks. In October 1938, the Method of using the Golden Urn was drafted by Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission. On December 12, 1938, regent Reting Rinpoche informed the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission that three candidates were found and that the ceremony of Golden Urn would be held. On July 21, 1939, Lhamo Thondup, aged 4 embarked on his journey to Lhasa seated in a special palanquin carried by two mules. When they were out of Ma Bufang’s area, Kashag declared him as the 14th Dalai Lama, and they reached Lhasa on October 8, 1939. He was taken in a procession of lamas to Lhasa. Many Chinese and foreign dignitaries attended the enthroning ceremony of the 14th Dalai Lama.

Lhamo Thondup, now recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama spent his childhood years in Potala Palace and Norbulingka. On November 17, 1950, the 14th Dalai Lama, aged just 15, took the position of the ruler or head of state of Tibet.

According to the Seventeen Point Agreement ratified in 1951, Chinese sovereignty over Tibet was recognized, but China allowed the Dalai Lama to rule Tibet.

Aged 19, he toured China from 1954 to 1955, where he met eminent leaders and advocates of communism; and learned Chinese and socialist ideals. In September 1954, he attended the first session of the National People’s Congress as a delegate and discussed China’s constitution. Later he was selected as the Vice Chairman of its Standing Committee, and he held this position till 1964.

Dalai Lama’s Escape to India

When the 1959 Tibetan Uprising started, Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet and reached Tezpur in Assam, India on April 18, 1959. He then established a Government of Tibet in Exile in Dharamshala, India, which is called Little Lhasa. He re-established about 80,000 Tibetan refugees. He founded a Tibetan educational system to teach Tibetan children. In 1959, he established the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts and in 1967, the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies became the primary university for Tibetans. He was instrumental in re-establishing 200 monasteries and nunneries, which helped preserve Tibetan Buddhist teachings and Tibetan culture.

Later he appealed to the United Nations to recognize the rights of Tibetans, which led to the General Assembly adopting 3 resolutions in favour of Tibetans. In 1970, he founded the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamshala, which has more than 80,000 manuscripts and resources in Tibetan history, culture and politics. In the 1970s and 80s, he travelled to various countries to raise awareness about the state of Tibet, and apart from appealing to the United Nations, he met with the European Parliament and corresponded with Chinese leaders to take efforts to establish Tibet as an autonomous region of China. In 2011, Dalai Lama stepped down as head of Tibetan government in exile. Since the 1960s, he had been emphasizing on the necessity of an elected leader for Tibet, and since long before that, had seen himself as partially retired from political leadership, preferring to be Tibet’s spiritual leader. In 2016, Indian citizens and politicians said the Dalai Lama should be honoured with the Bharat Ratna.

Followers of Tibetan Buddhism regard the 14th Dalai Lama as the living Bodhisattva. His name means Ocean of Wisdom. Tibetans know him as Gyalwa Rinpoche, the Precious Jewel-like Buddha Master, Kundun, the Presence and Yizhin Norbu, the Wish Fulfilling Gem. Most Westerners and all his followers call him His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He leads the Gelug School, the most recent school of Tibetan Buddhism.

Philosophy and Teachings of Dalai Lama

• The 14th Dalai Lama advocates the idea of a world free of nuclear weapons. He is part of the Advisory Council of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
• He agrees that the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly should be established.
• He gives lectures and public talks, which are recorded in multiple languages.
• He has conferred the Kalachakra Tantra 33 times on audiences as large as 200,000 people. Kalachakra is known to be one of the most difficult teachings of Buddhism which takes a few weeks to confer.
• He has authored several books on Buddhism.
• He visits different countries on the request of his students, and gives talks on Buddhist teachings. He gives religious speeches in Dharamshala, on the request of Tibetan monastic institutions, Indian organizations or students.
• He has visited many colleges and spoken to students.
• Dalai Lama met Pope Paul VI in 1973 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2006, for an interfaith dialogue. He took part in the Third Meeting of the Board of World Religious Leaders. In 2009, he inaugurated an interfaith World Religions-Dialogue and Symphony conference.
• In 2010, he, along with some scholars, founded the Common Ground Project in Indiana, USA.
• In 2019, the Dalai Lama fully sponsored ‘Celebrating Diversity in the Muslim World’, the first-ever conference held in New Delhi on behalf of the Muslims of Ladakh.
• He advocated the idea of Tibetan independence from 1961 to 1974, but later he switched to the ‘Middle Way’ whereby he wished for meaningful autonomy for Tibetans. He considers Tibetan culture and Buddhism to be a part of the Chinese culture, and says that Tibetans seek more development from China.
• He has strong views on social topics like animal welfare, death penalty and abortion. He endorses vegetarianism. He often speaks publicly about environmental conservation and says ecology should be a part of our daily life. He is against the death penalty and states that it is violence and not compassion. He maintains that abortion should be allowed or disallowed based on the circumstances.
• He says that he wishes to spread India’s message of non-violence and religious harmony across the globe, and maintains that religion should not be used as a tool to defeat one another.
• Dalai Lama advocates equality for women and calls himself a feminist. He says that women are more sensitive and compassionate by nature, and can be more effective as leaders.
• He calls himself a Marxist. When he heard about the Marxist theory on his trip to Beijing, he was fascinated by the idea and liked the concepts of self-sufficiency and equal distribution of wealth.

Dalai Lama’s Views on his Retirement

In May 2011, Dalai Lama retired from the Central Tibetan Administration. In September of that year, he gave a statement in which he said that when he turned 90, he would consult the high Lamas of the Tibetan Buddhist traditions, Tibetan people, and followers of Tibetan Buddhism about whether the institution of the Dalai Lama should continue, and if it is decided that the tradition would continue, legitimate methods should be used for the selection process, and the candidate should not be selected for any political reasons.

Honors and Awards Received by the 14th Dalai Lama

• The 14th Dalai Lama has featured in the list of world’s most admired men. He is widely considered to have an influential personality and universalist values. He is highly admired in the West and is quite popular among celebrities and commoners alike.
• He is the receiver of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership.
• He has received the Freedom Medal from the Roosevelt Institute and the Christmas Humphreys Award from the Buddhist Society in UK.
• In 2007, he was honoured with the Congressional Gold Medal.
• In 2006, he was one of the only 6 people to be given the honorary citizenship of Canada.
• He is the chief patron of the Maha Bodhi Society of India.
• In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for liberation of Tibet.
• The 12th General Assembly of the Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace in New Delhi gave him the title ‘Universal Supreme Leader of the Buddhist World’ and designated his birthday July 6 as the Universal Day of Compassion.
• Several books have been written about him and he has featured in many films.

The 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) is indeed one of the most influential people in the world. Unlike the earlier Dalai Lamas who were relatively isolated and had a sense of mystery around them, the 14th Dalai Lama is a public figure and known for his warmth, sense of humor and charisma. He is committed to promoting basic human values and fostering harmony across religions. He is a man of peace who wants to spread love and establish equality and social justice across the globe. He has faced criticism, and met with controversy, but remains one of the most popular personalities of international acclaim.

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