Is the Dalai Lama Dying?

A recent video of the Dalai Lama making a public appearance shows a man who looks his age. What it does not show is a man whose spark has gone out. His voice, his humor, his presence all seem intact, even as the years press down on him. So the question circulating since late September 2015 is a reasonable one to ask, though nobody can answer it yet: is his life winding down? Right now there is no evidence pointing one way or the other, and we are still waiting for fuller information.

He had plans to come to the United States. Those plans fell apart after doctors examined him and told him to rest completely and stay off international flights. The itinerary included a stop in Boulder, Colorado, where he was going to speak at the University of Colorado in cooperation with Naropa University, the Buddhist college based in Boulder.

The cancellation came through the Office of Tibet, which put it plainly. His Holiness had come to the U.S. that week for a medical evaluation. When the evaluation was finished, his doctors told him to rest completely. Because of that, he would head back to Dharamsala, India, the following week rather than continue on to the States the next month. The statement closed by expressing deep regret over scrapping the trip.

Anyone from the University of Colorado or Naropa who bought a ticket lost the chance to see him in person, with no word on when his health might turn around. People who had paid were told refunds would start going out after October 5th, 2015.

Around the same time he found himself in the middle of a small uproar over a joke. Asked about reincarnation, he said that if he came back as a woman he would want to be a mischievous blonde one, and that if she were not attractive, nobody would pay her any attention. The remark split people. Some read it as a crude comment on women. Others shrugged it off as harmless and not worth a second thought.

Which raises a fair question about how hard the public should be on him. He is widely admired for staying open, cheerful, and gentle toward the Chinese government, which calls him a wolf and has made clear he would be arrested the moment he set foot back in Tibet. While he jokes, monks in his homeland have gone on setting fire to themselves, a form of nonviolent protest meant to force the world to look at the erosion of their culture.

The history behind all of this is ugly. China moved into Tibet partly to get at the minerals and other resources in and around the territory, and justified the seizure by calling the region a piece of China that had drifted away. What its government did there has been recorded in detail. Soldiers defiled the holiest temples and monasteries and assaulted Tibetan women. Among the worst of it was the organized rape of nuns, used as a tool to break the spirit of a people and keep them under control.

Abuse by those in power does not stay inside one border. The U.S. military and the United Nations have both faced questions over turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse of children in refugee camps. His message of peace and loving-kindness may still be worth holding onto, even with him out of reach in America this fall.

References: Elephant Journal and Patheos (American Buddhist blog), both September 2015.