His Holiness the Dalai Lama: New York City, October 12/13/14 2007, Radio City Music Hall
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
A Brief Biography of the Dalai Lama
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is both the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people. He was born to a farming family in a small hamlet located in Amdo, northeastern Tibet in 1935. At the age of two, the child whose birth name was Lhamo Dhondup, was recognized as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso.
His Holiness began his monastic education at the age of six. The curriculum consisted of five main topics: Prajnaparimita, the perfection of wisdom; Madhyamika, the philosophy of the Middle-Way; Vinaya, the canon of monastic discipline; Abidharma, metaphysics and cosmology; and Pramana, logic and epistemology. At twenty-five 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 a Geshe Lharampa degree, which is equivalent to a doctorate of Buddhist philosophy.
In 1950, one year after China's invasion of Tibet, His Holiness was called upon to assume full political power. In 1954, he went to Beijing for peace talks with Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders, including Deng Xiaoping and Chou Enlai. However, in 1959, following the brutal suppression of the Tibetan national uprising in Lhasa by Chinese troops, His Holiness was forced to escape into exile. Since then he has lived in Dharamsala, northern India, where he and his fellow exiled Tibetans have established the seat of the Tibetan Administration in Exile.
In 1989, the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for the people of Tibet. He has consistently advocated policies of non-violence, even in the face of extreme aggression by the Chinese communist government. He became the first Nobel Laureate to be formally recognized for his concern for environmental issues throughout the world.
His Holiness has traveled to more than sixty-two countries spanning six continents, meeting with the presidents, prime ministers, and crowned rulers of most major nations.
Since 1959 His Holiness has received over eighty-four awards, medals, and honorary doctorates in recognition of his message of compassion, peace, non-violence, interfaith understanding, and universal responsibility. His Holiness has also authored over seventy books, which include An Open Heart, Ethics for the New Millennium, and The Universe in a Single Atom.