The 14th Dalai Lama is Tibet's exiled spiritual leader and a Nobel peace laureate. He lives in Dharamsala in northern India, where he greets some 300 devotees and well-wishers individually five times a week, plus occasional public teachings. He was approaching his 90th birthday in July 2025.
By Tibetan tradition, after a Dalai Lama's death, aides and senior lamas identify an infant as his reincarnation. But a Dalai Lama can choose not to be reborn, or can "emanate" as another person while still alive. In a book published in March 2025 the Dalai Lama said his heir would be born in the free world. People close to him say reincarnation is more likely than emanation.
The Dalai Lama gave up his political powers in 2011. Penpa Tsering, the leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile, says the risks of a leadership vacuum during the decade or two in which a successor grows up are manageable, as other senior lamas will provide religious leadership during the transition.
China's atheist Communist Party, which seized Tibet in 1951, says "emanation" is not permitted and that it alone can approve the next Dalai Lama. China is expected to name a rival successor when the current Dalai Lama dies, just as it did with the Panchen Lama in 1989. No country is likely to risk official contact with the next Dalai Lama, as China has imposed increasing commercial costs on those that do; the incumbent has not met a world leader since Barack Obama in 2016.
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet for India in 1959. He is the only figure who commands authority among almost all 7m Tibetans in China and the 150,000-strong diaspora. China has long denounced him as a separatist "wolf in monk's robes", but has also tried to persuade him to return to Tibet and endorse party rule. He advocates the "Middle Way"—greater autonomy for Tibet within China, short of full independence.
America has long backed Tibetans' demands for greater freedom. During the first Trump administration, Congress passed a law authorising sanctions against Chinese officials interfering in the succession. Marco Rubio, America's secretary of state, pledged continued support in March 2025. But Trumpian cuts have withdrawn some $22m in annual funding for Tibetans, equivalent to more than half the government-in-exile's budget. The Dalai Lama once said Donald Trump lacked "moral principle".
The EU said in June 2025 that the next Dalai Lama should be chosen "without government interference".
India provides a home to the Dalai Lama, the government-in-exile and half the Tibetan diaspora. If the next Dalai Lama is found in India, as many expect, its government would probably offer him sanctuary; the Dalai Lama is revered by many Indian Buddhists and Hindus. Yet India will fret over irking China: its trade deficit with China hit a record of $99bn in 2024-25. He rarely leaves Dharamsala.
No matter where I go, the place is always called "here".