On the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday
“We owe him more than we realize” – by Franz Alt
The Dalai Lama was born in Taktser in eastern Tibet on July 6, 1935. This year, he celebrates his 90th birthday. Despite his advanced age, he continues to work tirelessly for a peaceful and just world. Renowned journalist Franz Alt has accompanied him for decades and shares a very personal view of his friend’s long-standing commitment in BUDDHISM aktuell.
Just a few years ago, the Dalai Lama gave speeches to tens of thousands of people, was received by heads of state, and was considered the “most likable person in the world” in polls in the West for many years. Hollywood has made two films about him, and his books are international bestsellers. Solidarity stickers with the words “Free Tibet” are still stuck on countless cars around the world.
Today, at the age of almost 90 and in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the Dalai Lama lives a rather secluded life in exile in Dharamsala, northern India, on the edge of the Himalayas. Although he receives visitors from all over the world every week, China is exerting increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on countries that welcome him. As a result, more and more Western politicians are hesitating to do so. After taking office in January 2025, US President Donald Trump cut financial support for Tibetan aid organizations. Recently, the weekly newspaper Die Zeit quoted one of his advisors as saying that although the Dalai Lama had won over the spiritual world, he had long since lost his homeland of Tibet. There are increasing voices claiming that the Dalai Lama’s story is tragic and sad.
Is that really the case? I would like to disagree.
The Dalai Lama has been living in exile in India for 66 years, making him one of the world’s oldest refugees. His beloved homeland, the roof of the world, is more isolated from the world than ever before due to Chinese tyranny.
For several years now, Tibetan children as young as four have been separated from their parents and placed in compulsory boarding schools run by Chinese or Tibetans loyal to them. This is yet another deliberate attempt to destroy Tibet’s cultural, religious, and linguistic roots, as pupils in these boarding schools are only allowed to speak Chinese. The example of Tibet shows the world how an imperial superpower is trying to wipe out a small people with a great, rich, and long-standing culture—or, as the Chinese communists say, to “modernize the backward Tibetans.”
In dialogue with science
But this plan does not have to succeed. The name of the Dalai Lama means “ocean of compassion” – this is exactly what he exemplifies with his life, and it has a lasting impact.
It is largely thanks to the Dalai Lama that people everywhere – including in China – are now thinking about mindfulness and a “revolution of compassion.” In China, no fewer than 400 million people are guided by Buddhism. The fact that the search for silence and meditation has become a kind of mass culture in recent decades through adult education centers around the world is largely thanks to the Dalai Lama.
I am convinced that we owe the 90-year-old more than we realize. For him, it is not only about the spiritual progress of individuals, but also about the progress of science and a new global ethic. For decades, he has been in contact with scientists in the field of brain research at research institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, Stanford, Zurich, and Strasbourg. In dozens of encounters with the Dalai Lama, I have been able to witness firsthand how a new idea has gained momentum in research: our brain is plastic and changeable. We can train it like a muscle—through meditation, as practiced by Buddhist nuns and monks, but also through mental and spiritual training exercises known to all religions and wisdom teachings. From this, the Dalai Lama formed his consistently nonviolent philosophy of a world revolution of compassion—which can change the world more profoundly in the long term than all classical theories of revolution that rely on violent upheaval.
Ethics of compassion
The Dalai Lama’s views on religion are also noteworthy. In our joint book, “The Dalai Lama’s Appeal to the World: Ethics is More Important than Religion,” he says:
“Some days I think it would be better if we didn’t have any religions at all. All religions and all holy scriptures have the potential for violence. That is why we need a secular ethic that transcends all religions.”
Our book—the joint work of a Christian and a Buddhist—carried this message, which is critical of religion yet deeply value-based, around the world as a bestseller and has been translated into 25 languages. Elsewhere in the same book, the Dalai Lama elaborates on the topic in even greater detail and leaves no doubt as to the power he believes humans possess:
“I see more and more clearly that our spiritual well-being does not depend on religion, but springs from our innate human nature, our natural predisposition to kindness, compassion, and caring for others. Regardless of whether we belong to a religion or not, we all have a fundamental and human ethical source within us. We must nurture and cultivate this common ethical foundation. Ethics, not religion, is embedded in human nature. And so we can also work to preserve creation. That is practiced religion and practiced ethics. Compassion is the basis of human coexistence. It is my conviction that human development is based on cooperation, not competition. This has been scientifically proven.”
When I quote such clear and straightforward statements by the Dalai Lama in lectures, I experience gratitude and approval; many people even speak of a “liberation” afterwards.
A Green
The Dalai Lama’s secular ethics transcend all artificial national, religious, and cultural boundaries. He makes it unmistakably clear that he is also part of the global team of climate protectors when he says:
“Buddha was a Green, and I am a Green.”
On May 31, 2019, the Dalai Lama wrote to the then 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, words that testify to what the theologian and physician Albert Schweizer called “reverence for all life”:
“I am also a fervent advocate of environmental protection. … It is encouraging to see how you have opened the eyes of the world to the urgency of protecting our planet, our only home. At the same time, you have inspired so many young brothers and sisters to join this movement.”
Like the Fridays for Future movement, climate policy should also be guided by science, demands the Dalai Lama – and he rejects inaction and hopelessness when he says:
“Our future is not blind fate. The future is what we make of it today.”
A powerful encouragement. I am impressed by how many years of his life the Dalai Lama has remained true to his cause, writing in our joint book “Protect Our Environment: The Dalai Lama’s Climate Appeal to the World” in 2005:
“We humans are the only species that has the power to destroy our planet and its climate – or to save it.”
“Wonderful!”
I, too, have been concerned with ecological issues for decades and know that it is still possible to save this planet from ecological collapse. A few adjustments will make this possible: a rapid phase-out of coal, CO2 pricing, a rapid transition to electric mobility, a doubling of local public transport, a switch to organic farming, global reforestation and greening of deserts – but above all, renewable energies.
By 2035 or 2040 at the latest, the energy we consume can be 100 percent renewable. This is not an impossible challenge, because the sun provides us with 15,000 times more energy than the eight billion people currently consume. The great economic advantage of this future ecological energy supply: The sun doesn’t send us a bill – that’s why solar energy is so cheap, cheaper than all fossil and nuclear energy sources. Solar power is already being generated in the Arabian desert for one euro cent per kilowatt hour. What an opportunity for the poor in our world to escape poverty and underdevelopment – we just have to finally open ourselves up to the energy from above. Added to this are environmentally and climate-friendly wind energy, hydropower, bioenergy, and geothermal energy.
When I showed the Dalai Lama photos of solar power plants in the Arabian desert during one of our meetings, his words were: “Wonderful, wonderful!” And if the Dalai Lama agrees with confidence and hope, what are we waiting for?
No enemies
Humanity has now reached a point where it must stop exploiting and oppressing other countries and nature. Instead, it must live together with them as partners and promote the awakening consciousness in our universe for a way of life based on connectedness. The most convincing role models for a more sustainable and better world in the last two and a half millennia were Buddha and Jesus. But so far, we have learned too little from them, otherwise we would not be arming ourselves with nuclear weapons, waging wars, or destroying the environment. The Dalai Lama repeatedly asks why we do not finally follow the example of these great role models. Mahatma Gandhi was and remains his great role model for nonviolent politics. Truth was Gandhi’s central principle, just as the Sermon on the Mount was for Jesus and compassion for Buddha. However, the unbridled neoliberalism that prevails worldwide today has practically developed into a dictatorship of international finance capital. The Dalai Lama has also commented on this:
“Money is an important medium of exchange, but it is wrong to regard money as a god or a substance with its own power.”
On March 10, 1959, the popular uprising in Tibet against brutal Chinese oppression began. The Dalai Lama was forced to flee to exile in India. To ensure that the world does not forget the fate of the Tibetan people, more than 400 German municipalities will once again raise the Tibetan flag on March 10, 2025, under the motto “Show your colors for Tibet.” This is more than mere symbolic politics, emphasizes Kelsang Gyaltsen, the Dalai Lama’s long-time secretary and his negotiator in China. He, who fled Tibet with his parents at the age of nine, considers flying the flag for Tibet to be vital for survival, because the people there need to know that they have not been forgotten. It would be desirable if more municipalities in Germany would join this show of solidarity.
Because the despair is great: In the last 15 years, 169 Tibetans, mostly monks, have burned themselves to death in protest against China’s repression in Tibet. There is no clearer or more powerful way to express one’s rejection of China’s policy toward Tibet. But the Dalai Lama’s strong and convincing strategy remains:
“I have no enemies. There are only people I haven’t met yet.”
He told me this 25 years ago and added with a laugh:
“You can learn the most from your enemies. In a sense, they are our best teachers.”
The Dalai Lama harbors no hatred toward the Chinese rulers in Beijing and is convinced that this strategy will be successful in the long term. I met him in Berlin in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. The “wallpeckers” had already knocked holes in the symbol of oppression, handed the Dalai Lama a burning candle, and lifted him onto the wall. There he said something that I will never forget:
“Just as this wall is now falling, Tibet will one day be free.”
The Dalai Lama once told me that he had dreamed that he would live to be 113 years old. “Is that really what you want?” I asked him. His answer: “Yes, then I can annoy the Chinese for a long time.”
That is love for one’s enemies in practice.
Happy birthday, dear friend! And a long life for Your Holiness!
Source
Franz Alt 2025 | First published in BUDDHISMUS aktuell in July 2025 | Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
