The graceful election of Pope Leo XIV because the 267th pontiff mirrored the cautious groundwork laid by Pope Francis, who appointed 80 p.c of the cardinals eligible to vote within the papal conclave—together with the brand new pope himself. The following succession of a significant non secular chief is prone to be that of the 14th Dalai Lama, who turns 90 years previous on July 6. It’s unlikely to be as clean.
Not because the Fifth Dalai Lama—who died in 1682, forsaking a unified Tibetan plateau—has a succession carried such weight for the way forward for Tibetan identification and management. At this time, the stakes are completely different however no much less profound. China workout routines absolute management over Tibet itself, but one pressure stays past Beijing’s grasp: the present Dalai Lama. He lives freely in exile however nonetheless instructions international reverence.
The graceful election of Pope Leo XIV because the 267th pontiff mirrored the cautious groundwork laid by Pope Francis, who appointed 80 p.c of the cardinals eligible to vote within the papal conclave—together with the brand new pope himself. The following succession of a significant non secular chief is prone to be that of the 14th Dalai Lama, who turns 90 years previous on July 6. It’s unlikely to be as clean.
Not because the Fifth Dalai Lama—who died in 1682, forsaking a unified Tibetan plateau—has a succession carried such weight for the way forward for Tibetan identification and management. At this time, the stakes are completely different however no much less profound. China workout routines absolute management over Tibet itself, but one pressure stays past Beijing’s grasp: the present Dalai Lama. He lives freely in exile however nonetheless instructions international reverence.
On July 2, the Dalai Lama issued a assertion reaffirming that the establishment of the Dalai Lama will proceed after his loss of life. He additionally reiterated that his 2011 assertion outlines the method for recognizing his successor and that his workplace, the Gaden Phodrang Belief, will maintain sole authority over the succession. How the Dalai Lama and his workplace handle this transition can be pivotal in figuring out whether or not this historical lineage retains its religious legitimacy amid rising political interference—or dangers fracturing underneath exterior strain.
Whereas the Catholic papacy traces its lineage to Saint Peter practically 2,000 years in the past, the Dalai Lama establishment—established within the late 14th century —is comparatively younger by comparability, with the primary two Dalai Lamas being awarded the title posthumously. The title itself, which means “Ocean of Knowledge,” was bestowed on the third Dalai Lama by Mongolian ruler Altan Khan in 1578. The place operates inside Tibetan Buddhism’s reincarnation tulku system, the place there are completely different ranges of rebirth and excessive lamas or tulkus are believed to consciously select rebirth to proceed their religious mission. The Dalai Lama represents essentially the most revered of those reincarnated lineages. From the seventeenth century onward, successive Dalai Lamas—or their appointed regents when the lama was a minor—maintained political energy in Tibet by means of a “patron-priest” (Cho-yon) relationship with the Mongols and subsequent Chinese language dynasties by means of the Qing interval, and succeeded in creating a particular theocratic system that merged absolute non secular authority with temporal energy.
Because the religious chief of Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama instructions unquestioned authority and deep loyalty from hundreds of thousands worldwide, standing as a permanent image of nonviolent resistance and Tibetan identification. His successor will inherit his ethical and diplomatic affect, whereas the succession course of and consequence will decide the way forward for Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan battle for freedom and self-determination. For China, controlling this succession provides the last word prize: legitimizing many years of occupation by remodeling Tibet’s biggest image of resistance into an instrument of state authority.
In his March 2025 guide Voice for the Unvoiced, the present Dalai Lama made two vital declarations: First, reversing earlier solutions that the lineage may finish with him, he confirmed there can be a fifteenth Dalai Lama “to hold on the work of the predecessor”; second, he declared that “the brand new Dalai Lama can be born within the free world.” This alerts his intention to make sure the subsequent Dalai Lama emerges from amongst Tibetan exiles or the broader Tibetan Buddhist group outdoors Tibet and China.
This second declaration units the stage for a direct confrontation with China, which claims the only proper to decide on the subsequent Dalai Lama. The normal strategy of recognizing a reincarnated lama includes search groups decoding religious indicators and performing sacred rituals to establish a baby born across the time of the predecessor’s loss of life. This elaborate course of sometimes follows directions left by the deceased lama, mixed with consultations with oracles and senior monks, prophetic visions, and a collection of assessments designed to verify the kid’s genuine identification.
Chinese language efforts to regulate the number of the Dalai Lama and different excessive Tibetan non secular figures stretch again to the Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty. In 1792, the Qing court docket proposed that Tibetans use the “golden urn” technique to pick out reincarnations of senior non secular leaders. Underneath this technique, candidates’ names had been positioned in an urn and choice occurred by means of drawing tons. In response to the Dalai Lama’s 2011 assertion, solely the eleventh Dalai Lama was really acknowledged utilizing this technique. In 2023, the ruling Chinese language Communist Occasion (CCP) introduced that the reincarnation of the “Dalai Lamas and Panchen Rinpoches, should be seemed for inside the nation, determined by means of the observe of lot-drawing from the golden urn, and obtain approval from the central authorities.”
Any chance of discovering frequent floor with the Chinese language management on the problem of succession was shattered in 1995, when China hijacked the reincarnation strategy of the tenth Panchen Lama, the second-ranking non secular determine in Tibet. The Chinese language authorities kidnapped the authentic eleventh Panchen Lama, then simply 6 years previous, and his household, putting in a state-approved alternative. The actual Panchen Lama has been lacking ever since, making 2025 the thirtieth 12 months of his enforced disappearance.
Following this development, Beijing will doubtless appoint its personal candidate because the fifteenth Dalai Lama and strain each Tibetans and international governments to just accept its alternative. Simply as China insists that different international locations adhere to its “One China” coverage relating to Taiwan, it’ll doubtless demand a “One Dalai Lama” coverage—recognition of solely the Chinese language-appointed Dalai Lama—in its bilateral relations. China’s president, Xi Jinping, would view such an consequence because the crowning achievement within the nation’s centuries-long quest to claim management and legitimacy over Tibet.
The Dalai Lama’s succession additionally carries vital geopolitical implications each regionally and globally. Ought to the fifteenth Dalai Lama be born in India and maintain Indian citizenship, it might introduce a posh new dimension to the already strained India-China relationship. An Indian-born Dalai Lama may enhance strain on New Delhi to undertake a extra overtly supportive stance towards the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan individuals’s proper to self-determination. India has lengthy served as a bunch to the Dalai Lama, the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan government-in-exile), and practically 85,000 Tibetan refugees. Whereas offering sanctuary and help, India maintains an official coverage that acknowledges Tibet as a part of China and prohibits overtly anti-China political actions on its soil. New Delhi has remained conspicuously silent on the delicate query of the 14th Dalai Lama’s succession.
Mongolia and Nepal—each economically depending on China—would face immense strain from Beijing if a reincarnation of the Dalai Lama had been found inside their borders, particularly if they didn’t acknowledge the Chinese language-appointed candidate. Ulaanbaatar has already skilled the implications of defying Beijing. When the Dalai Lama visited Mongolia in 2016, China responded by closing a key border crossing and freezing bilateral diplomacy.
The USA’ Tibetan Coverage and Assist Act, signed by U.S. President Donald Trump throughout his first time period, authorizes the U.S. authorities to “take all acceptable measures to carry accountable senior officers of the Authorities of the Folks’s Republic of China or the Chinese language Communist Occasion” who intrude within the Dalai Lama’s succession course of. If China makes an attempt to hijack the succession, it’ll threaten the credibility and enforcement of U.S. regulation.
It’s troublesome to foretell how the Trump administration may reply, however it may select to reject or withhold recognition of a Chinese language-appointed Dalai Lama—including one more layer of complexity to already tense U.S.-China relations, significantly on points associated to human rights and non secular freedom.
The CCP will do all the pieces it could to co-opt the non secular and cultural identification of the Tibetan individuals. Now that it’s clear the establishment of the Dalai Lama will proceed—with a fifteenth Dalai Lama to be born outdoors of Tibet—essentially the most pressing job earlier than the present Dalai Lama is to outline the exact technique of succession and implement reforms that make sure the continuity and integrity of the lineage.
The Dalai Lama might not have Pope Francis’s School of Cardinals to decide on a successor from, however helpfully, the Tibetan Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation permits for appreciable flexibility. There is no such thing as a single, mounted mechanism for recognizing reincarnations, and enlightened beings such because the Dalai Lamas are believed to own the company to find out the time, place, and method of their rebirth.
One promising path to guard the succession, and in addition defined within the Dalai Lama’s September 2011 assertion, is the idea of “emanation”—whereby high-level bodhisattvas, enlightened beings just like the Dalai Lamas, can manifest in a number of our bodies concurrently. One analogy can be a cloud-computing server working a number of purposes in several places. Underneath this situation, the subsequent Dalai Lama may very well be discovered in the course of the present one’s lifetime. There have been notable cases of acknowledged emanations in latest instances inside the Nyingma and Sakya faculties of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th Dalai Lama may acknowledge a 13- or 14-year-old, transmit his knowledge, and guarantee continuity in religious management. This could additionally resolve the long-standing challenge of an interregnum—the usually decades-long hole between the loss of life of a Dalai Lama and the maturity of his acknowledged reincarnation.
Interregnums are sometimes precarious; all through Tibetan historical past, regents of younger Dalai Lamas have confronted challenges in sustaining authority. Essentially the most well-known instance concerned the regent who hid the loss of life of the Fifth Dalai Lama for 15 years though a successor had been recognized simply six years later in what’s now Arunachal Pradesh, India. Such gaps in management have traditionally led to factional infighting, monetary mismanagement, weakened central authority, political instability, and elevated vulnerability to exterior threats.
One other necessary reform for consideration is the creation of a council charged with implementing the Dalai Lama’s written directions on succession. This physique ought to embody representatives from the 4 main faculties of Tibetan Buddhism—Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug—in addition to Bon, Tibet’s indigenous, pre-Buddhist custom. By establishing such a council and clearly outlining its mandate, the Dalai Lama would handle a essential hole, as there may be presently no formal mechanism to make sure that his succession pointers are carried out, or by whom. This council ought to report back to the Gaden Phodrang Belief. A various, credible council would provide each transparency and experience for what’s prone to be a posh and contested course of in addition to guard towards mounting efforts by the CCP and Xi to co-opt this sacred custom for political ends.
The 14th Dalai Lama stands at a pivotal second in historical past, uniquely positioned to form each his personal succession and the way forward for an establishment that carries deep religious and cultural significance. His legacy is not going to solely be outlined by his lifelong dedication to peace and compassion, but in addition by his visionary efforts to adapt historical traditions to satisfy the calls for of a altering world. One closing, pressing accountability stays: to proactively redefine the reincarnation course of on his personal phrases—safeguarding it from political interference and guaranteeing the establishment’s integrity, relevance, and religious legitimacy for generations to return.
