Dalai Lama allays health concerns

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, June 25

The Dalai Lama on Monday again allayed fears regarding his health after an online portal reported that he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer.

“Now, I am 83 years old and I am ok. I am looking forward to another 15 to 20 years,” the Dalai Lama said, while showing his perfect teeth during a teleconference at his residence.

He was speaking on

 “Happiness and its causes” to a group at the International Convention Centre in Sydney through the teleconference.

“If you judge from my voice, it’s quite good. I often ask people, including Indian security persons, in the morning when I meet them, what they think of my age. They make a guess of around 70. Then I tell them that I am in 80s. They say I look very young” the Dalai Lama said.

The teleconference proceeded with a series of questions regarding Tibet, conflicts, Donald Trump, the Dalai Lama’s commitments and his “valuable mistakes”.

“I think in political matter, I feel there have been no major mistakes. At 16, I took the responsibility. Then Tibet’s situation was delicate so the Regent asked me to take the responsibility. The previous Dalai Lama took the responsibility at the age of 18. I thought 16 was too early but the circumstances forced me to take the responsibility.

“So I lost my own freedom. At 24, I lost my country, then there were a lot of problems. But I think, now looking back, during those difficult periods, no major mistakes. I think all my major decisions eventually seem very correct”.

He mentioned an old Tibetan official who remained skeptical of his decision to flee Lhasa in 1959 until the Cultural Revolution took place after which he was convinced that the decision was correct.

“In 2001, I passed responsibility to the elected political leadership.  Next 10 years, I remained in semi-retired position. Then in 2011, I totally retired. In anyway, I am quite free now,” he said.

Responding to a question on how he managed the grief of leaving homeland, the Dalai Lama said Tibetans believed in the law of causality, and the Tibetan problem was a consequence of old causes that had ripened.

“According to a Chinese history book, in 7th, 8th and 9th century, there were three major empires: the Chinese, Mongol and the Tibetan empire. In the 9th century, due to some quarrel among the Tibetan emperor, Tibet disintegrated. The problem started during that century. After that I think Tibetans paid attention to their own small circle, including the lamas, locals, and landlords in different parts of Tibet,” he said, alluding to the disintegration of Tibet.

“History had produced that way. Old causes have already there, so there will be consequences. Nobody can change that.”He said Tibet remained as one entity because of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and the language. “As many as 300 volumes of Buddhist texts translated from India and the language that covered the whole Tibetan area was what kept Tibetans as one entity. Otherwise in the political matter, for several centuries, we have really neglected”.