The aging spiritual leader is looking to prevent Beijing from taking advantage of a power vacuum. But there is pressure to preserve a core element of Tibetan Buddhism.
-By Mujib Mashal and Hari Kumar from Dharamsala, July 2, 2025
The Dalai Lama has spent decades in exile thinking about ways to prevent the Chinese government from taking control of Tibetan Buddhism after his death and ending the struggle for Tibetan autonomy.
Early on, he suggested that the institution of the Dalai Lama could be eliminated altogether to deprive Beijing of a target to exploit. Later, he focused on how to keep the Chinese Communist Party from installing its own choice to succeed him. He floated a sharp break from precedent, saying he might transfer his spiritual powers to an adult during his lifetime to avoid the vacuum that would come with selecting a child as his reincarnation and successor.
But on Wednesday, as senior monks filed into a much-anticipated conference in Dharamsala, India, as part of 90th birthday celebrations for the Dalai Lama, he made clear that tradition would prevail.
The institution of the Dalai Lama, he said, will continue. And his successor will be selected through the usual process of reincarnation.
His decision reflected the fine line that even a modernizing Dalai Lama must tread between preserving a core element of Tibetan Buddhism and shielding it from political manipulation by Beijing.
It showed the limits of his powers to reshape the institution he has towered over for more than seven decades, as well as his pragmatic understanding of Tibetans’ David-vs.-Goliath struggle against the Chinese government.
“The issue in probably any religion, but especially a religion where you have a leader who’s modernizing, is how far can you push your community to take up a new approach,” said Robert Barnett, a scholar of Tibet at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
“He may have sensed that the community wasn’t quite ready to take this new step of succession,” he added. Click here to read more.
