The 14th Dalai Lama speaks in New Zealand on December 5, 2009. The religious leader is now 79, and says he can imagine being the last Dalai Lama: \"Twenty-six hundred years of Buddhist tradition cannot be maintained by one person,\" he tells Jrg Eigendorf. Hannah Peters\/Getty Images hide caption <\/p>\n
The 14th Dalai Lama speaks in New Zealand on December 5, 2009. The religious leader is now 79, and says he can imagine being the last Dalai Lama: \"Twenty-six hundred years of Buddhist tradition cannot be maintained by one person,\" he tells Jrg Eigendorf. <\/p>\n
Tibet has \"remained a mysterious country,\" says the Dalai Lama, and the mystery extends even to himself. Ever since the spiritual leader fled to Dharamsala, India, after being forced by the Chinese to leave his home country in 1959, his only information about Tibet has come from eyewitness accounts. He tries to meet with every refugee who makes it through the Himalayas. <\/p>\n
And therefore it was neither the photographer York Hovest, nor the reporter Jrg Eigendorf, but the Dalai Lama himself who asked the first questions during their interview in Dharamsala. He wanted to know the details about Hovest's time in Tibet. Whether there were still monks in the monasteries where the Dalai Lama once studied and took his exams. How exactly the surveillance cameras of the Chinese worked. And whether it was not somehow possible to plant a few trees 5,000 meters above sea level. Page by page, he went through Hovest's book, 100 days in Tibet. <\/p>\n
But in the end it was still an interview. <\/p>\n
Your Holiness, do you think that you can return to your homeland one day? <\/p>\n
Yes, I am sure of that. China can no longer isolate itself, it must follow the global trend toward a democratic society. I can already feel that change among Chinese students. I heard there are more than 200,000 Chinese students studying abroad nowadays. A few years ago when I met students, they were serious and reserved. Today they smile. Those are signs of change. <\/p>\n
Is this the reason you have become almost conciliatory toward China during the past few months? <\/p>\n
A new era has begun with the presidency of Xi Jinping. He wants to create a more harmonious society than the one under his predecessor, Hu Jintao. In former years, it was the era of economic growth, which has created a lot of resentment and envy. <\/p>\n
Deep down in their hearts, 95 percent of all Tibetans still feel and think very Tibetan. They are strongly connected to their culture. <\/p>\n
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The Dalai Lama Talks Chinese Reforms, Tibetan Challenges<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 14th Dalai Lama speaks in New Zealand on December 5, 2009. The religious leader is now 79, and says he can imagine being the last Dalai Lama: \"Twenty-six hundred years of Buddhist tradition cannot be maintained by one person,\" he tells Jrg Eigendorf. Hannah Peters\/Getty Images hide caption The 14th Dalai Lama speaks in New Zealand on December 5, 2009. Continue reading