A Life in the Day: The Dalai Lama
His Holiness the Dalai Lama on prayer power, surgery, and his tireless fight for his people
My day starts at 3.30am.
I recite an inspirational stanza in praise of Buddha Shakyamuni.
It reads: “Enthused by great compassion/You taught the immaculate teaching./To dispel all perverted views/To you, the Buddha, I bow.” I recite that with prayers in prostration. After that, analytical meditation. What is Buddha? What is self? I reflect on emptiness — the ultimate reality — and altruism. All human beings are the same: we all want happiness and we do not want suffering. Then the treadmill, jogging for 40 minutes. If you hold the rail firmly you can recite a prayer and meditate too. But you must take care or you might fall off!
Breakfast is at 5.30, a porridge called tsampa, made from roasted barley. Delicious and good protein — quite heavy, but necessary, because empty stomach since lunch the previous day. Then heavy work in the bathroom or toilet. Before my gall-bladder surgery in October, this not so certain: sometimes you have to force your way through! But now seems more regular.
I listen to the radio, mainly BBC or occasionally a Tibetan broadcast from America. Then meditation, for five hours if possible. This includes visualisation of the mandala, or deity-yoga meditation. We say that these meditations can prepare one for death and give some power of control when it happens.
Mid-morning in Dharamsala, where I live, I go to my office or to a meeting. If I’m not in a hurry, I study Tibetan scriptures, then the Indian newspapers and perhaps Time and Newsweek. The hours simply fly by. Lunch is at 11.30. For Buddhist monks, lunch must begin before noon. Except for two days a week, it is vegetarian food which in India is excellent. Sometimes in the West the food is very good quality, very poor quantity. Then you need three or four bowls of rice to fill up.
People say: “Dalai Lama, where is home for you now?” I spent my first 25 years in Tibet, but I’m nearly 50 years in India, so now Dharamsala is our home. The scenery here is beautiful and the temperature is very good. My garden is very special to me. I love tulip, hyacinth and delphinium, lupins and cyclamen. Friends bring me beautiful orchids, but most cannot survive in our climate. I designed something to water them and regulate the temperature, but still they die. It struck me that my design is like a cemetery for orchids! I also like polishing stones and beads, and I am good with mechanical things
Two American ladies, years ago, came to see me. Their camera had broken, and they asked me to repair it. I said, “I am not 100% sure,” but I opened the camera and found the damage, so I fixed it. But I have no knowledge of computers and I don’t even own a mobile phone.
Buddhist monks take vows of simplicity, which means refraining from gathering wealth for oneself, as it hinders one’s spiritual growth. That is a joyous part of my life. A reporter said to me: “Dalai Lama, you are the most respected leader for the people.” I said: “I’m just a simple Buddhist monk.” One thousand years ago, a Tibetan master said: “When many people respect you, you must feel you are the lowest, so you will not develop prejudice or arrogance.” This I always practise.
In the afternoon I go to my office again. I do interviews or meet the Kalon Tripa, the head of the Tibetan government in exile. Now I’m older my physicians advise me to do less. But I like to go daily to meet my people who have come from Tibet to India. After the riots in Tibet on March 10 of last year, the Chinese always say: “These crises are originating from the Dalai Lama.” In fact, I’m always telling the Tibetans we must work and not demonstrate. But then it happened like that.
At 5 I have tea. Then meditation again, for one or two hours. This helps me in many ways. If the plane should be delayed, when I meditate I can wait one or two hours and I have no impatience. Around 7pm, sleeping. Sleep is the most important meditation. Sometimes nine hours without disturbance. No sleeping pill. Nothing. A doctor examined my body recently, and he said: “Your age is 73, but your body element looks like 60.” So that brings some hope I will live another 10, 20, even 30 years! Would I like that? I don’t know. Until we see a solution between the Tibetans and Chinese, it’s difficult. Should that change, then if death were to come tonight, I would have no regret.
Interview by Beverley D’Silva.
Photograph by James Nachtwey
