Days before he turned 90 last week the Dalai Lama hurled a rhetorical hand grenade at the Chinese Communist Party. Having devoted almost the entirety of his life striving to preserve the imperiled culture and identity of Tibet — invaded and annexed by China in 1950 — the world’s most famous Buddhist monk finally confirmed that his successor will be chosen by a conclave comprising his most trusted followers.
The search for the next Dalai Lama will not fully break from tradition, a process in which high-ranking lamas rely on dreams, divinations and whispers of oracles to locate the “reincarnation” of their deceased leader.
But it will still be radically novel because, as the Dalai Lama has previously stated, his successor will have to be found in the “free world” — outside Tibet, where he has historically been found — to avoid Chinese control.
The Dalai Lama has decreed that