Dalai Lama Celebrates 79th Birthday: A Look The Buddhist Leader Through The Years

[hrmjustin]

Antonia Blumberg

His Holiness the Dalai Lama turns 79 on July 6, 2014, and HuffPost Religion celebrates by taking a look his life through the years.

The Dalai Lama was born Lhamo Dhondup on July 6, 1935 to a farming family in northeastern Tibet. Buddhist leaders identified him as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama when he was just two years old. At age six, he began monastic education and at 15 assumed political power in Tibet following China's invasion.

He has lived in exile from Tibet since 1959 but uses his position as the Tibetan leader to travel around the world promoting a message of peace.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/05/dalai-lama-birthday_n_5555484.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

[intaglio]

1. Meant humorously

Source Wikimedia Commons

[littlemissmartypants]

2. Namaste. eom

[TM99]

3. A wonderful and compassionate man.

I have had the pleasure of several connections with H.H. the Dalai Lama. I have always been very impressed with his genuine intelligence, caring, and compassion.

Happy Birthday indeed!

[okasha]

4. How marvelous you've met him.

Happy Birthday to His Holiness. (And many happy returns, in all senses.)

[TM99]

5. Truly.

I am fortunate to have attended two different Kalachakra Empowerments with him, and one of my teachers of many years now has His Holiness as his root Guru.

[okasha]

6. In Native practice,

that puts you in His Holiness' spiritual lineage. What an honor!

[TM99]

7. Thank you. It is.

Yes, it very similar in Buddhist schools.

Personally while I have had several dear teachers from Zen to Tibetan to Tendai, I have yet to have found a 'root' guru. I suppose when and if I am to have one, the opportunity will present itself when it does. I am quite sanguine about it.