Foreign News: DEFIANT SPIRIT: THE DALAI LAMA

BY Buddhist reckoning, the Dalai Lama is more than 500 years old, since he is the reincarnation of all his predecessors. By Western standards he is only 23. Each time a Dalai Lama dies, monks spend months and even years looking for a suitable boy child born after his death (a system that in effect makes for a powerful regency).

Birth & Discovery. Born June 6, 1935, in the Chinese province of Chinghai, the Dalai Lama was one of six children of a peasant who lived near a three-storied monastery with a golden roof. It was this monastery that the regent of...

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