(TibetanReview.net, Dec24’24) –As he prepared to leave for an extended stay at the Tibetan settlement in Bylakuppe town in the south Indian state of Karnataka, the Dalai Lama has said he does not have any serious health problem while reiterating his premonition to live to be 110 years old.
In a revised schedule, the Dalai Lama is now to leave Dharamshala, his exile home since 1959 in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, on Jan 3 and reach Bylakuppe on Jan 5.
“According to my dream, I may live 110 years,” Reuters Dec 24 quoted the 89-year-old spiritual head of Tibet and the 1989 Nobel laureate as saying, when asked about his health and how he was feeling.
The knee too is improving, he was cited as saying in a brief interview at his residence after blessing more than 300 visitors from India and overseas at a regular audience last week. “Not much serious problem,” he has said.
The Dalai Lama is stated to see hundreds of people three times a week at his home, visiting Dharamshala to seek his blessing.
The Dalai Lama’s prediction of living for another two decades is reassuring for his followers, but more clarity on his succession – including if and where he will be reincarnated – could come from him when he turns 90 in July, Dolma Tsering Teykhang, the deputy speaker of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, was cited as saying.
“We are just lay people, we can’t fathom his wisdom, so we are waiting for his clear guidance,” the report quoted Teykhang as saying.
She has said that although even thinking of the current Dalai Lama’s demise brings tears to her eyes, there is a system in place for the Tibetan-government-in-exile to continue its political work while officers of the Dalai Lama’s Gaden Phodrang Foundation would be responsible for searching and recognising the next Dalai Lama.
“Without His Holiness, the struggle of Tibet, I don’t know where it will go. But then I put my hope in the administration that he has built in 60 years from nothing to this level,” she has said.
While no official engagements have been announced, the Dalai Lama is expected to stay at Bylakuppe – spending a significant amount of time at the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery there – until the Tibetan Losar (New Year) festival in the last week of Feb 2025, the starofmysore.com earlier reported Dec 21.