The Dalai Lama has announced that he will have a successor after his death, continuing a centuries-old tradition that has become a flashpoint in the struggle with China’s Communist Party over Tibet’s future. Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader made the declaration on Wednesday in a video message to religious elders gathering in Dharamshala, India, where the Nobel Peace laureate has lived since fleeing Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese communist rule in 1959.
“I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue,” the Dalai Lama said in the pre-recorded video, citing requests he received over the years from Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhists urging him to do so.
“The Gaden Phodrang Trust has sole authority to recognize the future reincarnation; no one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” he added, using the formal name for the office of the Dalai Lama.
