Top 5 Dalai Lama Facts

If you only know one thing about Buddhism, we bet that it’s something to do with today’s topic, the smiling Tibetan monk better known as the Dalai Lama. Welcome to WatchMojo's Top 5 Facts. Prepare to be enlightened as we count down five facts on the life, work and quirks of the Dalai Lama. We’re going to try and get through this without too many puns about the South American herbivore.

I’m going to go ahead and say it, the Dalai Lama was a weird kid. As a young boy, His Holiness remembers hanging out in the family’s chicken coop and making clucking noises alongside the hens, as well running up to his father and tugging on his moustache. The young boy also liked to pack a bag and say “I'm going to Lhasa!” (the capital of Tibet). After the 13th Dalai Lama died, Buddhist monks searched across Tibet looking for the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, as per their tradition. The monks found the odd little boy and tested him by bringing out some of the belongings of the old Dalai Lama, and placing them beside objects that weren’t his. Every time the young boy grabbed the Lama’s things, shouting “Mine, that’s mine!” The Verdict? The Monks had found their reincarnated leader.

Maybe not what you’d expect from a religious leader, given the, um, interesting historical relationship of religion and science. As a boy the Dalai Lama was fascinated by machines, taking apart and putting back together wind-up toys, clocks, film projectors and anything else he could find. In one interview, he described looking through a telescope at a young age and seeing that the moon as a cratered rock orbiting the earth, and not a heavenly, light-emitting orb like his religious tutors had told him. When astronomer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan asked the Dalai Lama what would happen if science disproved a core Buddhist belief like reincarnation, the lama replied, basically, that if science could disprove reincarnation, Tibetan Buddhism would abandon reincarnation as a doctrine. He also told Sagan that some Buddhists see Buddhism less as a religion and more of a science of the mind.

The Dalai Lama has publicly described himself half-Buddhist and--half-Marxist!? Marxism is of course the socialist ideology behind Communism. That’s right, comrade! The Dalai Lama has publicly criticised capitalism as an inhuman, profit-obsessed ideology devoid of love and compassion. On the contrary, the Dalai Lama feels his values are closer to Marxism, concerned with fulfilling the needs of ordinary people. As a young man, His Holiness even wanted to join the Communist Party himself! There’s an interesting irony that he, albeit jokingly, has called himself more left wing than the communist Chinese government that exiled him from his homeland decades ago. Even still, the Dalai Lama rejects all violence as a political tool and he has criticised the impersonal and often brutal dictatorships in China, Vietnam and the Soviet Union.

The Dalai Lama is almost universally beloved and has polled as the most popular world-leader on Earth. But his popularity is more complicated in China, which controls the Dalai Lama’s homeland of Tibet. Since the Dalai Lamas have traditionally been the leaders of Tibet, the Chinese government sees him as a rival and have punished anyone they see as friendly to the Dalai Lama. Western artists who are sympathetic to the Dalai Lama have had their work banned in China–Martin Scorsese, Bjork and most recently Lady Gaga have all faced the wrath of Beijing. The Dalai Lama may only think of himself as a monk but for everyone else he is powerful and world-famous political symbol. And until he can return to Tibet, he is also the world’s most famous refugee.

Buddhists believe in the principal of samsara, the cycle of death and reincarnation, and the current Dalai Lama is the fourteenth earthly incarnation of the original Dalai Lama. Ever since the 1990s there has been talk about his next reincarnation. The Chinese government have declared that they are in charge of finding his successor, and their involvement would probably mean that it would be someone who grows up to be more cooperative with Chinese rule in Tibet. But recently His Holiness has gone a step further and said he might choose to not reincarnate at all, which would make it impossible for the government of China to claim a successor. Besides, maybe the Dalai Lama just wants to finish on a high note. He figures that we’ve gone five centuries with a Dalai Lama, so we may as well finish off with a popular one.

So, what do you think of the Dalai Lama? Do you think he’ll ever see Tibet again? For more perpetually reincarnated top 10s and politically exiled Top 5s, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.