By Shyamal Sinha
HH Dalai Lama, 83, has been admitted yesterday to a hospital in the Indian capital New Delhi with a chest infection. He is receiving treatment and is in stable condition, according to his private aide Tenzin Taklha. His Holiness was flown from his residence in Dharamsala on Tuesday after feeling discomfort in his chest.
. “He will be treated for two-three days here,” Tenzin Taklha told reporters.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has maintained his extensive travels and speaking schedule over recent years despite his advanced age and some minor health concerns. In June 2017 the Dalai Lama told a gathering in San Diego, California, that on his recent trip to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, doctors had found nothing left of a “small sign of cancer” in his prostate gland they had identified and treated two years before.
“This time during the examination at the Mayo Clinic, they saw no trace of it. It is completely cured,” His Holiness said. “I arrived [at the clinic] on 13 June, and a medical exam was done on the 14th . . . I was told that my health was very good.” (Central Tibetan Administration)
The Dalai Lama’s personal doctor, Dr. Tseten Dorjee, strongly denied claims last summer that he was in declining health: “As for insinuations that the Dalai Lama needed support while walking because of cancer, he said that the Dalai Lama did have mild osteo-arthritis, common to people his age, but that did not prevent him from maintaining ‘a gruelling pace,’ which many youngsters would find hard to match. In fact, the condition was so mild that it did not even require surgery.” (Central Tibetan Administration)
Nonetheless, attention has been on international relations as the Dalai Lama signals where he might reincarnate. China last month asserted that any Buddhist reincarnation “can only be approved by Beijing and must be subject to Chinese laws and regulations.”*
The Dalai Lama has responded by saying that he may be reborn in India or in a place “where there is maximum suffering” explaining that “the concept of reincarnation is attached to compassion to reach out to those who are suffering, indicating that it stands bereft of any political color.” (The Week)