Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (born Llhamo Döndrub [[[Tibetan script|Tibetan]]: ?; Wylie: Lha-mo Don-'grub] 6 July 1935 in Tibet), is the fourteenth and current Dalai Lama.[1] He is a practicing member of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism and is influential as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, as the world's most famous Buddhist monk, and is leader of the exiled Tibetan government in Dharamsala, India.

Gyatso was the fifth of 16 children born to a farming family in the village of Taktser in the Tibetan province of Amdo where he learned the Amdo dialect of Tibetan as his first language.[2][3] He was proclaimed the tulku (rebirth) of the thirteenth Dalai Lama two years after he was born.

On 17 November 1950, at the age of fifteen, he was enthroned as Tibet's ruler. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950. In 1951, the Tibetans, under pressure from the People's Liberation Army of China, signed the Seventeen Point Agreement which was ratified by the Dalai Lama a few months later[4]. In 1954, he went to Beijing to attempt peace talks with Mao Zedong and other leaders of China's communist government, according to Tibet.com, the website of Tibet's government in exile. These talks ultimately failed.[5] In 1956, however, the Dalai Lama became the chair of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region (PCART).[6]

After a failed uprising and the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, the Dalai Lama left for India, where he was active in establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile) and in seeking to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of refugees who accompanied him.[7]

Tenzin Gyatso is a charismatic figure[2][8] and noted public speaker. This Dalai Lama is the first to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility, secular ethics, and religious harmony.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989,[2][9] honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.[10]

Laird (2006: p.23) in a published transcription of a conversation with Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama identifies the karmic "connections" or mindstream affinities he has:

"If someone asks me whether I am the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama," he said, "then I answer, without hesitation, yes. This does not mean that I am the same being as the previous Dalai Lama. Some Dalai Lamas are a manifestation of Manjushri. Some are a manifestation of Chenrizi. Chenrizi is the manifestation of compassion. Manjushri is the manifestation of wisdom. I have a special connection with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and the Fifth Dalai Lama. I have felt some kind of karmic relations or connections even with the Buddha. I feel I can say I have some kind of connection with the previous Dalai Lamas, some of the previous masters, with Chenrizi, even with the Buddha."[11]