The Dalai Lama, Morning Ritual

The Dalai Lama begins each day with prostrations to a statue of Buddha in his home.

the Dalai Lama still prays for his "Chinese brothers and sisters" every morning and urges Tibetans to learn Chinese so they can talk with their new rulers, not fight with them.

The deeper issue, as the Dalai Lama always stresses, is that names and forms are unimportant so long as something more fundamental is sustained. The Buddha's job—and therefore that of his most prominent contemporary student—was not just to be clear-sighted and compassionate but also to show how compassionate and clear-sighted any one of us can be. In that regard, it hardly matters whether the terms Dalai Lama or Buddhism or even Tibet continue to exist. As it is, thanks to the exodus of Tibetans in the past half-century, Tibetan culture and Buddhism have become part of the global neighborhood. Whereas there were all of two Tibetan Buddhist centers in the West in 1968, there are now more than 40 in New York City alone. In Taiwan, there are more than 200. More French people call themselves Buddhist than Protestant or Jew.