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Interview

Absolute Compassion

The BBC’s chief inquisitor Jeremy Paxman interviews the Dalai Lama.

JP He’s a short man dressed in maroon and gold robes. He’s wearing glasses and has a wrist-watch on his left arm. He’s His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, the living embodiment of Chenrezig the Lord of Compassion. The Dalai Lama was born to a family of peasants; discovered by monks when he was still a toddler; pronounced the reincarnation of the 13th Lama – being born when the latter died – and installed in a thousand-room palace at the age of four. If things had gone to plan he’d have become Tibet’s absolute monarch; final authority on all things spiritual and temporal.

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