It was raining at England's Glastonbury Festival, on the last Sunday of June 2015. No matter: The audience was there, standing under the gray Somerset sky, braving the downpour that was soaking one of the world's leading music events. Most of the spectators were young, wearing multicolored headgear, and massed in front of the large stage cluttered with instruments, cables and microphones. Facing them, the musicians stood motionless, almost at attention, their hands resting on their guitars. Who were they waiting for? Kanye West? Lionel Richie? Pharrell Williams or the veteran Motörhead band? All were on that year's bill. Not at all. When the star finally arrived, he wasn't a rapper or a rocker, but an old man dressed in a monk's robe, his head covered in a festival-themed T-shirt to protect him from the elements.
He didn't emerge with the fanfare and conquering persona of an artist but took small, hesitant steps forward, guided by singer Patti Smith, who was holding him by the elbow. He bowed, smiling, hands folded in the direction of the cheering audience. Then, thunderous birthday music broke out, a few days early – he was born on July 6. On stage, His Holiness had just celebrated his 80th birthday.
As astonishing as it is, the scene is in keeping with the image of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama: prodigiously popular, even in the most unexpected places. In 64 years of exile, the refugee from a country that was virtually unknown when he fled Tibet in 1959 has become an international star, especially after winning the Nobel Peace Prize 30 years later. He's a true icon who succeeded in making the cause of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism famous, despite it being a minority school of this Asia-born religion. Even today, in a landscape where attention to Tibet has waned as Chinese control over the region has asserted itself, the Dalai Lama remains a mythical figure.
A man of joy
What explains this accomplishment? Firstly, no doubt, it's the personality of this man who won the support, even the friendship, of a host of admirers willing to take up his cause. From the moment he began to travel from one continent to another, in the mid-1970s, thousands of Westerners rallied to his cause. Among them were not only anonymous individuals but also public figures from a range of backgrounds. In France, the Dalai Lama's supporters have included people as varied as Danielle Mitterrand, Jean-Claude Carrière, Micheline Chaban-Delmas, Robert Badinter, Bernard Kouchner, Noël Mamère or former Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who flew the Tibetan flag over the Nantes town hall in 2008. A former journalist and committed Buddhist, Jean-Paul Ribes has done much to raise Tenzin Gyatso's profile. He recounts how Fabien Ouaki, heir and future CEO of Tati stores, resolved to spend the night in front of the Dalai Lama's Paris hotel room during one of His Holiness's visits to France, in order to ensure his protection...
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