The Dalai Lama Celebrates His 85th Birthday With A Record Release

The Dalai Lama celebrates his 85th birthday with a record release.

The religious leader publishes a recording in which he recites mantras and sentences of the Buddhist doctrine.

“Wisdom”, “Compassion”, “Courage”… The Dalai Lama celebrates his 85th birthday this Monday by publishing his first album, Inner World, in which he recites mantras and phrases of Buddhist doctrine, with a background of meditative music and relaxing.

The Dalai Lama Celebrates His 85th Birthday With A Record Release

Accessible on the Internet, on YouTube and other platforms, this album consists of eleven titles, which alternate between Tibetan and English, and is the fruit of five years of work together with the New Zealand musician Junelle Kunin, one of his disciples who convinced him to launch himself in this project.

The album was recorded with several recording sessions at the artist’s home, in Auckland, and the Dalai Lama’s residence, in Dharamsala, in northern India, where the Tibetan spiritual leader has lived in exile for 60 years, years after China invaded his native Tibet. According to Buddhist beliefs, the current lama is the reincarnation of his predecessors.

“The goal of my life has always been to serve in whatever way I can,” the Dalai Lama declares on his album’s official website. “Music can help people in a way that I can’t,” adds the religious leader, named Tenzin Gystaso, number 14 who occupies the highest representation of Tibetan Buddhism. Last year he was admitted for 13 days to a New Delhi hospital for a lung infection , which he overcame.

The 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate has written many best-selling books and appeared in a few Hollywood movies, but has ventured very little into the world of music. “He had a very clear vision for this project and was very involved” in making it happen, Junelle Kunin, co-producer of the album with her husband Abraham, told Radio New Zealand.

“This is not a religious project, although there are mantras. It is just a job whose goal is to do good for people. Therefore, I reflected on what we need in our daily lives (courage, consolation…) and that was the path we follow,” he added.

The album includes the collaboration of the sitarist born in England but of Indian origin, Anoushka Shankar, daughter of the famous Ravi, a world leader in the sitar. All profits will be donated to a Dalai Lama foundation. The CD version, which will include a booklet, will be released to the public on August 28.