Dalai Lama to cut foreign travel due to age, exhaustion

Tibetian spiritual leader Dalai Lama will cut down on his foreign travel due to age and exhaustion, a spokesperson said on Thursday.

"His Holiness is invited to different countries but he has cut down public engagements because of age. He is exhausted after teaching for a long period of time. Therefore a few commitments have been cancelled," said Sonam Dagpo, a spokesperson for the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA).

"The Dalai Lama's health is fine", Dagpo added, noting that the 82-year-old spiritual icon has made trips within India, where he lives in exile in Dharamshala.

"Usually these engagements -- inauguration, ribbon-cutting-type ceremonies -- last only for a few hours, but some engagements are for teaching and they last for seven days, which he's doing less and less of," he stated.

For decades, the Dalai Lama has brought Buddhist teachings to audiences across the world, while lobbying political leaders to press China to grant Tibet more cultural autonomy, CNN reported.

He has said that his exile, while painful, brought some benefits, because it forced him to travel, enabled him to meet new people and helped the Nobel Peace Prize laureate spread Buddhist teachings.

Last year, the Dalai Lama had public events in eight foreign cities, as compared to 16 in 2016 and 11 in 2015.

The Tibetian spiritual leader will complete his 60th anniversary of living in exile in India at the end of this month.

The Dalai Lama, along with his followers, fled to India from Tibet in 1959 in a massive uprising by the Chinese forces. China calls the 82-year-old Buddhist monk a 'separatist', seeking to secede Tibet from China.