To hear the Dalai Lama laugh, his face lighting up in a beatific smile, it is easy to forget the cascade of disasters endured by the Tibetan Buddhist movement over the course of his life.
Yet the list is long, and growing longer, as an ascendant China consolidates control over Tibet.
On the cusp of the Dalai Lama's 80th birthday Monday, which he will mark during a three-day visit to Anaheim, China's rising economic clout is slowly strangling the movement for Tibetan independence and, in the process, nudging the charismatic Tibetan spiritual leader off the world stage.