His soft, gentle face cloaks the hardships as spiritual and political leader of more than 6 million Tibetans, and of one who has lived 32 years in exile in the Himalayan foothills of India.

He wears his title -- 14th Dalai Lama -- like his loosely fitting maroon monk's robes. People revere him as a god-king, a living Buddha, but he's very mortal. He's friendly, funny, warm, frank, opinionated. For someone so surrounded by pomp and circumstance, he hates formality.

He sometimes throws back his head in deep, resonant laughter. Other times, pondering his response, he presses his hand against his chin and his forehead crumples into deeply etched lines.

"The formality, I do not like. Useless," says the 57-year-old Dalai Lama, whose speech often is devoid of subjects, verbs and articles -- and is very much to the point.

Sometimes he talks quickly, then stops and looks at his secretary, Tenzin Geyche, who nods assent. As if on cue, the Dalai Lama shifts to a one-sided conversation in Tibetan.

Thirty seconds later, he resumes talking in English, gesturing and leaning forward in his chair, his voice filling the room.

"Too much formality creates artificial," the Dalai Lama says. "That creates barrier between humans to humans relation. After all, we are all the same human being . . . When I meet, say, the president of United States, or whether I meet on street one person, a beggar in your street, to me no difference."

"Dalai Lama" literally means ocean priest. His vast followers, awestruck by his presence, cast their eyes downward, fall to the ground and weep. "We cannot look directly in his eyes out of respect," says Tashi Dorji, 27, a Tibetan who works for the government-in-exile. "When he speaks, we bend low with our hands clasped. He tries to tell us to get up, but we don't. We can't."

The Dalai Lama realizes the magnitude of his position, but dismisses the idolatry. His people call him "His Holiness." He calls himself a Tibetan who chooses to be a Buddhist monk.

He also was leader of a country that Tibetans say is occupied and that Beijing says has always been part of China.

He is considered the reincarnation of the previous 13 Dalai Lamas of Tibet, the first born more than 640 years ago.

This Dalai Lama's different from his predecessors, though. For instance, the 13th Dalai Lama was strict and formal, and most Tibetans couldn't get close to him except during public blessing ceremonies.

The 14th Dalai Lama meets often with Tibetans and foreigners and never keeps people at a distance.

The Dalai Lama is among 600 Tibetan Buddhist monks living in Dharamsala, in northern India. About 7,000 of the 24,000 who live in this city are Tibetans, with the greatest concentration in the village of McLeod Ganj -- the seat of Tibet's government-in- exile.

The Chinese occupied Tibet in 1950. For nine years, the Dalai Lama tried to negotiate peaceful coexistence with his people and the Chinese. When that failed, he fled in 1959 to India, where he set up Tibet's government-in-exile.

Leading the way

Buddhist priests from Lhasa, Tibet's capital, came for the boy when he was 2. Omens led them to him: from the way the head of the 13th Dalai Lama had turned in his coffin toward the child's village, to the vision of the house seen in a lake by a high priest.

The boy was renamed Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso and raised by monks in Lhasa in the cavernous, 1,000-room Potala palace, where the fifth through the present Dalai Lamas resided.

As a boy, he had no idea what it meant to be the 14th Dalai Lama -- the ruler of the land hidden behind the Himalayas. He was intensely tutored in Buddhist teachings.

At 15, with his country under threat from the newly communist China, he formally became head of Tibet, which is about three times the size of California. At that time in 1950, peace in Tibet was shattered when 84,000 Chinese soldiers launched an attack at six points along Tibet's border.

Chinese officials say communism liberated the downtrodden Tibetan people from a feudal theocracy harshly ruled by a succession of Dalai Lamas. But many Tibetans say communism never was attractive for them, and they always considered the rule of the Dalai Lama benevolent. Fearful of being captured by the Chinese and believing he would be more effective outside Tibet, the Dalai Lama fled at age 24 across 17,000-foot Himalayan passes into India. Together with the 70-man remnant of the Tibetan government, he was given political asylum.

The Dalai Lama chose India for its proximity to his homeland, and Tibetans felt a spiritual kinship with their neighbors because Buddhism originated in India.

Buddhism teaches people to eliminate suffering caused by ignorance, egotism and self- centeredness. Buddhists cultivate morality, generosity, patience, energy, wisdom and meditation. They believe good actions lead to a promising rebirth.

Tibet was the only place where Buddhist monks solely ruled the country. Leaders were thought to be incarnations of enlightened beings, and they taught others how to calm their minds and cultivate altruism.

Tibetans say they lived peacefully until the Chinese invaded their country. Since then, 1.2 million people -- 20 percent of the Tibetan population -- have died in combat and through massive famines from collectivized farming and diversion of Tibetan grain to China.

The Chinese gutted all but 10 of Tibet's 6,254 monasteries, and their treasure -- $80 billion in jeweled, gold, silver and bronze statues and other holy items -- was trucked back to China and later sold in markets in Hong Kong and Tokyo. Tibetans later rebuilt some monasteries.

Still, the Dalai Lama, 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner for his non-violent quest to free his homeland, doesn't hate the Chinese. He considers compassion as a means to regain Tibet's autonomy.

Leaders of Tibet's government-in-exile have lived since 1960 in Dharamsala, a hill station in Himlach Pradesh, India, 125 miles from Tibet's border. From the center of Dharamsala, there's a hair-raising climb up thousands of feet along narrow roads that twist to the village of McLeod Ganj.

Tibetans live under India's rules, but they're permitted their quasi-government.

The Dalai Lama drafted a constitution in 1963, allowing Tibetans throughout the world to be elected representatives of the government-in-exile. He has established an independent judiciary, an auditor's office and other departments.

He no longer has final say on all governmental matters and can be impeached.

"The government of India provided us" Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama says. "Not our choice. Sometimes OK. Sometimes not. OK means scenery is good and wide open place . . . so we can expand," he says, smiling.

Prayers and visits

His sparsely furnished house is on a spur of a ridge overlooking the vast Kangra Valley. The home's main attraction is a small garden, where he has planted cacti, chrysanthemums and daffodils.

The Dalai Lama also enjoys wildlife and has a cat. A bird cage he built outside his study window is surrounded by wire and netting to keep out larger birds and birds of prey. Sometimes he uses an airgun to scare the bigger birds. He never kills them.

Nearby is a government compound guarded by Indian soldiers who stand behind wrought-iron gates. Plain-clothed Tibetans frisk just about anyone who enters.

Across from the compound is Tsuglha Khang, the main temple. In the courtyard of the Buddhist School of Dialectics, young, shaven-headed monks debate in pairs: One slaps his extended hand, stomps his foot and paces in front of his opponent, who sits peacefully and listens.

Up the mountain is the Tibetan Children's Village, run by one of the Dalai Lama's sisters. It houses and educates about 1,500 youngsters, many refugees. Its branches throughout India serve 5,500 or so more children.

The Dalai Lama sometimes visits the village and elsewhere, but the majority of his time in Dharamsala is spent praying, meditating and studying, beginning at 4 a.m. by reciting mantras. He reads scriptures, studies philosophy and often prays with other Tibetan Buddhist monks.

He also pores over official papers, listens to the BBC World Service on the radio and reads magazines like Newsweek and Time and newspapers such as The Times of India and The Hindustan Times.

From 1 to 5 p.m., he meets with his cabinet members at his office and receives reports from various Tibetan monasteries in India. He also holds audiences with visitors: People are ushered in and out of his study in quick succession because his afternoon schedule is usually busy.

At day's end, the Dalai Lama returns home and prays, meditates and reads scriptures. He occasionally watches television and enjoys taking photographs and fixing watches.

He's always been intrigued by technology and he also likes Western comforts.

"More modernized means using more machines, more instruments, more up-to-date facility in the house," he says. "When I go to different places, sometimes people arrange accommodations of huge old houses that looks as if can put elephants in there. No special comfort there.

"Very prefer those modern houses, really efficient in every corner. No decorations or these things," he says, pointing at the ornate statues and paintings and jewel-colored embroidered cloths on the walls. "Something very practical and useful and comfortable."

His travels have taken him to Brazil, England, Switzerland and the United States, where he met with President George Bush in April 1991. That meeting ended a 30-year American boycott of the Tibetan leader.

The United States never has recognized Tibet, considering it part of China, says a State Department official who asked not to be identified.

"We have expressed some concern about human rights conditions in Tibet and other parts of China," the official says.

Many people told Tibetans in the 1960s that their quest for freedom was hopeless, the Dalai Lama says. With political changes in the former Soviet Union and East Germany, he believes Tibetan freedom isn't that far-fetched.

"This is such a good time. All these other reasons from where we get tremendous inspiration.

"During '60s and '70s, a little bit difficult. But during those years, we never gave up our hope, our determination. Therefore, I'm quite sure within few years' time, I think things will change."

Obstacles remain before Tibetans have political and social freedom in their homeland, the Dalai Lama says.

The old Chinese Communist leaders are in their 80s, and the first generation of revolutionaries still respect and obey the government regime, he says.

Even with no signs of political liberalization, the Communist Party's free market reforms have improved the Tibetan economy and quelled unrest.

And many Chinese sympathize with the Tibetan freedom movement, the Dalai Lama says. Once the current Chinese leaders are gone, "then I don't see any obstacle."

When his people regain their freedom, the Dalai Lama says he'll step down as political leader. He's the Dalai Lama until he dies and he's uncertain if there will be a successor.

"My feeling is we must utilize the Dalai Lama institution as much as we can," he says.

For now, he plays a vital role in maintaining his country's culture. He's the Tibetans' hope and their archangel. Since his exile, he says he has drawn closer to his fellow countrymen. "I, myself, sometimes hesitate to make decision. So usually what I do is listen to different views from concerned officials and also sometimes just ordinary people, for their opinion, their feeling. Then, to that way, a certain idea which never come in my mind, it happen.

"Then, on top of this idea, I myself also think, and try to analyze the situation, then the final decision, in the name of Dalai Lama," he says forcefully.

"So different ideas come from others and ... then become Dalai Lama's decision."

Then he bursts into a belly laugh.