The 14th Dalai Lama turns 90 on Sunday and is expected to give his clearest signal yet on how his reincarnation will be determined at the event in Dharamshala, India, where the Dalai Lama has lived since fleeing Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

The Dalai Lama has announced that he will have a successor after his death, continuing a centuries-old tradition that has become a flashpoint in the struggle with China’s Communist Party over Tibet’s future.