His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is resting after successful surgery to remove gallstones.  The Tibetan spiritual leader has reportedly suffered from gallstone pain for over a decade, but it was during a recent checkup in New Dehli that doctors decided it would be best to finally have them removed. The Nobel Prize-winning Buddhist elder was hospitalized in New Delhi on Thursday.

The surgery will not affect the Dalai Lama of traveling several months a year, as he plans to continue at the end of the month, educating people on the tenets of Buddhism and the Tibetan struggle.

In August, the Nobel Prize-winning Buddhist elder was admitted to a hospital in Mumbai for abdominal pains. He was released in good condition, but advised to cancel a trip to Europe on account of exhaustion. While the exiled Tibetan community grows increasingly divided on pacifist versus active action against China, the Dalai Lama remains deeply revered and a focal point for their hope. At 73-years-old and this recent health scare, followers wonder what the inevitable death of the Dalai Lama will mean.