The Dalai Lama is not freely available to speak due to death threats and never speaks directly to journalists - just world leaders.
I dunno about the 'just world leaders' part....he was at a Boca college a week or two ago, speaking to whoever showed up (which ended up being about 3000 students, staff, and 800 and something tickets that were sold to the public). He did take questions from FAU (Florida Atlantic University) students and staff for about 15 minutes.
Had I driven 15 minutes south, I could have asked him (in person!) to say "I'm alright, cheers!" and recorded it for deBauch
