The Dalai Lama just won his first Grammy

The Tibetan spiritual leader secured his first Grammy Award on Sunday for Best Audiobook, Narration and Storytelling Recording with “Meditations: The Reflections Of His Holiness The  Dalai Lama” at the 68th annual ceremony.

First win: At 90 years old, the Dalai Lama won alongside director Steven Spielberg during the pre-ceremony, beating a diverse field that included Grammys host Trevor Noah, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Milli Vanilli’s Fab Morvan.

Musician Rufus Wainwright, who contributed to the album, accepted the award on his behalf, joking from the podium, “OK, I am not the Dalai Lama, obviously. It was a privilege to participate in this project,” he said. “It’s an honor to accept this recognition on behalf of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, whose wisdom is at the heart of this work.”

Road to the Grammys: Released last August, “Meditations” reportedly took years to develop and coincided with the Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday. Producer Kabir Sehgal told Rolling Stone he studied over 100 hours of his speeches to create the album’s 10 tracks, which feature sarod performances by Indian classical musician Ayaan Ali Bangash alongside vocal contributions from Wainwright, Maggie Rogers and Andra Day, among others.

On the track “Peace,” the Dalai Lama says, “A compassionate mind is very happy. Usually people consider compassion [a] religious subject. No, compassion is for our own survival.”

Why this matters: The Grammy win comes as tensions escalate over the Dalai Lama’s succession. The 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who fled to India in 1959, announced last July that the institution will continue and named the Gaden Phodrang Trust as the sole authority to determine his reincarnation. Beijing has since countered by asserting “indisputable” authority over the reincarnation. This, however, is not China’s first intervention in Tibetan Buddhist leadership. A 6-year-old selected by the Dalai Lama as the 11th Panchen Lama vanished in 1995, after which Beijing appointed its own choice.

The dispute has drawn international scrutiny. Scottish MP Chris Law, a parliamentary advocate for Tibet, has rejected China’s claims last week, stating that the position “cannot be politically appointed — certainly not by the Chinese Communist Party.” Analysts predict dual claimants will emerge, creating what experts describe as “an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy.”

The Grammy recognition amplifies the Dalai Lama’s message at a critical juncture, as the search for his successor will likely take years following his death.