Tokyo — Maintaining optimism and calm amidst a pandemic isn't easy. But the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet's Buddhists, says there are still reasons to be thankful.

The Dalai Lama is staying safely isolated from the coronanvirus at his home high in the Himalayas, but technology helps keep him connected. We spoke via video link about compassion, racism in the United States and President Trump, among other issues.

Living in exile from Chinese rule, the Dalai Lama lives and prays at his residence in northern India, and his message of compassion and altruism remains unchanged on the eve of his 85th birthday. He says little has changed in his daily life too under coronavirus lockdown and, as a Buddhist, the "mind is more important than physical" aspects of life, anyway.

Isolation is nothing new for the Dalai Lama.

He fled Tibet in 1959, after China invaded and annexed his country. He's lived in exile in Dharamsala, India, ever since. But he watches the news every day, and he's keenly aware of the suffering in the world.

"Now, in America, there's quite, I'll say, narrow-minded thinking," he says. "Black people, white people — we are same...human, brother, sisters." The Dalai Lama says treating people differently because of their race, or their faith or nationality, is "old thinking."