The Dalai Lama has joined Instagram, making it the Tibetan spiritual leader’s latest push to spread his social media outreach.
The account has been posting photos quietly since Feb. 1, but the Dalai Lama didn’t make the official announcement until earlier today on his Twitter account.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama is now on @Instagram. You can follow the official account at https://t.co/jjbZ4IuLrj
— Dalai Lama (@DalaiLama) February 27, 2014
In just a few weeks, the Dalai Lama has posted 16 photos and already gained about 13,000 followers. So far, he’s done a lot of traveling and photographing with famous political and media figures.
He’s even already got a handle on Instagram’s blur feature.
The Dalai Lama has embraced the rise of social media—he started a Twitter account in 2010, two years before Pope Benedict XVI ever tweeted. But, he acknowledges that using social networks can come with benefits and drawbacks.
“It depends on how you use them,” he recently told Time. “If the person, himself or herself, has a certain inner strength, a certain confidence, then it is no problem. But if an individual’s mind is weak, then there is more confusion. You can’t blame technology. It depends on the user of the technology.”
Photo via Statigram