By Mike Hedge of AAP

MELBOURNE, Sept 16 AAP - For all his compassion, his vision of world peace and his expectations of one day getting a fair deal from the killers of more than a million of his compatriots, the Dalai Lama is something of a realist.

When it was put to him today that it must be heartening to learn that Buddhism was Australia's fastest growing religion at a time when others were fast losing followers, the smiling face of Buddhism wouldn't swallow his own firm's PR line.

"It is only superficial," the Dalai Lama said. "It is not a change of religion, rather a change of mind. My feeling is that it's a part of human nature - something new. (People) want a change from something they think is too old.

"People love new fashions. Always fashions change ... especially in an affluent society.

"When you have means to change, you always change things." The Dalai Lama's attitude to the move toward Buddhism is only one of the surprises contained in the man who was recruited to his job at the age of two, who assumed responsibility for the political and religious leadership of Tibet when he was 16 and who fled his country on the back of a yak at 26.

Another is his almost constant hilarity. Asked why he laughed so heartily and so often, the Dalai Lama pointed at his head.

"Maybe it's better to ask my physician, maybe something is wrong," he said with another burst of laughter.

The jovial side of the Dalai Lama, though, is in contrast with the purpose of his visit to Australia - to heighten world awareness of Chinese oppression in Tibet and to campaign for foreign governments to push China towards the negotiating table.

Since he fled Tibet in 1959, 10 years after the Chinese invaded, the Dalai Lama has visited more than 40 countries and is on his third trip to Australia.

While the major spiritual event of his two-week visit will be the performance of a nine-day Kalachakra, or Wheel of Time, ceremony in Sydney, he is also hoping to meet Prime Minister John Howard.

But with diplomacy that matches his humility, the Dalai Lama said he would happily forgo such a meeting if it compromised Australia or the prime minister in the face of warnings from China against any official contact with the Tibetan leader.

"I am hopeful that we can talk but I don't want to create any embarrassment for anyone," the Dalai Lama said.

Speaking at his first media conference since arriving here on Saturday, the Dalai Lama said he appreciated that nations such as Australia needed to maintain relations with China.

"Everybody is taking care to have good relations with China," he said. "The purpose of this visit is spiritual and to some extent educational." The Dalai Lama also indicated a slight shift in his hopes for Tibet, saying he would be willing to join with China so long as Tibetan culture and belief could be preserved.

But he also conceded that the possibility of an acceptable compromise probably had passed and would almost certainly disappear with the death of China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.

"For the last several years I expected a mutually acceptable solution but now it is too late," he said.

The Dalai Lama said his hopes for some form of conciliation now rested with what he said was a growing trend among Chinese intellectuals who were becoming more critical of Chinese policies and were expressing sympathy toward the plight of Tibetans.

He is also less than pessimistic about the fate of the seven-year-old Panchen Lama who he described as the world's youngest political prisoner.

Chosen by the Dalai Lama two years ago as the successor to the previous Panchen Lama, Tibet's second most revered figure, the present incarnation was arrested in 1995 by the Chinese and has since been held incommunicado with his captors denouncing him and naming their own replacement.

World media attention was working to help keep the Panchen Lama alive and it was believed he was being held near Beijing, said the Dalai Lama.