With quite a few teenage Tibetans reportedly sacrificing themselves for the Dalai Lama, the monk should step forward to stop copycat self-immolations and show that he deserves the title of "Tibet's spiritual leader."

Self-immolations have claimed multiple lives since 2009, including many young people, in Tibetan-inhabited areas in China. But the Dalai Lama has so far failed to display his ability to stop such happenings, offering mere verbal sympathy.

The preacher of peace and compassion has shown more interest in the efficiency of self-immolations than in sympathy for the victims when telling media that he questions the usefulness of such acts.

The Dalai Lama evidently knows that extreme protests and the ensuing pressure they can pile on the Chinese government are in his favor.

His tacit consent to self-destruction, which in his words "requires courage," was clear when the Dalai Lama joined a day-long hunger fast and prayer service last year for those who self-immolated.

Eight people have been goaded into setting themselves on fire by a monk and his nephew living in southwest China's Sichuan province over the past four years. The duo acted on the instructions of overseas "Tibetan independence" forces, according to a police investigation.

In the latest of a spate of self-immolations in China's Tibetan-inhabited areas, a middle school student died on Sunday after setting herself ablaze at 16, an age when she should have been learning more about the world.

Similar self-immolations have claimed the lives of other youngsters over the past two months in the same region, including 23-year-old Lhamo Tseten, 18-year-old Gonpo Tsering, 23-year-old Nyangkhar Tashi, 20-year-old Nyangje Lhabon, 14-year-old Karpongya and 19-year-old Libong Tsering.

Whatever reasons these suicides believed they had to end their lives, they were too young to really understand them. They were not old enough to obtain the real wisdom of life and death, as their lives ended before they could begin to pursue life's true meaning.

When older monks prey on the young, who are more impulsive and more prone to incitation, they are even more appalling.

The climbing death toll has caused some observers to wonder why the Dalai Lama has yet to put an end to the extreme form of protest.

Maybe only the monk revered as a "god king" by his followers knows the true answer, but at least one thing is for sure: the Dalai Lama now needs to convince the world that he does not benefit from the cruelty of self-immolations.

The monk should also know that the protests that have killed so many of his fellow ethnic Tibetans may one day backfire.