A senior Tibetan Buddhist leader is imploring monks and nuns to stop setting themselves on fire to protest Chinese repression.

The Karmapa Lama said from exile in New Delhi Wednesday that Buddhism teaches that life is precious. He said there are few Tibetans and that every one is valuable to the Tibetan cause.

Eleven nuns and monks have set fire to themselves in China's Sichuan province since March in what Buddhist leaders call brave and desperate acts against Chinese injustice and repression.

The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, accuses China of a “cultural genocide” by seeking to suppress Tibetan culture and Buddhism.

China blames the Dalai Lama for advocating Tibetan separatism and violence.

Chinese forces took over Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama fled to exile in India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.