March 10 marks the anniversary when Tibetans rose up in the streets of Lhasa against China's nascent occupation of Tibet. It is also when a 24-year-old Dalai Lama fled a pursuing Chinese army and eventually crossed Tibet's border into India as a refugee. That was 52 years ago.
With the Dalai Lama turning 76 this year, the international media is increasingly focusing on the question of his successor. The Dalai Lama himself has offered varying possibilities regarding how the next (15th) Dalai Lama could be identified but has not publicly stated definitively how the reincarnation would occur. How a young 15th Dalai Lama might be invested with spiritual authority would be a matter of interest primarily for Tibetan Buddhists devotees if the current Dalai Lama were not a prominent and influential leader on the world stage whose Tibetan voice represents an oppositional position to the ruling Communist Party of China.
It is incumbent upon the United States and other governments who support the Dalai Lama to pay close attention to how and to whom he gives the authority to identify the next Dalai Lama. The reason should be obvious: The Chinese government already has a plan to control the 15th Dalai Lama.
China maintains that the Dalai Lama wants an independent Tibet, although since 1988, the Tibetan leader has officially and publicly stated that he is seeking genuine autonomy for Tibetans within the People's Republic of China. Chinese officials vilify and portray the Dalai Lama as the single greatest threat to the unity of the Chinese nation. The Dalai Lama has been said to have "the face of a man and the heart of a beast" and is "a wolf in monk's robes." These words are not from some backwater cadre; rather, a spokesperson of the Chinese central government in Beijing and the senior official of the Tibet Autonomous Region spoke them. Not only does the Chinese government consider the Dalai Lama to be a dangerous "separatist," they also see religious devotion to him as seditious. Displaying a photograph of the Dalai Lama, praying for his long life, wearing an amulet with his image or having his voice chanting mantras on a mobile ring tone is a subversive criminal act in China.
Authority and power within Tibetan Buddhism has historically been decentralized among many different reincarnate lamas and monastery abbots. However, since China invaded Tibet and the Dalai Lama fled into exile to India in 1959, the Dalai Lama has been elevated by those Tibetans who have been deprived of his presence as the preeminent representative of their faith and their identity. Today, for the nearly 6 million Tibetans living under Chinese rule in Tibet, the Dalai Lama is their spiritual protector and political leader -- and devotion to him and his message is at an all-time high.
Beijing's future attempts to control the 15th Dalai Lama will be a testament to their failure to dampen devotion to and influence of the current 14th Dalai Lama, despite decades of dogged attempts to do so. In March 2009, Jiao Zai'an, an official of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, said the Party must "decide what kind of person is allowed to be reincarnated," because such approval is essential to "ensure the political soundness of reincarnate lamas." China Tibetans reject these Party-appointed lamas, making Beijing's religious politics a perilous path. Beijing argues that they are the sole authority on choosing reincarnate lamas, ignoring the incongruity of an atheist government involved in the mystical process of identifying a reincarnate lama.
The Dalai Lama has repeatedly stated that he will never reincarnate inside territory where he could not be a free spokesman for the Tibetan people. In response, last week the officially atheist Chinese government's State Administration for Religious Affairs enacted a new law forbidding the Dalai Lama to be reborn anywhere but on Chinese-controlled soil. Not long ago, in Benares, India, he told me, "If the Tibetan people want another Dalai Lama, then I will be reborn outside of China's control. The purpose of reincarnation is to continue our duty, our work from before. The Chinese do not like my work today, so why would they want it again in my next reincarnation?"
After the Dalai Lama passes, Beijing intends to promote a child they select to be their next Dalai Lama, as they have done with the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. This gross trespass against religious freedom by the Chinese state has been a terrible tragedy for the young Panchen Lama identified by the Dalai Lama (he was kidnapped and disappeared) and the young boy chosen by China (who is regarded with suspicion by the Tibetan people as a puppet of the Chinese government). Similarly, we can expect that the Tibetan people will reject the search and carefully managed ceremony overseen by the Chinese Communist Party's leadership that purports to invest a young 15th Dalai Lama with spiritual authority.
The Tibetan people will expect governments that have long supported the Dalai Lama to reject a Chinese-appointed Dalai Lama and to stand firmly behind those in whom the 14th Dalai Lama has entrusted the continuation of his work for a peaceful and just solution for Tibet, and to affirm that the institution of the Dalai Lama does not belong to the Chinese government but rather to the Tibetan people themselves.
Follow Matteo Pistono on Twitter: www.twitter.com/matteopistono
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This single Nehru family is single handily responsible for the abject poverty of 600 million in India. For this family suffers from Munchhausen syndrome by proxy. They need the 600 million to remain sick and poor so they can motehr them and win elections.
China is so much better for their people.
Talk to any Chinese about their govt..they would defend them with glee!
(Now look at them!)
Ok, now, what I am saying here is that hermit "Kingdoms" and religious theocracies would be a huge setback to any country, I mean, Nepal learned this the hard way, right?
Usually, our concept of compassion or love refers to the feeling of closeness we have with our friends and loved ones. Sometimes compassion also carries a sense of pity. This is wrong--any love or compassion which entails looking down on the other is not genuine compassion. To be genuine, compassion must be based on respect for the other, and on the realization that others have the right to be happy and overcome suffering just as much as you. . . .
Seems to me that once you replace pity with respect (you handle your poverty sooooo welllll) you lose your sense of compassion for those who must overcome suffering. This could very well be why the wealthy ignore to downtrodden.
IMO, the Dalai Lama, whom I admire in many ways, weakens his argument by invoking "reincarnation", rather than using respect for human rights as the guiding principle.
And if I may, I don't think that our Chinese poster is completely wrong in suggesting that the US has a political interest in the next DL regardless of where he/she arises. The cold war lingers on and the PRC and US and Russia and GB and the rest all want to put there fingers in everyone else's pie, and see what's in it for them. Something like that, maybe. Nothing lasts forever, this too shall have its moment, than vanish.
The Tibetans' situation seems to be on par with pretty much EVERY OTHER society that was "ABSORBED" by a "BIGGER BADDER" neighbor... except instead of (Like the US did) trying to convince everyone what a good deal they could give to the people remaining there the Chinese seem to have this NETWORK of SHILLS that make these incredibly MORONIC videos telling us how much "Better off" the Tibetans are under their CURRENT rulers! WOW!
I know if I had the choice of living in a BUDDHIST society or under COMMUNIST RULE... well GEE that's a NO BRAINER! I would OBVIOUSLY choose to be a COMMUNIST! (Just in case you didn't get it... that was what we call SARCASM!)
OK... so is he supposed to be able to DO THIS? He can control WHERE he's reincarnated?
do you know for sure that he cannot.
besides every nation needs a king of sorts or a lama of sorts or a president of sorts or a prime minister of sorts.
most people want to be followers and look up to someone with all the human benefits of wealth and power. look at england and the money they spend to have a king and queen.
Why are you mentioning an "atheist" government? There are plenty of buddhists who claim to be atheists. Are llamas gods? Atheists do not believe in gods.
It's bizarre for *any kind of* government to try to regulate who can or cannot be reincarnated.
Here. Let me help you. I'll quote *me* from the comment you responded to:
"It's bizarre for *any kind of* government to try to regulate who can or cannot be reincarnatÂed."
Someone has to make the decision - does the secular rule, or does faith based rule? China chose the former, and decided that no formalized religion can presume to compete for political power. That is a rational and reasonable choice. And to make it work, it is more than reasonable to make sure that no "religiously" cloaked demagogue can ever assume power. Once you know what cancer looks like, you excise cancer early.