Dalai Lama Suggests Ending the Reincarnation Tradition
Friday April 11, 2008 11:44 AMThe Dalai Lama is the governmental and spiritual leader of Tibet, now an occupied territory of China. Tibetan Buddhists believe that each Dalai Lama is a reincarnation of the last, running all the way back to the first, Gendun Drup, born in 1391. Each Dalai Lama's life is believed to constitute a portion of the unbroken chain of incarnations of the bodhisattva of compassion, Chenresig. Chenresig is thought to embody the compassion of all the Buddhas. There have been 14 Dalai Lamas. Each Dalai Lama is referred to as the number of his incarnation followed by "Dalai Lama." For instance, the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is addressed as "His Holiness, The Fourteenth Dalai Lama." After the death of each Dalai Lama, Buddhist monks search for his reincarnation. They know where to look based on various signs and visions. Each child who has been identified as the true reincarnation has exhibited extreme familiarity with the former Lama's possessions. Sometimes it has taken several years to find the child. Since the fifth reincarnation, the child has left his or her family to go to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, to be trained by the other Lamas. Between the seventeenth century and 1959, the Dalai Lama led the Tibetan government. However, when China invaded and occupied Tibet in 1959, His Holiness fled to India where he currently remains in exile. Gyatso is still considered the spiritual leader of Tibet.
The purpose of reincarnation, says the current Dalai Lama, is to complete the work begun by the previous Lama. China recently said that it has taken over responsibility of choosing the next Dalai Lama by means of a lottery. Buddhist monks, according to China, would no longer search for the reincarnate. This new system would altogether dissolve the purpose of the reincarnation tradition. However, since the current Dalai Lama was able to escape Chinese occupation and remains outside of Chinese control, the fifteenth Lama, says the fourteenth, would probably be born outside of China. In 1969 the Dalai Lama first mentioned that the Tibetans would have to vote whether or not they wanted a fifteenth Dalai Lama to be reborn. As recently as this past November, however, he also suggested dropping the reincarnation tradition and having the Tibetan people elect a successor or choosing one himself.
More specifically, the Dalai Lama called for a referendum to be held among all traditional Tibetan Buddhists along the Himalayan range, including China, Nepal and India and into Mongolia, to decide what kind of leadership they want after his death. "When my physical condition becomes weak and there are serious preparations for my death" he said, "then this event should happen. According to my regular medical checkup, I am good for another few decades." This vote would be difficult, however, since even owning a photograph of His Holiness is illegal in some Chinese areas.
Tibetan Buddhism's second highest ranking Lama is the Panchen Lama, who was chosen by the Chinese authorities after the previous Panchen Lama's death in 1989. The Panchen Lama serves as the teacher to the Dalai Lama. Controversy surrounds the current identity of the Panchen Lama. The Tibetan government in exile maintains that the true eleventh Panchen Lama is Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, arrested at the age of six by the Chinese in 1995, while the Chinese government asserts that Qoigyijabu is the Panchen Lama.
