p2pnet - rss feed: Dalai Lama ponders succession
p2pnet news | Off Topic:- Tibetan spiritual leader Tenzin Gyatso, the14th Dalai Lama, might consider changing the centuries-old method of succession, says Time.
It’s a, “sign both of the exiled god-king’s advancing years and his increasing desperation in the face of attempts by Beijing to aggressively pacify his homeland,” says the story, going on:
“In an interview with a Japanese newspaper, the 72-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate indicated that he and his aides were considering several methods that could replace the tradition of searching for a reincarnation of the Dalai Lama among Tibetan boys whose birth coincides with the previous incumbent’s death.”
Time goes on:
“If the Tibetan people want to keep the Dalai Lama system, one of the possibilities I have been considering with my aides is to select the next Dalai Lama while I’m alive,” he told the Sankei Shimbun in an interview published November 21st. That could mean either some kind of democratic election among senior Buddhist monks or a personal selection by the current Dalai Lama himself, who is the 14th of the line.
For 13 successive incarnations, monks have fanned out across Tibet with relics of the deceased Dalai Lama to try and find his next incarnation — a boy who recognized the objects and thus signaled that the Dalai’s soul had passed into a new earthly envelope. It is a ritual that both affirms and reflects the basic foundations of Tibetan Buddhism, reincarnation and the rule of a revered group of repeatedly reborn monks.
That the protector of Tibetan culture would consider scrapping a core tenet of Tibetan tradition and possibly undermining his own legitimacy are sure signs that China is solidifying its dominant position in the decades-long standoff.
The Dalai Lamas continued to rule Tibet until the People’s Republic of China invaded the region in 1949 and then took full control in 1959,” says the Wikipedia, adding:
“The 14th Dalai Lama then fled to India and has since ceded temporal power to an elected government-in-exile. The current 14th Dalai Lama seeks greater autonomy for Tibet.”
Also See:
Time - The Dalai Lama’s Succession Rethink, November 21, 2007
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