Tibetans plot future, Dalai Lama reincarnation

Posted: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 10:49 AM
Filed Under: Beijing, China

BEIJING – As more than 500 Tibetan exile leaders gather in Dharmsala, India, this week to discuss their struggle against Chinese rule, their movement appears to be at a crossroads.

They are expected to debate whether or not they should abandon the Dalai Lama’s longtime attempt to compromise with Beijing, by pursuing a path known as the "middle way," or if they should go for a last ditch attempt at independence.

AP

Tibetan Buddhist monks carry a portrait of the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala, India, on Monday.

But overshadowing those issues, and heightening the urgency of the gathering, is the age and health of the Dalai Lama himself – he is now 73-years-old and has had two hospital treatments since August.

He called the meeting in the Indian hill town that is the base of Tibet’s self-proclaimed government in exile, but was not expected to attend the meeting because he said he did not want to tilt the debate on future strategy.

But as the Tibetan spiritual leader, his continuing influence on the movement is undeniable.

And because of his overwhelming influence, China has already taken preemptive moves to control his replacement and Tibet’s future leadership – by controlling his reincarnation.

Two Dalai Lamas?
Last year the Chinese passed a law that gives Beijing the power to approve the reincarnation of living Buddhas or lamas, of whom the Dalai Lama is the highest in the Tibetan hierarchy.

In turn, the Dalai Lama has raised the possibility to forgo his rebirth, or to be reborn while still alive so that he, not China, can choose his successor.

Reincarnation, the migration of the soul from one body to another in a continuous process of rebirth so that lamas or senior monks can carry on their religious work, is a basic tenet of Tibetan Buddhism.

The current 14th Dalai Lama who is considered a reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, was discovered, through various forms of rituals and divination, while still a young boy, more than two years after the death of the previous Dalai Lama.

But while the issues of afterlife and rebirth seem like ones of strictly religious belief, for China's rulers, they also involve the deadly business of political control over Tibet. The current Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize-winner, has become an international icon and the peaceful face of Tibet’s struggle for autonomy. 

There is a fear among some observers that the Dalai Lama’s death could trigger even more violent uprisings than the recent riots that challenged Chinese communist rule last March.

AP

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama waves as he leaves the Ganga Ram hospital in New Delhi, India on Oct. 16.

"While the Dalai Lama is still alive, no matter how many hardships are encountered, Tibetans have hope, but once the Dalai dies, this hope will be replaced by despair, anger will overcome fear, and grief will give way to frenzy," Wang Lixiong, a mainland China intellectual who follows Tibetan issues recently wrote.

Wang, who advocates negotiations with the Dalai Lama as the only solution to the Tibetan conflict, warned that the possibility of two Dalai Lamas, one chosen by Beijing, and one chosen by the Tibetans in exile, could be a major problem that would lead to more violent protests.

In 1995, China showed how it would deal with the reincarnation issue if they didn’t agree with a Tibetan selection. Beijing rejected the Dalai Lama's choice of a 6-year-old boy as the successor of the 10th Panchen Lama, Tibet's second holiest figure who had died in 1989. China proceeded to choose its own 11th Panchen, and the boy the Dalai Lama selected was never heard from again.

‘Standardizing’ reincarnation
China implemented the new reincarnation law in September 2007 in what they claimed was an effort to "standardize" the registration and approval procedures for the reincarnation of living Buddhas; the new law effectively excluded the current exiled Dalai Lama from the selection process and management of Tibet's clergy.

The law explicitly requires Chinese government approval in the search and confirmation of reincarnated lamas.

While the Dalai Lama is not specifically mentioned in the law, the reference to him was clear in the stipulation that "those reincarnations whose impact on the Buddhist world are very large… extremely large," have to be approved by the Chinese leaders in Beijing. Otherwise, the reincarnation will be considered "illegal and invalid."

In response, at the end of 2007, the Dalai Lama proposed to hold a referendum among his millions of followers on whether he should be reincarnated at all, and, if the vote was in favor, to determine his reincarnation while he was still alive. He cited the example of one of his teachers as a precedent for a lama being reincarnated while still alive. But he also indicated that he would not be reborn in China or any other country which is "not free."

China's Foreign Ministry denounced the Dalai Lama’s statement as a "blatant violation of religious practice and historical procedure." (There was no acknowledgement of the irony that China’s atheist rulers would be speaking out as the guardians of Tibet’s 600-year-old religious traditions.) 

For Tsewang Norbu, a prominent Tibetan activist based in Germany, China's reincarnation law is a "big joke." The aim of reincarnation is "to continue the unfinished work of the predecessor and not to destroy it," he said, explaining why the Dalai Lama can only be reborn outside of Chinese control as long as the Tibet question is not resolved.

Professor Robert Barnett, director of Modern Tibetan Studies at Columbia University, agreed that the issue of succession is critical to the future of the Tibetan movement.

"The Dalai Lama's suggestions are in principle quite serious and everyone knows they need to solve the succession problem, if they can only agree on a method," said Barnett. "But they need a charismatic leader like him to forge a consensus and it can't be done without one, so it's not at all easy and time is short."

A new path?
Nevertheless, the exiled leaders meeting is expected to address some of the overall frustrations of the Tibetan movement. Twenty years after he abandoned the cause of independence in favor of Tibetan autonomy, the so-called "middle way," the Dalai Lama remains empty-handed – despite eight rounds of talks with Beijing since 2002.

"My trust in the Chinese government has become thinner and thinner," the Dalai Lama lamented early this month, "I have to accept failure."

Frustrations over the lack of progress have led to more radical calls for outright Tibetan independence from China and abandoning the strategy of non-violence in favor of angrier protests.

China has mostly dismissed the Tibetan talks about a potential change of strategy as meaningless. Zhu Weiqun, a Chinese vice-minister, said at a news conference in Beijing last week that the Chinese will never accept Tibet’s calls for independence.

China insists Tibet has been part of its territory for 700 years, although many Tibetans insist that they were effectively independent for most of that time. Chinese forces invaded shortly after the 1949 communist revolution and the current Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 amid an unsuccessful uprising.

Whether the Tibetans choose to continue the moderate path of the middle way or take a more confrontational approach is yet to be seen.

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