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On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 5:54 PM Paul Eckert <eckertp(a)rfa.org> wrote:
*Karmapa says Reincarnation, Successor Question is Up to the Dalai Lama*
*April 15, 2015 -* The Dalai Lama is the only one who can decide the
matter of his reincarnation, a senior Tibetan lama said on Wednesday in an
effective rejection of China's insistence that the communist rulers of
Beijing have the authority to select the next leader of Tibetan Buddhism.
The 17th Karmapa told RFA's Tibetan Service in an interview that he had
"complete belief and trust in the future decision" on on a successor to be
made by the 79-year-old Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile since 1959.
The Dalai Lama speculated earlier this year that he might not reincarnate,
thus ending his spiritual lineage. China, keen to engineer a process that
produces a pro-Beijing monk as the spiritual leader of Tibetans, reacted
angrily to that suggestion, insisting that the officially atheist Chinese
government was the only one with the authority to make that decision.
The 29-year-old Karmapa said, however, that the decision rests with the
Dalai Lama and he was confident that the globe-trotting Nobel laureate
would make the right choice.
“In Tibetan traditions, we don’t talk much about the reincarnation of a
living master," he told RFA in an interview in Washington during a tour of
the United States.
"However, now many questions are being generated. In my view, it is only
the Dalai Lama himself who should decide about his future reincarnation. So
I am confident and have full trust in his decision. There are many
presumptive statements and guess works, but I am not worried," he said.
The Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, head of the Karma Kagyu school of
Tibetan Buddhism and one of Tibet’s highest-ranking religious figures,
escaped from Tibet into India in 2000. He has since established himself in
exile, and is considered close to the Dalai Lama.
The dispute over the Dalai Lama's reincarnation is not the first time
China has clashed with Tibetans over their traditional method of
identifying future religious leaders.
In 1995, Beijing named Gyaincain Norbu as the Panchen Lama in a
retaliatory action after the exiled Dalai Lama identified another child,
six-year-old Gendun Choekyi Nyima, as the reincarnation of the widely
venerated religious figure, who died in 1989.
But Chinese authorities have had difficulty persuading Tibetans to accept
Gyaincain Norbu as the official face of Tibetan Buddhism in China, and
monks in monasteries traditionally loyal to the Dalai Lama remain reluctant
to receive him. In a tour of Tibet last August, Chinese authorities
threatened punishment of Tibetan monks who refused to turn up for his
official public appearances.
*Reported by Dorjee Damdul for RFA's Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma
Dorjee. Written in English by Paul Eckert.*
View this story online at:
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/tibet-karmapa-04152015172528.html
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