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The Dalai Lama is going to announce details of how he is to be succeeded this week, as he prepares to turn 90 years old.
Traditionally, a new Dalai Lama – leader of 7.7 million Tibetan Buddhists, addressed as His Holiness – is chosen through a mystical and complex set of divinely guided clues and symbols, overseen by Buddhism’s most senior monks.
The monks are led by dream interpretations, meditations at sacred spots and consultations with oracles, a process which often takes years to complete.
But Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, has hinted longstanding rules such as his successor being found in the Tibet region and being a male under six years of age may not apply this time around.
The holy man has even joked he could be reincarnated as a “mischievous blond woman” with a “very attractive face.”
“Officials have said the Dalai Lama is expected to send a recorded address clarifying the course of succession,” Dr. Laura Harrington, a senior lecturer in the religion department at Boston University, told The Post.
This is largely due to meddling from China, which is seeking to appoint its own successor. The Communist country annexed Tibet in 1959, causing the Dalai Lama and then-Tibetan government to flee to Dharamshala, India, where they have been based in exile ever since.
“In 2011, the Dalai Lama reserved the right to do three things,” said Harington. “He can end the lineage [meaning that the line of spiritual leaders could end with him], he can recognize a female successor and the successor can [come from] outside of Tibet.
“They’re taking the very notion of Tibet and turning it into the whole world. It’s radical, right?”
The traditional hunt for a new Dalai Lama started with the death of his predecessor. In the case of the 13th Dalai Lama, during the process of him being mummified, his head is said to have turned itself from facing south to northeast, indicating where the 14th Dalai Lama would be found.
A star-shaped fungus on the 13th Dalai Lama’s shrine also helped to guide Buddhism’s senior disciples along their path to find the successor. They arrived at the home where Gyatso lived with his parents in 1937 at Lhamo Latso, also known as “Oracle Lake,” which had been seen by one of the monks in his dreams.
The kid, then called Lhamo Dhondup, was just two years old, but he pinpointed items — including Bhuddhist rosary beads, a walking stick and a drum — that belonged to the former Dalia Lama and is said to have exclaimed, “It’s mine! It’s mine!”
He was renamed and recognized as the new Dalai Lama in 1939 at the age of four and was schooled by the monks until he assumed full leadership of Tibet in 1950.
However, much has changed since then. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the Dalai Lama advocates for a non-violent “Middle Way” whereby he would make a peaceful return to his homeland and gain autonomy and religious freedom for Tibetan people.
However, China’s government describes him as a “wolf in monk’s robes.”
“The Dalai Lama has been such a thorn in the side of China. He influences thought in Tibet and Tibetans are the object of China’s wrath,” said Harrington.
“Plus, he’s done such a bang-up job of generating a free Tibet community, with people like Philip Glass, Patti Smith, Richard Gere and Harrison Ford.
“He’s generated an entire identity movement, and he’s allied it with human rights.”
Much of the Dalai Lama’s current planning for a successor is centered around the expected counter-move by China to name their own Dalai Lama, likely through deploying ‘the Golden Urn.’
The Golden Urn was introduced by the Qing dynasty of China in 1793 as a way to draw straws from the vessel to determine who would be the next Dalai Lama, in a lottery format.
“In the 1990s the Chinese Communist Party resurrected the Golden Urn as a symbol of Chinese sovereignty in Tibet and as a tool to retain control over the physical personages of future Dalai Lamas,” said Max Oidtmann, author of “Forging the Golden Urn,” in an interview with Columbia University Press.
The Golden Urn emulated Chinese bureaucratic practices of the time, and Oidtmann writes in his book about how within a decade it “became a fairly routine part of the process of identifying important reincarnations,” although it has since been rejected by the current Dalai Lama.
China is home to some 53 million Buddhists, around 16% of the world’s estimated 324 million adherents of the religion, according to the Pew research center.
One follower of Buddhism’s fears about China’s version is, “it will be all names of people related to Communist party leaders” in the urn.
Although Tibetan Buddhists are excited to see the Dalai Lama’s new plans, they don’t expect him to be replaced soon – as he’s predicted he will live to 113 years old, based partly on a dream in which he took 13 steps.
“I’m not speculating,” Harrington said. “Maybe he will specify a mechanism — like a search committee. Or a cool clue to something. Maybe he’ll simply restate his principles.”
“The Dalia Lama is setting up, and he’s making as much noise as he can to say that the Chinese have no business having anything to do with this,” Christian Wedemeyer, an associate professor of the history of religion at University of Chicago, told The Post.
“[China’s] going to say they have the Dalai Lama … and the people beholden to the Chinese government will go through the motions of respecting that.”
The Chinese plan is met with resistance by Tibetan leaders.
“China is trying to grab this institution … for its political purpose.
“We want the incarnation of the Dalai Lama to be born not only for the survival of Tibet as a distinct culture, religion and nation, but also for the well-being of the whole humanity,” said Dolma Tsering Teykhang, deputy speaker of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, to Reuters.
Beijing has previously said that because the Dalai Lama is in exile he has no right to lead the Tibetan people who remain in the region and call on him to recognize Tibet as part of China.
A spokesperson from the Chinese Embassy told The Post, “The Chinese government implements a policy of freedom of religious belief and has promulgated The Regulatory Measures on the Reincarnation of Living Buddhas of Tibetan Buddhism in 2007.
“This document is grounded in respect for the unique characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism as well as the principles of the rule of law.”
Prayers were held to promote a long life for the Dalai Lama this week, attended by prominent Buddhists from across Southeast Asia.
“The rest of my life I will dedicate for the benefit of others, as much as possible, as extensive as possible,” he told his followers in return.
English (US)