Newsweek: China’s “Absurd Act of Totalitarianism” in Tibet
The current issue of Newsweek has a great article about China’s ridiculous claim that it has the right to control Tibetan Buddhist reincarnation. Newsweek calls it “one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism.” Well said.
We previously discussed this issue (here, here and here), so we’ll just quote this relatively short article in its entirety:
China Regulates Buddhist Reincarnation
In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.” But beyond the irony lies China’s true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region’s Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.
At 72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in Tibet so long as it’s under Chinese control. Assuming he’s able to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks. “It will be a very hot issue,” says Paul Harrison, a Buddhism scholar at Stanford. “The Dalai Lama has been the prime symbol of unity and national identity in Tibet, and so it’s quite likely the battle for his incarnation will be a lot more important than the others.”
So where in the world will the next Dalai Lama be born? Harrison and other Buddhism scholars agree that it will likely be from within the 130,000 Tibetan exiles spread throughout India, Europe and North America. With an estimated 8,000 Tibetans living in the United States, could the next Dalai Lama be American-born? “You’ll have to ask him,” says Harrison. If so, he’ll likely be welcomed into a culture that has increasingly embraced reincarnation over the years. According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 20 percent of all U.S. adults believe in reincarnation. Recent surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit, have found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent of all born-again Christians, embrace it as their favored end-of-life view. A non-Tibetan Dalai Lama, experts say, is probably out of the question.
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[...] One Tibetan we spoke with described it as an overwhelming and dizzying sense of despair, as if someone were ripping their heart out and leaving only a hollow, aching cavity… They said China does anything it wants to Tibetans, trampling them with no hesitation… And just when they think there is nothing more China can do — after occupying their country, ravaging their civilization, and doing what it pleases on their land — then it attacks what is most precious to their faith and identity… The whole world is watching and tut tutting at how absurd this is, but no one is doing anything… And Tibetans are left to suffer whatever fate their overlords in Beijing decide. [...]