reincarnation watch

You have to start early with these: during the dis-incarnation process:

A spell in hospital by the Dalai Lama highlights enormous complexities likely to arise when the 73-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner does pass away.

Revered by Tibetan Buddhists as their spiritual leader, but loathed by China as a troublemaking separatist, the Dalai Lama smiled and waved to supporters as he left a hospital in India on Monday after being treated for four days for a stomach ailment.

But questions about the mortality of a man who supporters believe is actually the latest reincarnation of a long line of enlightened masters are now being raised.

There are also questions about who will succeed him as head of Tibet's government-in-exile, as well as the future of the Himalayan region itself.

Analysts say China, which rules Tibet, and the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile, which wants autonomy for the region, are likely to embark on bitter rival searches for a reincarnated successor -- as happened when other senior Tibetan Buddhist leaders have died in the past.

There’s been a lot of well justified mockery of the Communist Party’s arrogating the right to choose the re-incarnation of a living God. Naturally, all good secular democrats should endorse the Tibetan exile movement’s choice of a living God, and do so with a completely straight face.

Actually, we can expect a good deal of jiggery-pokery on both sides. We saw this with the rival candidates for the Panchen Lama a few years back. China based its claim on the procedures instituted by the Manchu Qianlong Emperor, which basically involve all the candidates names being concealed in a ball of mashed barley and put into a golden urn, with the winner picked bingo style. The Tibetan side insisted that this system was adopted out of consideration for the Qianlong Emperor himself due to his personal respect for Tibetan Buddhism, and that the Dalai Lama himself could nominate a successor.

So how is the Dalai chosen? One method has been to cremate the fleshly envelope of the late Dalai, and follow the direction of the smoke in the wind until you run across a child born at roughly the time the last Dalai died. This gives the exile movement an institutional advantage, so to speak. The Dalai has also reportedly stated that his re-incarnation will be born in a democracy, the first time to my knowledge that the Buddha has indicated any preference in the matter of relations between the individual and the state. The Chinese may go for an alternative procedure involving a trip by the major Lamas to the Oracle Lake of Lhamo Lhatso in central Tibet, and there await a sign.

So strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is a valid basis for a system of government after all, at least if you’re a Chinese communist.

It’s all bollocks, obviously. I bet both sides have picked on some poor kid already, on the basis that Buddha helps those who help themselves.

Comments

[Madam Miaow]

Har! Good post, B&T.

What are the chances of the new Dalai being born into a genuinely dirt poor family like the present one? NOT!

Funny how the deities haven't succeeded in transcending class either, just like their fleshly minions.