There’s a new law in force in China these days that says the Chinese authorities in future would choose reincarnating Tibetan lamas. Partly in anticipation of such a move and mostly to keep pace with the changing times, His Holiness the Dalai Lama said he has been toying with different methods to choose his successor. This standoff between Tibetan Buddhism and the Chinese Communist Party has brought international media spotlight on this unique system of selecting Tibetan spiritual leaders and on one culture’s spiritual beliefs and a state’s political ambitions.
Buddhists
believe that highly realized beings have the capacity to choose where
and when they want to be reborn. It’s a matter of putting the efforts
of a lifetime (or, in most cases, lifetimes) to adjust one’s internal
mechanism to reach the level when one could project one’s spiritual
qualities over time and space. These qualities enable highly realized
beings to manifest themselves simultaneously in several places, as the
historical Buddha did when he was seen teaching at several places at
the same time. Or, over many lifetimes, rebirth after rebirth, and in
different life forms, as the Buddha did and which forms the basis and
the moral of the classic book, the Jataka Tales.
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