(TibetanReview.net, Jun18’24) — Sticking to his previously announced remarks on the continuance or recognition of his future reincarnation, saying he will not take any decision on it before he reached the age of 90, the Dalai Lama has told a group of visiting journalists from New Delhi Jun 17 that he was not thinking about his reincarnation yet.
“The important thing is as long as I live, I should use all my energies to help as many people as I can,” bloomberg.com Jun 17 quoted the exile spiritual leader of Tibet as saying.
The 1989 Nobel Peace laureate will reach 89 years of age next month. He remains confident that he will live to be more than 110 years of age, citing a knee pain as his only health issue, for which he is travelling to the USA soon.
While the Dalai Lama has left open the question whether at all he will reincarnate, saying he will decide on this matter when he is about ninety years of age, China has made it clear that it will make its own choice of the next Dalai Lama.
China had also made it clear that its choice of the next Dalai Lama will be the “reincarnation” of the current one, while denying the latter any right to make any decision on it, thereby turning the very basis of this unique Tibetan Buddhist tradition on its head.
Tibetans insist that the Dalai Lama must reincarnate to continue to lead his people. They have been campaigning against China’s plan to hijack and subvert the process, garnering widespread international support, including from the US Congress and international human rights organizations. In 2020, the US passed a bill that recognized the Dalai Lama as the final authority on his reincarnation.
China has already set a precedent by installing its own 11th Panchen Lama, after abducting in 1995 the six-year-old reincarnate already recognized and announced by the Dalai Lama. His fate has remained unknown ever since.
And it has not mattered to China whether or not the Tibetan Buddhists accept its choice, who now occupies several titular posts in China’s state apparatus. The Panchen Lama is the second most prominent religious figure of Tibet after the Dalai Lama.