Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, who claims that
the title could end with his death, is "making a fool" of Tibetan
Buddhism, a Chinese official has alleged. Writing in the state-run
daily, Global Times, Zhu Weiqun, chairman of the ethnic and religious
affairs committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference,
urged the Buddhist leader to respect Tibetan traditions and follow
them.
Zhu, who calls the Dalai Lama a "separatist",
recently denounced the Dalai Lama's claims that his reincarnation is a
religious matter and that he alone has the right to decide about it. He
said the Dalai Lama's claim that he might reincarnate as a foreigner, a
bee, a blond girl or might become a living reincarnation or might never
reincarnate at all is not only making a fool of Tibetan Buddhism, but
also is a "completely useless" means of "extricating him from the
difficulty of reincarnation".
According to beliefs in Tibetan Buddhism, upon the death of a
senior lama, his soul reincarnates in the body of a child. Such a child
is named the successor to the existing lama. China claims the right to
appointing the successor to the Dalai Lama, saying they have inherited
it from the Chinese emperors. However, Tibetans, who have been fighting
for years for autonomy for Tibet, strongly oppose China's claims.
Earlier in 1995, China put a boy in Tibet under house arrest, whom
the Dalai Lama had named as the reincarnation of the previous Panchen
Lama. China appointed another child in his place.
Tenzin Taklha, a senior aide to the Dalai Lama, was quoted as saying by Reuters
that Tibetans will never accept a successor appointed by China. "The
Chinese are following an absurd agenda and we continue to reject it," he
reportedly said.
The exiled Tibetans, on the other hand, are in the process
of electing their new prime minister-in-exile to continue their fight
for Tibet's freedom after the Dalai Lama. As many as 88,000 Tibetans
across 13 countries are registered to cast their votes for a prime
minister and the 44-member parliament-in-exile, according to a report in TimesLive. The first round of voting took place in October 2015 followed by another round about a week ago.
Lobsang Sangay, 48, the incumbent prime minister-in-exile,
is considered a frontrunner. Penpa Tsering, 49, is the only other
candidate contesting Sangay for the position. Sangay and Tsering were
both raised in India. Sangay is a Harvard-educated former academic and
his opponent is the speaker of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile based in
Dharamsala.
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