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No government has the right to interfere in Dalai Lama’s reincarnation: IHCNBT

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His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the Mahabodhi Temple grounds in Bodhgaya, Bihar, India on December 23, 2022 (Photo/OHHDL- Tenzin Choejor)

By Choekyi Lhamo

DHARAMSHALA, Dec. 23:  The Indian Himalayan Council of the Nalanda Buddhist Tradition (IHCNBT) on Tuesday passed a resolution at their 2nd governing council meeting, which said that the people of the Himalayas will categorically reject any candidate appointed by the Beijing government to meet “political ends”. The Ladakh Buddhist Association backed the statement by noting that His Holiness the Dalai Lama is “very strongly connected to the Himalayan Region” and further asserted the importance of the institution in the context of Chinese oppression inside Tibet.

“If the government of the People’s Republic of China, for political ends, chooses a candidate for the Dalai Lama, the people of the Himalayas will never accept it, never pay devotional obeisance to such a political appointee and publicly denounce such move by anyone. No government or any individual has the right to interfere in this matter,” the statement further stressed, adding that the recognized reincarnation system is unique to Nalanda Buddhism which must be preserved.

The resolution said that it only recognizes the sole authority of the Gaden Phodrang institution based in Dharamshala. Experts and researchers speculate that China will appoint their own 15th Dalai Lama in the hope to gain total control over the religious standing that the institution holds. “No one, including China, should interfere with such a holy and devotional process,” the one-page resolution asserted.

The Vice-President of the Ladakh Buddhist Association, Tsering Dorjay, also weighed in on the support for the resolution as he told India Today, “The Dalai Lama is the supreme spiritual leader of all the Buddhists, not only in the Himalayan region but in other countries. He has said the birth of the new Lama will neither be in China nor in Chinese-controlled Tibet. So it is his holiness who will decide it and the Chinese Communist Party is not any religious party to decide about our faith.”  

Venerable Chuchep Choedan, Vice-President of IHCNBT expressed his concern over the matter of reincarnation as he opined that “China is preparing a lot of things to take over the agenda. For us Himalayan Buddhists, His Holiness, his institution and the continuation of this institution is a very important point.”

3 Responses

  1. The passing of resolution by the Indian Himalayan Council of Nalanda at their second Governing Council is most welcome. The Government of India must take notice that the Dalai Lama is not only the spiritual and Temporal leader of Tibet but has immense influence across the Asian continent. Sir Edwin Arnold, the English poet and journalist is known for calling the Buddha Sakyamuni, the light of Asia and is best known for his book by the same name. Gautam Buddha’s teachings spread across whole of Asia and the Dalai Lama is the modern equivalent of the bygone Lord Buddha of Asia. His popularity has spread far and wide across the world and especially in the Buddhist republics of Russia such as Kalmyk and Tuva, Japan,Taiwan, South Korea in East Asia, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia in South East Asia. However, the most devoted disciples of the Dalai Lama are in occupied Tibet, China and the Indian Himalayas spanning the whole of India’s northern flank from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal in the East besides the two tiny nations of Bhutan and Nepal. This is the legacy of the great Tibetan Empire that left its Buddhist heritage mark to this day. The present Dalai Lama has visited Sikkim,Ladakh and Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh umpteen times and left an indelible mark in the life of the Himalayan region and its people which has become a highly charged and thus critical border area for India. This fact makes the resolution of the Himalayan Council all the more significant. It is no secret that communist China is well aware of the Dalai Lama’s influence and so they are desperate to get their evil hand over his reincarnation in order to use him as a proxy to win over the people of the Himalayas and add the whole of Buddhist Himalayan Indian territory for themselves. When Tibet was invaded in the 1949/50, the CCP smeared the Dalai Lama as a “slave owner” a “theocratic monster”, a “CIA agent” and even calling him a “terrorist” and many other despicable slurs as a pretext to fulfil their evil design to conquer Tibet and illegally occupy it!!! However, after seven decades of brutal occupation and mass murder, they have come to realise the need of the Dalai Lama again despite having to eat their own words! The shameless back tracking on their demonisation of the Dalai Lama shows the utter desperation in dealing with occupied Tibet. The enemy is trying to get its hands over the very person they regarded as “enemy number one” since the Dalai Lama fled his country on 17th March 1959. This is coming from a bunch of infidels who have bulldozed Tibet’s priceless ancient monasteries and killed the monks/nuns and burnt the Buddhist scriptures as symbols of darkness, ignorance and blind faith!!!!!
    After having run a campaign of hate and demonisation for seven decades, they have come to realise the value of the Dalai Lama as a convenient tool to fulfil their evil design to legitimise their illegal occupation of Tibet by falsifying his reincarnation and peddling him as the “Dalai Lama” to deceive the Tibetan Buddhists and take them for a ride!
    The Dalai Lama’s reincarnation is solely the prerogative of the Dalai Lama himself and no one else. He returns to the world in order to benefit other beings who are struggling to get rid of their suffering. He will be born at a place of his choosing which is most conducive to help others by imparting the teachings of Lord Buddha. As it were, occupied Tibet and China are definitely not conducive for the holy Dharma to flourish since the evil infidel CCP regards religion as poison and persecutes Tibetan Buddhism and its followers and attempts to erase them and their faith from the face of the earth. He will therefore be born in the free world. He himself has stated this many times over the years. Therefore any person the CCP installs clandestinely is fake and will not have a shred of legitimacy!
    The Ganden Phodrang (Dalai Lama institution) throughout its history have been responsible for searching and recognising the future Dalai Lama in conjunction with the Tibetan Government. Nobody else has any right or say in this affair. It’s entirely the prerogative of Dalai Lama and his immediate entourage in conjunction with the Government of Tibet who will initiate the search and install the future Dalai Lama. This tradition has been in practice since the time of the fifth Dalai Lama Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1567-1662) who became most the prominent Dalai Lama owing to his contribution in uniting Tibet once again from Ngari in the west to Dartsedo (Tachienlu), Kham, in the south-east and to Kokonor in Amdo in the north-east for the first time since the disintegration of the Tibetan empire in the 9th century.
    While no other Government other than the Tibetan Government has any say in the affairs of the Dalai Lama’s future reincarnation, India should be aware that the future Dalai Lama is equally important to India as it is to the Tibetans people for the simple reason that India’s northern border encompasses the spiritual heartland of the Dalai Lama. Hence, it is well advised to keep a keen interest in the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to prevent the willy and cunning Chinese communists don’t succeed in weaning away their loyalty by installing a clandestine “reincarnation” of the Dalai Lama. The Indians have been caught napping umpteen times since the 1950s when India made some very fateful decisions that have come to bite it hard today. It is hoped that Indian leaders have at long last learnt a lesson or two about the geopolitical ramifications of the future Dalai Lama’s reincarnation and its bearing on India’s own national security and wake up to the reality of the Machiavellian designs of the CCP!

  2. I hope all Himalayan region will reject not just Chinese government interference in Dalai Lama’s matters but make an attempt to overthrow Chinese regime once for an all. If the snake is chopped from the head, there is no need to hit it at tail.

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