Dharamshala, India (Reuters)-Dalai Lama assured his followers on Wednesday that, after his death, he will reincarnate as the next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and explained a succession process that prepares a new confrontation with China.
The eagerly awaited statement made days before the fragile winner of the Nobel Peace Prize turns 90, ending the speculation, started by Dalai Lama himself, that he can be Tibet’s last spiritual leader, ending a lineage that extends for centuries.
Speaking for a week of celebrations in the mountainous city of Dharamshala, northern India, to mark his birthday, Dalai Lama said that a non -profit institution he created will have the exclusive authority to identify his reincarnation, contrary to China’s insistence from which he will choose his successor.
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Beijing reiterated on Wednesday that he has to approve reincarnation and that it needs to be done in China through a secular ritual.
Beijing considers Dalai Lama, who fled from Tibet to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule as a separatist. Dalai Lama said his successor will be born outside China and asked his followers to reject anyone chosen by Beijing. In previous years, he also stated that it was possible that there was no successor.
“I am claiming that the institution of Dalai Lama will continue,” Dalai Lama said in a video message, pulling applause from more than 100 monks in brown costumes that gathered in a library in Dharamshala.
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The event was also attended by journalists from around the world and longtime supporters, including Hollywood star Richard Gere, who sat on the audience in a hall with ornate Buddha paintings and Dalai Lama photographs on the walls.
He added that Gaden Phodrang Trust, a non -profit organization he created to maintain and support Dalai Lama’s tradition and institution, has the exclusive authority to recognize his reincarnation in consultation with the leaders of Tibetan Buddhist traditions.
“They should therefore perform search and recognition procedures according to past tradition … No one else has the authority to interfere with this issue,” said Dalai Lama.
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Tibetan tradition states that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk reincarnates in a child’s body after his death.
Born as Lhamo Dhandup on July 6, 1935, in a family of farmers in what is today the province of Qinghai, the 14th Dalai Lama was identified as such a reincarnation when he was only two years old by a search group based on various signs, such as a vision revealed to a senior monk, says the Dalai Lama website.
Today, he is considered one of the most influential religious figures in the world, with followers who go far beyond Buddhism, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
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Dalai Lama is in good health and has not yet given any written instruction on the succession, said Samdhong Rinpoche, a senior authority of the Gaden Phodrang Trust.
He told reporters in Dharamshala that the successor may be of any gender and that his nationality will not be restricted to Tibet.
(Report by Krishna N. das and Shivam Patel; Additional Reporting of Tanvi Mehta in New Delhi and Ryan Woo, Ethan Wang in Beijing)
