His Holiness the Dalai Lama today released a long statement concerning his future rebirth. He explains the Tibetan understanding of rebirth and says this is process is directed by karma and by the person being reborn. He also says the government of China doesn't have anything to say about it.
His Holiness also addresses the controversy of the Golden Urn. China insists that Dalai Lamas can only properly be chosen by means of drawing a name out of this particular urn, something like a lottery. I'm sure they arrange to have ceremonies and drums and dancing to go along with this, so it's a bigger deal than your standard church raffle, but it's still picking names out of an urn. And since they have the urn, Beijing says, they get to run the show and choose the next Dalai Lama.
His Holiness says the Golden Urn method was only used occasionally, and usually after the candidate was already chosen. The only Dalai Lama actually chosen by the Golden Urn was the 11th, says the 14th. (And, by the way, if you can't remember anything about the 11th, that may be because he died when he was 18.)
I've been reading a lot of Tibetan history lately, to fill the many holes in my knowledge of the high lamas and the relationship between Tibet and China. What I've read so far jives with what His Holiness says.
In a nutshell, the Mongolian warlord who caused the death of the 6th Dalai Lama and took over Tibet was a nasty sort who had to be gotten rid of. Then some Gurkhas came along and ran off the Mongolians, but the Gurkhas turned out to be worse.
So Tibetans asked the Qianlong Emperor of China (1735-1796) to please do something about the Gurkhas. A combined Chinese and Tibetan army took Lhasa back from the Gurkhas. After that, Tibet became a protectorate of the Manchu emperors of the Qing Dynasty.
The Qianlong Emperor was the one who thought up the Golden Urn. He wished to control the tulku system and thereby have more influence in Tibet. But the academic histories I have at hand don't say how much it was used.
I do know that by the time the 13th came along its use had been discontinued because the Tibetans objected to it. And after the Qing Dynasty ended in 1912, His Holiness the 13th Dalai Lama issued a proclamation that Tibet was no longer a protectorate of China. The relationship between the two countries, the Great Thirteenth said, had "faded like a rainbow in the sky.
So, the Golden Urn claims of China are bogus.
In today's statement the 14th Dalai Lama said,
"It is particularly inappropriate for Chinese communists, who explicitly reject even the idea of past and future lives, let alone the concept of reincarnate Tulkus, to meddle in the system of reincarnation and especially the reincarnations of the Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas. Such brazen meddling contradicts their own political ideology and reveals their double standards. Should this situation continue in the future, it will be impossible for Tibetans and those who follow the Tibetan Buddhist tradition to acknowledge or accept it."
The Chinese are kidding themselves if they think otherwise.
I would also add a disclaimer that the Tibetan view of the rebirth of individual lamas is unique to Tibetan Buddhism, and His Holiness's explanation of rebirth in large part applies only to Tibetan Buddhism. I'm not saying he's wrong, just that other schools have a different understanding.
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