By
Matthew Philips
Newsweek
Aug.
20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism,
China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without
government permission. According to a statement issued by the
State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes
into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures
by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to
institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond
the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of
the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader,
and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more
than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country.
By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking
reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the
power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition,
is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.
At
72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning
to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in
Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control. Assuming he's able
to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas
supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping
up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the
Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks. "It will
be a very hot issue," says Paul Harrison, a Buddhism scholar
at Stanford. "The Dalai Lama has been the prime symbol of
unity and national identity in Tibet, and so it's quite likely
the battle for his incarnation will be a lot more important than
the others."
So
where in the world will the next Dalai Lama be born? Harrison
and other Buddhism scholars agree that it will likely be from
within the 130,000 Tibetan exiles spread throughout India, Europe
and North America. With an estimated 8,000 Tibetans living in
the United States, could the next Dalai Lama be American-born?
"You'll have to ask him," says Harrison. If so, he'll
likely be welcomed into a culture that has increasingly embraced
reincarnation over the years. According to a 2005 Gallup poll,
20 percent of all U.S. adults believe in reincarnation. Recent
surveys by the Barna Group, a Christian research nonprofit, have
found that a quarter of U.S. Christians, including 10 percent
of all born-again Christians, embrace it as their favored end-of-life
view. A non-Tibetan Dalai Lama, experts say, is probably out of
the question.