Ahead of his 90th birthday this month, the 14th Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader of Tibet and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has reiterated that the process to find his successor must follow traditional Tibetan Buddhist practices.
Traditionally, a child believed to be the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama is identified and educated to prepare him for the role.
However, there is a concern among several Tibetan Buddhist monks over the potential interference of China in the selection of 15th Dalai Lama.
As if to confirm the concern of the Tibetan monks, the Chinese state media and officials have asserted that Beijing will determine the next Dalai Lama.
"The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama (second only to Dalai Lama) and other great Buddhist figures must be chosen by drawing lots from a golden urn, and approved by the central government," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told news agency AFP.
Meanwhile, according to The New York Times, in a recorded statement to a meeting of senior Tibetan Buddhist monks in Dharamsala on Wednesday, the Dalai Lama offered few specifics, but made a suggestion that was seen as blocking any Chinese influence from the process of identifying the future reincarnation of the Tibetan spiritual leader. He said that the Dalai Lama’s office has “sole authority” to recognize such a reincarnation.
“No one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” he said.
The selection of the next Dalai Lama is considered one of the significant problems in the contemporary China-Tibet issue.
According to a paper by Kota Kanemaki (Part-time lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Keio University) titled The “Ageing” Dalai Lama and China: Focus on the Selection of New Dalai Lama, the author recalls that in 2011, after China's intervention in the selection of the 11th Panchen Lama, who is second to Dalai Lama, the 14th Dalai Lama stated “When I reach around 90 years old... I would like to reconsider whether it is necessary to continue the system of recognizing the Dalai Lama as reincarnation.”
In 1999, the 14th Dalai Lama, anticipating Chinese intervention, stated:
“If my reincarnation is to be selected through traditional methods, there will be no reincarnation of mine in Tibet or areas under Chinese rule”, thereby checking China.
Furthermore, in a 2011 lecture regarding his retirement, he mentioned his own introduction of a system to democratically elect the Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, which had originally been an appointed position, adding: “Since the beginning of our exile, I have sincerely worked for over 30 years to establish a democratic system of governance.” He went on to say: “We, in exile, have realized a genuine electoral process by remaining as refugees in a foreign country,” arguing that these changes reflect “the growing political awareness of Tibetans and the progress in the democratic process of the Tibetan government-in-exile”, emphasising the importance of democratisation through the introduction of elections.
Certainly, while the current Dalai Lama expressed his retirement from politics in 2011, the Prime Minister of the government-in-exile stated: “The government-in-exile does not have a say in the actual views of His Holiness (the Dalai Lama) regarding reincarnation”, and “Thinking about reincarnation is up to His Holiness himself, and everything is decided by His Holiness himself.” Furthermore, based on the author’s (Kota Kanemaki) local interviews, there were no views other than the idea that the 14th Dalai Lama’s decision was absolute, suggesting that the possibility of the democratic selection of the next Dalai Lama cannot be denied.
