The old man Dalai Lama assured the followers on Wednesday that, after his death, he would be reincarnated as the next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and explained a succession process that establishes a renewed clash with China.
The expected expected statement, made days before the fragile Nobel Peace Laureate turns 90 years old, puts the rest speculation, initiated by Dalai Lama himself, so that he can be the last of the spiritual leaders of the Tibet, which ends a line that extends back centuries.
Speaking for a week of celebrations in the city of Dharamshala in northern Indian Hill to mark his birthday, Dalai Lama said that a non -profit institution that has established will have an exclusive authority to identify his reincarnation, counteracting the insistence of China on which he will choose his successor.
Beijing reiterated on Wednesday that he had to approve reincarnation and had to be done in China through a ritual of centuries of antiquity. A spokesman for the United States Department of State said he would continue to ask China to cease interference in succession and respect for freedom of religion.
Beijing sees the Dalai Lama, who fled to India from Tibet in 1959 after a failed survey against Chinese domain, as separatist. The Dalai Lama has said that his successor will be born outside China and urged his followers to reject anyone chosen by Beijing. In previous years, he had also said that it was possible that there was no successor at all.
“I am stating that the institution of Dalai Lama will continue,” said Dalai Lama in a video message, applaud and cancel more than 100 monks with brown robes that had met in a library in Dharamshala.
The event was attended by journalists from all over the world and a audience of followers of a long time, including the Hollywood star, Richard Gere, sitting in a room whose walls showed adorned paintings of the Buddha and photographs of the Dalai Lama.
The Dalai Lama added that Gaden Phodrang Trust, the non -profit organization that he established to maintain and support the tradition and institution of Dalai Lama, has the exclusive authority to recognize his reincarnation in consultation with the heads of Tibetan Buddhist traditions.
“Consequently, they should carry out the search and recognition procedures according to the past tradition … No one else has such authority to interfere with this matter,” he said.
The Tibetan tradition argues that the soul of a superior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in a child’s body after his death.
Born as Lhamo Dhondup on July 6, 1935, in an agricultural family in what is now the province of Qinghai, the 14th Dalai Lama was identified as a reincarnation at two years by a search party based on several signs, as a vision revealed to a major monk, the Dalai Lama Lama website says.
It is now considered one of the most influential religious figures in the world, with a follow -up that extends far beyond Buddhism, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
‘Open to visit El Tibet’
The Dalai Lama had good health and has not yet given any written instruction on succession, said Samdhong Rimpoché, a senior Gaden Phodrang Trust official.
He told reporters that the successor can be gender and that his nationality would not be restricted to Tibet.
Penpa Tsering, leader of the Central Tibetan Administration, the Tibetan government in exile in India, said that Dalai Lama would be open to visit Tibet if his health allows it and if there were no restrictions from China. It would be his first visit to the country since 1959.
“It depends completely on China and the Chinese government,” he said, adding that Beijing had put a condition that if Dalai Lama visits, he should stay.
“The response of his holiness is’ If I can go to Tibet and China, I will go, but I will not live there, because there is no freedom there. ‘This is also related to reincarnation where his holiness says’ I will be born in a free world,” said Tsering.
The spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of China, MAO NO, said that China had the right to approve the successor of Dalai Lama, as a legacy of the imperial era, and that Beijing practices a policy of freedom of religious belief.
A spokesman for the United States Department of the United States said he would continue to ask China to return to direct dialogue with Dalai Lama, his representatives or democratically chosen tibetan leaders, without prior conditions, to “achieve significant autonomy for Tibetans.”
“We will also continue asking China to cease their interference in the succession of Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist lamps and respect the freedom of religion or belief of individuals of all religions,” said the spokesman.
Tsering, leader of the government in exile, said that the United States had raised some restrictions on the funds for Tibetans in exile and that the Tibetan government was also looking for alternative sources of financing.
A selection ritual, in which the names of possible reincarnations are extracted from a golden urn, dates from 1793, during the Qing dynasty.
“The children’s reincarnation of a great living Buddha, such as the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, must be identified by drawing lots of a golden urn and the approval of the central government,” Mao said at a regular press conference.
