The Dalai Lama’s successor would be born outside China, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism says in a new book, raising the stakes in a dispute with Beijing over control of the Himalayan region he fled more than six decades ago.
Tibetans worldwide want the institution of the Dalai Lama to continue after the 89-year-old’s death, he writes in Voice for the Voiceless, which was released yesterday.
He had previously said the line of spiritual leaders might end with him.
Photo: handout via Reuters
The book marks the first time the Dalai Lama has specified that his successor would be born in the “free world,” which he describes as outside China. He has previously said only that he could reincarnate outside Tibet, possibly in India where he lives in exile.
“Since the purpose of a reincarnation is to carry on the work of the predecessor, the new Dalai Lama will be born in the free world so that the traditional mission of the Dalai Lama — that is, to be the voice for universal compassion, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and the symbol of Tibet embodying the aspirations of the Tibetan people — will continue,” the Dalai Lama wrote.
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, fled at the age of 23 to India with thousands of other Tibetans in 1959 after a failed uprising against the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.
Beijing insists it would choose a successor, but the Dalai Lama has said any successor named by China would not be respected.
China brands the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for keeping alive the Tibetan cause, as a “separatist.”
When asked about the book at a news conference on Monday, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Dalai Lama “is a political exile who is engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the cloak of religion.”
“On the Tibet issue, China’s position is consistent and clear. What the Dalai Lama says and does cannot change the objective fact of Tibet’s prosperity and development,” they said.
Beijing last month said that it hoped the Dalai Lama would “return to the right path” and that it was open to discussing his future if he met such conditions as recognizing that Tibet and Taiwan are inalienable parts of China, whose sole legal government is that of the People’s Republic of China. That proposal has been rejected by the Tibetan parliament-in-exile in India.
Supporters of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause include Richard Gere, a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, and former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi.
His followers have been worried about his health, especially after knee surgery last year. He told Reuters in December last year that he might live to be 110.
In his book, the Dalai Lama says he has received numerous petitions for more than a decade from a wide spectrum of Tibetans “uniformly asking me to ensure that the Dalai Lama lineage be continued.”
Tibetan tradition holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death. The current Dalai Lama was identified as the reincarnation of his predecessor when he was two years old.
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN’: The judge rejected arguments that former prime minister Najib Razak was an unwitting victim, saying Najib took steps to protect his position Imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday convicted, following a corruption trial tied to multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The nation’s high court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than US$700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Najib denied any wrongdoing, and maintained the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by businessman Low Taek Jho. Low, thought to be the scandal’s mastermind, remains
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced plans for a national bravery award to recognize civilians and first responders who confronted “the worst of evil” during an anti-Semitic terror attack that left 15 dead and has cast a heavy shadow over the nation’s holiday season. Albanese said he plans to establish a special honors system for those who placed themselves in harm’s way to help during the attack on a beachside Hanukkah celebration, like Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim who disarmed one of the assailants before being wounded himself. Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the Dec. 14 attack, and
RSS