CHINA NOW REGULATES WHO CAN BE
REINCARNATED
31 MAR 2016 DEREK WELCH
World Religion News
BUDDHIST REINCARNATION IS NOW REGULATED BY THE CHINESE
GOVERNMENT.
China, in one of the most ludicrous displays of totalitarianism in
history, has restricted Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating
without permission from the government. Based on a statement that
was given from the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the
ruling, which will be applicable as of March 2015, stringently
states the processes an individual must follow in order to
reincarnate is “an important move to institutionalize management of
reincarnation.”
China Now Controls Who Can Come Back From the Dead.
However China’s ulterior motives lie just beyond the irony, which
include: to put a stop to the influence of Tibet’s political leader
a spiritual expatriate Dalai Lama and to suppress the religious
establishment of the region’s Buddhists, after more than a half
century since China plundered the tiny Himalayan nation. By
stopping all Buddhist monks located outside of China from the act
of reincarnation, the new ruling allows Chinese heads of government
to select the next Dalai Lama, whose spirit, by years of tradition,
is reawakened in the form of a new human to resume the duty of
ending suffering.
Currently at the age of 72, the Dalai Lama, who has been residing
in India since 1959, has started to prepare for his succession,
saying that as long as Tibet is under the control of the Chinese,
he refuses to be reborn there. Under the assumption that he has
mastered the act of controlling his own rebirth, seeing that 600
years is the life span of Dalai Lamas, it is starting to look like
an instance where there could be two Dalai Lamas: one that is
selected by the Buddhist monks and the other selected by the
Chinese government.
According to Paul Harrison, a Stanford University Buddhism scholar,
“It will be a very hot issue. 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 the next question is what part of the world will the next Dalai
Lama be born in? Harrison, along with a few other Buddhism
scholars, have concluded that he will come from one of the 130,000
Tibetan exiles that are spread across Europe, North America and
India. So will the next Dalai Lama be American born seeing that
approximately 8,000 Tibetans current live in the U.S.? If so,
according to Harrison, he will be warmly welcomed into a society
that has grown familiar with the concept of reincarnation over
time.
According to surveys conducted by the Barna Group, roughly a
quarter of Christians in the U.S. have taken on the reincarnation
concept and have welcomed it as their preferred view as it relates
to the ending of life.