The
End of the Dalai Lama?
Not
exactly.
Alex Caring-Lobel September 10, 2014
An interview with the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso
by the Sunday edition of German paper Die
Welt has caused quite a stir in the media and in
Tibetan communities across the globe.
“We had a Dalai
Lama for almost five centuries,” the Dalai Lama is quoted as saying
in the interview. “The 14th Dalai Lama now is very popular. Let us
then finish with a popular Dalai Lama.”
The German paper seems to have understood this
statement to mean that the Dalai Lama wishes to discontinue the
lineage, running the interview under a subtitle that includes the
statement “the Dalai Lama does not want to have a
successor.”
News sources like Agence France-Presse, whose version of
the story has been reprinted in numerous other publications like
Al Jazeera and Yahoo! News (and essentially
reworded in the Huffington Post), have interpreted the
Dalai Lama’s statement as a reversal of longstanding policy
regarding the continuation of the Dalai Lama lineage.
These reports garnered so much attention that
even China was impelled
to reply. This morning, government officials called on
the Dalai Lama to respect the historic practice of reincarnation in
a press conference (no irony intended, we think): “China follows a
policy of freedom of religion and belief, and this naturally
includes having to respect and protect the ways of passing on
Tibetan Buddhism.”
The transcript of the Die Welt
interview, however, paints a very different picture from that taken
up by most media outlets. The Dalai Lama prefaces the
aforementioned statement by saying “sometimes I make a joke…” and
speaks alternately about his role as a politician and as a
spiritual leader.
“The institution of the Dalai Lama was
important mainly because of its political power,” he says earlier
in the interview. “Politically . . . the centuries of having a
Dalai Lama should be over.” This statement is nothing new, as
Tenzin Gyatso relinquished his political power back in
2011.
The Dalai Lama institution led Tibet
politically for nearly four centuries, from 1642 until just a few
years ago. But it came to represent the de facto leadership of
Tibetan Buddhism only recently, beginning when the current Dalai
Lama fled Tibet in 1959.
Speaking of his role as a spiritual leader,
the Dalai Lama tells Welt am Sonntag that “Tibetan
Buddhism is not dependent on one individual. We have a very good
organizational structure with highly trained monks and scholars.”
Asked whether the Tibetans will require a Dalai Lama in the future,
he responds modestly, “No, I don’t think so.”
Robert Barnett, director of Columbia
University’s Tibetan Studies program, thinks the meaning of this
statement has been lost in translation.
“It is in line with the tradition whereby
all lamas are expected to demonstrate diffidence about the question
of their return as a kind of humility,” Barnett told
Tricycle. “The convention is that they are only able to
return if their followers pray intently for them to do
so.”
Barnett also holds that there is a more
significant issue that the Dalai Lama addresses here, which seems
to escape both his German interlocutors and the American media. “He
is clearly saying that his role as the leading figure in Tibetan
Buddhism will not continue,” says Barnett.
The 14th Dalai Lama acquired this role due
to the exigencies of exile. In the interview, he seems to say that
the robust Tibetan monastic academies that have been established in
India over the decades obviate the need for such an institution,
and after the current Dalai Lama passes away, other Buddhist sects
will likely run themselves with greater autonomy as they have in
the past. Barnett points to the fact that although this has long
been understood to be the case, the utterance takes on special
importance because it constitutes a clear statement of
intention.
Several statements of the Dalai Lama that
appear later in the interview further contradict the interpretation
that he intends to end the Dalai Lama lineage altogether. “I hope
and pray that I may return to this world as long as sentient beings
suffering remain,” he says.
He goes on to quote the first Dalai Lama:
“‘I have no desire for any of these heavenly places. I want to be
reborn, where I can be of use.’ This is my wish, too.”
The
suggestion that the Dalai Lama line might be reaching its end seems
to be the result of one big misunderstanding.