It was an eye-opener for me. Or mind-opener. A story in TIME magazine about what will happen after the Dalai Lama dies, how he became the Dalai Lama, and other details about his brand of Buddhism.
I’ve had the impression that the Dalai Lama was a scientifically oriented person who didn’t buy into the supernatural side of Buddhism. But I readily admit that this was based on my fairly cursory knowledge of books and talks by the Dalai Lama aimed at Western audiences.
The TIME story by Charlie Campbell seemed like it was written by a devotee of Tibetan Buddhism. Maybe Campbell is, or maybe Campbell chose to take an uncritical view of his subject to give the reader a feel for how believers perceive the Dalai Lama.
While I’m no expert on Buddhism, this passage seemed off-base to me, since I doubt that all, or even most, Buddhists consider the Dalai Lama to be their spiritual leader.
For the spiritual succession is not merely a religious event, but a critical flash point amid a struggle for influence over a faith practiced by almost 500 million people worldwide.
I realize that lots of Buddhists embrace the supernatural teachings of Buddhism, which strike me as being as crazy and unmoored from reality as the teachings of any other religion. This story just revealed weird aspects of Tibetan Buddhism that either I’d forgotten, or never knew.
The basic notion of how a Dalai Lama traditionally was chosen was familiar to me. After a Dalai Lama dies, a search ensues for a young child who is considered to be the reincarnated successor. I learned that clues pointed toward the current Dalai Lama after the 13th Dalai Lama died in 1933.
Monks noticed the late leader’s head tilted toward the northeast, while an unusual fungus sprouted on the same side of his shrine. Then came the visions: a mystical lake, a specific house with peculiar eaves, and the Tibetan letter A.
In my decidedly skeptical opinion, the chance that the current Dalai Lama actually was found by supernatural means seems exceedingly slim to none. The Chinese Communist Party approach to choosing the next Dalai Lama seems more reasonable.
Soon there will likely be two Dalai Lamas: one sanctioned by the CCP and another by the Office of His Holiness. Following the fate of the Panchen Lama, His Holiness decreed that he will be reborn in a “free” country and that his successor may even break precedent by being female. However, China insists a state-sanctioned short list of Chinese candidates will be placed inside a golden urn gifted to Tibet by the Qing Dynasty court, with the single name then withdrawn as the true reincarnation.
Supposedly the current Dalai Lama was discovered as a 2-year-old child after a Buddhist search team heard of him. Again, the chance that this actually happened is virtually zero. But every religion wants to feel that its leader is special, so fantasies are put forward as reality.
Inside the modest home, legend has it, the toddler marched straight up to the lead monk, eyed a set of prayer beads belonging to the late Dalai Lama, and despite speaking only a local Chinese dialect demanded in perfect central Tibetan: “Give me my beads.”
The following passage really helped demolish my conception that the current Dalai Lama wants to present Buddhism as a rational, quasi-scientific means of finding peace and happiness.
The paradox of Tibetan Buddhism is this blending of secular wisdom and mystical rite. Several times each year, His Holiness requests guidance from Kuten La, who in his role as State Oracle serves as mouthpiece for Nechung, an ancient deity and Tibet’s spiritual protector. The air inside his temple in Dharamshala thickens with the sharp, medicinal sting of burning juniper and the low, rhythmic thrum of drums and horns. In the center sits Kuten La, whom attendants drape with 80 pounds of ceremonial armor, before crowning him with a towering headdress of gold and mirrors, and securing a silk cord tightly around his throat.
Kuten La’s limbs twitch. His breathing shifts to an unnatural cadence. The physical strain is immense—his face flushes crimson under the regalia—but his consciousness is no longer entirely his own. As he passes the delicate threshold into the trance state, the oracle begins to dance with an otherworldly vigor. He hisses commands, bends iron swords with bare hands, and speaks in a high-pitched, archaic dialect: cryptic divinations sent to aid Tibet’s people and those who lead them. “When Nechung enters me it’s just a feeling of equanimity,” Kuten La says. “But when he’s gone, there’s a bit of discomfort in my heart, or maybe my muscles and joints.”
Well, I’ll stick with enjoying non-supernatural Buddhism centered on mindfulness and such. I find it bizarre that the current Dalai Lama, a.k.a. HIs Holiness, requests guidance from a guy who goes into a trance where he supposedly bends iron swords with his bare hands and issues cryptic divinations.
It wouldn’t break my heart if the whole Dalai Lama thing falls by the wayside after the current one dies and two Dalai Lamas battle for control, one picked by the Chinese Communist Party and the other picked in the traditional “find the reincarnated child” approach. The less superstition there is in the world, the better off we’ll be.
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