The Dalai Lama said Wednesday that the former Tibetan Buddhist institution he directs will live after he dies, ending the speculations that he would be the last person to occupy the role while planning to reincarnate.
As part of the celebrations that mark their 90th birthday, the Nobel Peace Prize also pointed out that China, that Tibetan activists accuse of suppressing their language, culture and religion, should be kept out of the process of choosing the next Dalai Lama.
The rare comments of Dalai Lama occurred as anxiety about who will follow it as the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.
“I am stating that the institution of Dalai Lama will continue,” said Dalai Lama, who has spent almost 70 years living in exile in India after fleeing from Tibet, an autonomous region of China’s Himalayas.
“Therefore, I reiterate that Gaden Phodrang Trust has an exclusive authority to recognize the future reincarnation,” he said, referring to an organization he founded. “No one else has such authority to interfere with this matter.”
The Chinese government responded to the comments quickly, with a spokesman from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that says that any succession planning must comply with laws and regulations, according to Reuters.
The Tibetan spiritual leader made announcements before his 90th birthday on July 6, after a conference of representatives of the four main traditions of Tibetan Buddhism in the Indian city of Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile.
It is unusual for a living Dalai Lama to speak about his successor, the search for who begins only to his death because he implies a reincarnation. But as the 14th Dalai Lama grows, there is a growing concern that the Chinese government can take advantage of a leadership gap.
“I think His Holiness feels the need to reassure people basically letting them know that he is thinking about succession,” said Thupen Jinpa, his four decades English translator, in a telephone interview since India last week.
Identified as a baby in 1937, the 14th Dalai Lama was formally recognized two years later. In addition to his role as a spiritual leader, he served as a temporary leader of the Tibet since 1950, when he was 15 years old and China began to attach the region.
In 1959, when he was 23, Dalai Lama and thousands of other Tibetans fled to India after a failed uprising against communist domain, finally establishing himself in Dharamsala.
Since the 1970s, the objective of the movement has changed Tibetan independence to achieve genuine autonomy within China. In recent years, Dalai Lama has also renounced its political role, which is now a democratically chosen position.
In March, Dalai Lama said in a new book that his successor would be born in the “free world” outside China, so that the traditional Mission of Dalai Lama could continue. According to the central Tibetan administration, there are around 130,000 Tibetan exiles worldwide, mainly in India and Nepal.
The Dalai Lama had said previously in 2011 that the institution of Dalai Lama did not necessarily have to continue at all, and that it would leave it to the Tibetan Buddhist community.
Since then, he has received appeals from a variety of constituencies, and the “unanimous” response, said Jinpa, has been that there should be a 15th Dalai Lama.
“For the Tibetan people, his name has come to symbolize the nation,” said Jinpa, who has helped Dalai Lama with a series of books, including the recent “voice for the voiceless.”
There is also concern that if they do not select a new Dalai Lama, China could name one that does not submit.
“Unfortunately, the RPC government will probably want to play a role, just as it was inserted in the process of recognition of the Panchen Lama,” said Jinpa, referring to the second highest spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism.
In 1995, Dalai Lama recognized a 6 -year -old boy at Tibet as the 11th Panchen Lama, after the previous one died six years before. The child disappeared by force by the Chinese government three days later, the rights groups say, and has not been seen in public since then.
Then, China chose its own Panchen Lama, imposing it to the six million people in the Tibet.
The government in Tibetan exile does not recognize the Panchen Lama designated by Beijing, who rarely appears in public, but promised loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party at a meeting behind closed doors last month with President Xi Jinping, state media reported.
If Beijing also tries to name a Dalai Lama, “Tibetans would not be surprised,” Jinpa said. “They would be disappointed and annoying, but I don’t think they are surprised.”
The Chinese government says that Tibet has prospered under its rule, and that it has improved infrastructure and social conditions and has promoted economic development. He says that Dalai Lama is “a political exile dedicated to separatist activities under the disguise of religion”, and that the reincarnation of Tibetan lams must be controlled by Beijing.
The reincarnation “must comply with Chinese laws and regulations” and “follow the process that consists in the search and identification in China, the lot drawing of a golden urn and the approval of the central government,” said the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mao Ning in March.
