Request permission to reincarnate, Sir!

[Skybird]

for reasons that are not important here, I am not really a fan of Tibetan form of Buddhism, and apparently have a different understanding of concepts like karma and reincarnation anyway - not to mention that I think that my former buddhist friends made far too much fuss about these things anyway. However, when reading this news from China, all I could do is burst with laughter before shaking my head, helplessly. Unfortunately, the political plan behind it is all too consistent with the whole injustice towards the Tibetans. If only they would have had oil, or uranium, or diamonds - but without all these things, no nation ever jumped to their defense.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/)

In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."

However, the Chinese tactic is not really new. In the nineties they started intrigues to control who was to become the next Karmapa, who is head of one of the four major lines of Tibetan buddhism and means for the Kagypa line what the Dalai Lama is for the Gelupa line (both being the two oldest traditions amongst the four surviving). For some time at least there were two Karmapa boys, one selected by the chinese, and one formed by the Kagypa tradition. Unrest and even splitting and violence amongst followers of the Kagypa was, as intended, the result (I guess those guys still needed to learn about the meaning of Buddhist teachings). I do not know how it ended, for I ended my expedition into Tibetan Buddhism and went back to what I felt at home with. whatever answers I was searching for - this Karmapa thing did not give me any convincing ones.

[Safe-Keeper]

Dalai Lama has power, he may use said power to work against Chinese oppression, China prevents him from taking power. Simple as that. Ridiculous, but simple.

[Ishmael]

We know that the Chinese government kidnapped the latest incarnation of the Panchen Lama that the present Dalai Lama found. The Chinese hope to control him and select a new Dalai Lama themselves, one more controllable to their agenda than the present incarnation. I've also read reports of the Chinese uprooting Tibetan families and relocating them to "reservations" while the Han Chinese turn Lhasa into some Disneyesque version of Mahyanna BhuddismLand.

I've actually been kicking around a play idea where the Chinese kill the current Panchen Lama in favor of an imposter. This causes the Panchen Lama to reincarnate to a place where compassion is needed most, so he is reborn as a Jew in Israel. Upon the death of this incarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Jewish Panchen Lama finds the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama as a Palestinian Arab in the West Bank. So I get to examine the impact on and interplay between Judaism, Islam, Christianity and Tibetan Bhuddism.

[Skybird]

I've actually been kicking around a play idea where the Chinese kill the current Panchen Lama in favor of an imposter. This causes the Panchen Lama to reincarnate to a place where compassion is needed most, so he is reborn as a Jew in Israel. Upon the death of this incarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Jewish Panchen Lama finds the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama as a Palestinian Arab in the West Bank. So I get to examine the impact on and interplay between Judaism, Islam, Christianity and Tibetan Bhuddism.
Now I'm dizzy :doh:

[bookworm_020]

So if you reincarnate without permission, what happens? Do you get downgraded?:hmm:

So not everything zen?

[Letum]

:nope: Don't get me started on China, Tibet and Buhddism. Its been utter rape of country, culture, peoples and beliefs.

Im not much of a fan of Tibetan form of Buddhism either SB, but it includes the Mahayana wich puts it above other forms of buhddism imho.

[Skybird]

:nope: Don't get me started on China, Tibet and Buhddism. Its been utter rape of country, culture, peoples and beliefs.

Im not much of a fan of Tibetan form of Buddhism either SB, but it includes the Mahayana wich puts it above other forms of buhddism imho.
Yes, but there are less institutionalised ways of Mahayana, I think. Tibetan buddhism reminds too much of a Buddhist version of or parallel to Catholicism (the dominance of rites, symbology, person-cult, etc). And that i do not mean as a compliment. In the meditation courses I gave until two years ago, I had many a.) ex-christians who felt the church had not anything valuable to tell them, but b.) also many buddhist who felt as Europeans (culturally), and had turned their backs on Tibetan Buddhism, and on Soto-Zen and Rinzai-Zen too, saying they felt taken by the ways and rituals of foreign cultures that "dominated" their European cultural nature of mind.