the current Dalai Lama is 72 years old, and in August Peking made it a law that from now on it would need Peking's agreement in order to reincarnate
(I posted a thread on that: "Request permission to reincarnate, Sir!"
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ght=dalai+lama ). It is feared that after the Dalai Lama's death Pekind will try to impose a new, Chinese-controlled one on the Tibetans, as they already have done with the leader of another boy the Tibetans had decided to recognize as the legitimate leader of one of their four major lineages.
The Dalai Lama, or God-emperor, as he sometimes is understood to be in Tibet's rural places, now has thought about to brake tradition and not wait until he had died for starting a search for his new reincarnation, but to have a vote amongst Tibetans wether they leave it to the old tradition, or have the Dalai Lama decide about his successor, or let Tibetan's demoicratically elect a new one. All this of course is to prevent Peking from interfering. That's why Peking is once again very furious and outraged.
And then this, by which he probabaly will not make himself too many friends:
he has put the whole institution of the Dalai Lama into question, saying that Tibetans should form an opinion on wether or not the institution of the Dalai Lama is any longer approriate and adequate in the modern time. If they find it is no longer needed in the modenr present, it should be abandoned.
- In 1994 I already had seen a TV film on him, where he indirectly indicated to a French or British interviewer that he does not agree with the tibetan traditon saying that the Dalai Lama is a reincarnation and then is found and being declared god-emperor. He said, and I quote him by the word: "The Dalai Lama is a secular
elected institution." That did raise eyebrows amongst many buddhists around the world, while most tibetans preferred to simply ignore and forget the comment and remain silent about it.
A sober, reasonable assessement by the man, coming from just healthy reason.