Regulating reincarnation
China uses a permit system to extend its control over Tibet into the afterlife.
BEIJING — In China, it’s not easy to become a “living Buddha.” First come the years of meditation and discipline. Then comes the bureaucracy.
Although China’s ruling Communist Party is officially atheist, it has in recent months been laying down the law on reincarnation, tightening controls on who can call themselves the living rebirth of historical Buddhist holy men.
It launched a database of 870 licensed “living Buddhas” in January. And this week, an abbot from Sera Monastery near Tibet’s capital told China’s rubberstamp legislature that the highest level of living Buddhas must be approved by the central government, while “other living Buddhas must be approved by local governments.”
The effort appears to be part of a broad attempt to control what happens after the death of the current Dalai Lama, Tibet’s enormously inf luential 80- yearold spiritual leader, who lives in exile in India. Tibetans consider him to be the successor in a line of leaders who are believed to be reincarnated.
He f led the Himalayan region in 1959 after a failed uprising; Chinese authorities revile him as a “separatist,” although he claims to want only increased autono-
my for the Tibetan region, which China controls.
Communist Party officials are formally barred from practicing religion, but the government has for years demanded the power to regulate the supernatural affairs of Tibetan Buddhism. In recent months, they have framed their bureaucratization of the afterlife as a bulwark against fraudulent, profiteering monks.
Yet experts say it’s also part of a wide- ranging effort to tighten control over the turbulent region.
“From the point of view of Beijing, the whole apparatus seems to be about giving Beijing control over the appointment of the next Dalai Lama,” said Robbie Barnett, director of the Modern Tibet Studies Program at Columbia University. The Chinese term huofo, or living Buddha, refers to high- ranking religious f igures in Tibetan Buddhism, but it has no true equivalent in the Tibetan language.
“Communist policy on religion is: You run Tibet by … having a lama who is credible enough to be inf luential when he says you should follow the Communist Party,” he said. “They don’t have enough power to control Tibet without a lama to handle it.”
At the recent meeting of the legislature — held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the country’s most prestigious venue — the Sera Monastery abbot, Phurbu Tsering, wearing red monk’s robes, outlined the government’s position, speaking softly in Tibetan, while another delegate to the legislature translated into Mandarin.
He recited several points from the State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5, a law that authorities passed in 2007 to govern reincarnation. One must have “recognition from the religious world and the temple” to reincarnate, he said.
The law itself frames reincarnation in terms of national security: “The selection of reincarnates must preserve national unity and solidarity of all ethnic groups, and the selection process cannot be inf luenced by any group or individual from outside the country,” it says.
The Dalai Lama hasn’t said what will happen after his death. By tradition, Tibetans identify a young boy as his reincarnate. But he has hinted that he may not be reincarnated at all, or his reincarnate may live outside of Tibet. Chinese authorities have insisted on the right to oversee his “reincarnation affairs,” raising the possibility that there may be two Dalai Lamas with competing claims to legitimacy.
“Fake living Buddhas” have been in the headlines since November, when a video went viral of Zhang Tielin, a Chinese- born British actor, being “ordained” as a living Buddha at a lavish ceremony in Hong Kong. The ceremony’s host, Baima Aose, a Chinese man from southeastern China’s Fujian province, claimed that he had been certified as a living Buddha by a famous Tibetan Buddhist monastery. The monastery later denied ordaining Baima Aose, and he issued a public apology.
Yet experts say the system of registering living Buddhas has become fertile ground for corruption.
“The thing [ authorities] are emphasizing is the database — that’s the new hypedup thing,” Barnett said. “You get a permit from the local religious affairs office, saying you’re recognized as a socalled living Buddha. Once you have that system, it means you can pay for it.”
The Dalai Lama, in a 2011 statement, called the reincarnation laws “outrageous” and “disgraceful.”
“The enforcement of various inappropriate methods for recognizing reincarnations to eradicate our unique Tibetan cultural traditions is doing damage that will be difficult to repair,” he said.
More than 140 people in Tibet and neighboring provinces have burned themselves to death since 2009 as a grim protest against Chinese rule; many called for the Dalai Lama’s return as they were engulfed in f lames. On Feb. 29, an 18year- old Tibetan died after setting himself on fire, marking the first self- immolation since August, according to the London- based advocacy group Free Tibet.
Chinese authorities have repeatedly blamed the “Dalai clique” and other “hostile foreign forces” for the rash of self- immolations.
Authorities closed Tibet to foreign visitors beginning Feb. 25 and will probably keep it off- limits until the end of March — an annual occurrence since riots rippled across the region in March 2008. The restrictions do not apply to domestic Chinese tourists.
At Monday’s meeting, Baima Chilin, deputy Communist Party chief of the region, said the Dalai Lama was “no longer a religious leader” after he left Tibet in 1959.
“If the Dalai Lama wants to return to China, he must give up ‘ Tibet independence’ and must publicly acknowledge Tibet and Taiwan are inseparable parts of China and that the People’s Republic of China is the only legitimate government,” he said.
‘ Communist policy on religion is: You run Tibet by … having a lama who is credible enough to be influential when he says you should follow the Communist Party.’ — Robbie Barnett, director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University