CHINESE PRESSURE DALAI LAMA AT 80
Tibetans wonder who will lead after he’s gone
As the Dalai Lama turns 80 today, the Tibetan independence movement that he leads is stalled by a Chinese crackdown.
DHARAMSALA, India — To hear the Dalai Lama laugh, it is easy to forget the cascade of disasters endured by the Tibetan Buddhist movement over the course of his life. Yet the list is long, and growing longer, as an ascendant China consolidates control over Tibet.
As the Dalai Lama observes his 80th birthday today during a three-day visit to Anaheim, California, China’s rising economic clout is slowly strangling the movement for Tibetan independence and, in the process, nudging the charismatic Tibetan spiritual leader off the world stage.
The 94,000-strong Tibetan community in India, which for years has operated a government in exile, is shrinking as a result of tighter Chinese controls on borders and passports that keep the 6 million Tibetans living in China from leaving. At the same time, after a decades-long exodus, Tibetans are quietly requesting Chinese documents to go home, implicitly acknowledging that China’s rule over Tibet is here to stay.
Yet Tibetans at home are not happy. Since 2009, 140 Tibetans have immolated themselves to protest Chinese policies that limit their freedom of movement, speech and religion, especially their right to venerate the Dalai Lama.
Exiled from his homeland since 1959, the Dalai Lama views these challenges with the air of a man who meditates five hours a day and takes a transcendental approach to adversity.
“I don’t consider China powerful at all,” he said. “They may be powerful in their economics and weapons, but in terms of moral principles, they are very weak. The whole society is full of suspicion and full of distrust.”
The Dalai Lama is in his final decades of life. At some point, Tibetan Buddhists will be faced with the loss of a man who has been revered as both a secular and spiritual leader and has given their Free Tibet movement a sense of moral authority throughout the world.
That has set in motion a scramble for succession of a uniquely Buddhist variety, because the Dalai Lama’s successor is by tradition the reincarnation of his holiness. In March, the Chinese government again signaled its intention to have a role in designating the legitimate heir, a plan that prompted the Dalai Lama to suggest that he may break with tradition and appoint his own successor or that he may not be reincarnated at all.
“Reincarnation is not the business of the communists,” he said.
According to Buddhist doctrine, the Dalai Lama should be reincarnated in the body of a newborn boy who will become the 15th Dalai Lama, after being identified by the proper religious authorities.
In the statement, however, the Dalai Lama leaves open the possibility that he, as a “superior Bodhisattva ... can manifest his own emanation before death.” Practica lly spea king, that means he could name his successor, possibly an adult who has been groomed for the position.
The succession question has been pushed aside for a decade: The Dalai Lama says he will wait until he is about 90 and then convene an advisory group of high lamas to resolve it. One option, he has said, would be to discontinue the tradition of the Dalai Lama entirely.
Some Tibetans are exasperated by the Dalai Lama’s lack of urgency.
“He is acting very irresponsibly,” said Jamyang Norbu, a Tibetan novelist and essayist who lives in Tennessee. “The Chinese have already set up a commission to pick the next Dalai Lama. If we don’t get in on the game, they will do it before us. They will find some cute little Tibetan boy they can control.”