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Who will identify the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama?
Gyaltsen Norbu
The Buddhist Channel, August 18, 2005
In the cobbled paths and ancient courtyards of Tibet’s Tashilhunpo monastery, a little boy stares out of pictures wearing a yellow, cone-shaped hat that mark his sect of Buddhism.
Gyaltsen Norbu has been groomed since childhood to prepare for his role as the 11th Panchen Lama, the reincarnation of the 10th and the second-most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism.
But while he received politically vetted religious training under the close watch of China’s leaders, another boy is believed to have grown up under house arrest, dubbed the world’s youngest political prisoner.
The first boy was chosen by the Chinese government. The second, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was anointed by the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader and Beijing’s nemesis since he fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Ten years on, with the official Panchen Lama now a teenager and expected to take on a larger role, the Chinese government is being forced to come face-to-face with the question of acceptance for its choice in the towns and villages of Tibet, where many maintain a secret loyalty to the Dalai Lama.
“The 11th Panchen Lama is not a stooge,” declared Bian Ba Ci Ren, an official in Shigatse, Tibet’s second city tucked in the mountains four km (2.5 miles) above sea level.
“He is a genius, both in religious meaning and in his studies,” he said.
But with the “Soul Boy” spending most of his childhood in Beijing, his acceptance has yet to be tested where it counts — in the holy confines of the Panchen Lama’s traditional seat, Shigatse’s Tashilhunpo monastery.
Within the walls of Tashilhunpo, where security cameras keep watch and there are rumoured to be spies among the monks, Gyaltsen Norbu’s picture is displayed at every shrine, alongside photos of his predecessors.
All are of equal size, all carefully draped with white prayer scarves in a sign of respect.
But outside in the bustling streets of Shigatse, there are signs the 11th Panchen Lama is little more than tolerated while his Dalai Lama-chosen rival is revered.
“In the countryside, everyone believes the Dalai Lama’s choice is the right one. In the cities some think the government’s choice is right,” said an 18-year-old student.
Asked which boy he believes in, his answer is immediate. “Of course it’s the Dalai Lama’s choice,” he said before hustling off, helping his mother by the elbow through the pilgrimage circuit that winds into the mountains behind the monastery.
In the narrow streets where tourists jostle with Buddhist pilgrims, shop after shop bears the smiling photo of the 10th Panchen Lama, a hero among Tibetans for criticising Beijing in a 1962 petition against efforts to wipe out Buddhism in Tibet.
While he spent more than a decade in prison and under house arrest for his efforts, the 10th Panchen Lama was later rehabilitated, making him a politically acceptable figure to both Tibetans and the Chinese government.
But pictures of both boys picked as his reincarnation are conspicuously absent, a sign of passive resistance against the government’s choice.
“You don’t see his photo being displayed in a way that is used for figures that are held reverentially,” said one Western diplomat.
That’s a problem for a government keen to prove Gyaltsen Norbu’s acceptance among the monks of Tashilhunpo before he turns 18 and is expected to take on a full leadership role within Tibetan Buddhism.
Officially, the monks at Tashilhunpo not only accept Gyaltsen Norbu but also repudiate the other boy, now 16.
“The 11th Panchen Lama recognised by the Dalai Lama doesn’t exist,” said Pingla, a monk and director of the Democratic Management Committee at Tashilhunpo, the government group inside every monastery that keeps religious life in check.
“We do not accept him so we don’t display his photos at home or in the monastery.”
But loyalties at Tashilhunpo once lay elsewhere.
Its chief abbot, Chadrel Rinpoche, was sacked and jailed for treason after notifying the Dalai Lama that his search team had identified Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as its choice.
That leaves an open question of just what kind of reception Gyaltsen Norbu would receive should the government impose his presence within the monastery.
“The refusal of monks there to accept him is really a big problem for the Chinese. Symbolically, he should be in the monastery,” said Tsering Shakya, a Tibet scholar at Oxford University.
“He is wandering around all over China and he really has no seat of his own,” he said.
But with the battle over the Panchen Lama a fight for the hearts and minds of Tibetans, the Chinese leadership is making clear that its choice must win out, giving Gyaltsen Norbu an ever-higher profile as he gets older.
Earlier this year, religious leaders were ordered to urge the faithful to show more support for the boy, and he met President Hu Jintao on his birthday in February, underscoring his importance to the leadership.
“The 11th Panchen Lama has the respect of the people in Shigatse and the monks or our monastery,” Pingla said.
“He will come back to live here.”
Source: http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=8,1581,0,0,1,0
One of the critical responsibilities of the Panchen Lama is to identify reborn Dalai Lamas and act as regent while the Dalai Lamas are children. It’s beyond question that Beijing is preparing for the death of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, and Gyaltsen Norbu is an important part of their plans. Their Boy is being puffed up so that he becomes the public face of Tibetan Buddhism when His Holiness dies. Beijing must also expect the world will recognize whatever boy Gyaltsen Norbu is ordered to choose as the 15th Dalai Lama.
Source: http://buddhism.about.com/b/2010/06/09/the-faux-panchen-lama-in-tibet.htm
Panchen Lama elevated to challenge Dalai Lama
The Times of India, March 1, 2010
In 1954, the Dalai Lama attended a meeting of the National People’s Congress and Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong wrote a poem praising his accomplishments. The wheel has now turned a full circle with the party appointing the Panchen Lama as a member of the Chinese parliament.
In his new role, the 23-year old Panchen Lama may be expected to take on the Dalai Lama and help the government counter the adverse publicity on the Tibet issue. He has so far refrained from any direct attack on the elderly Dalai Lama. But this might happen now because most members of the parliament denounce the Dalai Lama on a routine basis.
It took 15 years for Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu, who was handpicked by Communist leaders to be made the Panchen Lama in 1995, to earn his spurs and rise to become a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the second body in Chinese parliament.
Technically speaking, a CPPCC member has a somewhat less influence as compared to a member of NPC, which is the most important decision making body. But the Panchen Lama will be given a high-profile political role aimed at building worldwide support for China’s case in the Tibet issue.
The decision to elevate him comes soon after US president Barack Obama brushed aside Chinese protests and kept his date with the Dalai Lama.
Beijing has also been saying that the Dalai Lama has lost his right to be called a Tibetan after his statement last year that he was born a Tibetan but was spiritually an Indian.
The Panchen Lama has so far helped the government build influence among Buddhists across the world by playing a key role in the State-sponsored conferences like the World Buddhist Congress and making statements praising the government. But he has not joined the government campaign to vilify the Dalai Lama.
Observers said he might now be expected to join the vilification campaign, participate in press conferences on Tibet related issues and even travel around the world to canvass support for the government’s point of view.
The CPPCC is a vast advisory body of 2,200 members and includes representatives of 56 ethnic minority groups in China, members of a few non-Communist parties, business leaders, religious figures, academics and celebrities. The next session of CPPCC begins Wednesday.
The Panchen Lama was among 13 new people named to the National Committee of the CPPCC.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/Panchen-Lama-elevated-to-challenge-the-Dalai-Lama/articleshow/5630952.cms
China appoints Panchen Lama in tactical move to quell unrest
The Independent, March 2, 2010
The red stars and bunting are in place for China’s annual parliament, the National People’s Congress, which starts in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People tomorrow and had been shaping up to be a rubberstamp talking shop focused mainly on the economy.
However, the event has taken on a broader political significance since Beijing named the Panchen Lama, the young man controversially enthroned by Beijing as the second-highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, as a delegate to the country’s top legislative advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
The publication of a report by a top government expert critical of Beijing’s handling of growing unrest has also added to the feeling that this year’s NPC might include a surprise or, at least, indications of growing tensions.
The 20-year-old Panchen Lama, whose name is Gyaltsen Norbu, has long been earmarked as Beijing’s choice to usurp the Dalai Lama as the public face of Tibetan Buddhism. He has taken an increasingly political role and was in the frame a couple of years ago to be a delegate to the CPPCC but was thought to be too young. The Panchen Lama was among 13 people named on Sunday to the CPPCC, made up of about 2,200 business leaders, religious figures, academics and celebrities. The young monk has appeared with Communist Party leaders, publicly praised Chinese rule in Tibet, and vowed to contribute to “the blueprint of the compatible development of Tibetan Buddhism and socialism”. [Read the full article...]
China’s Copy-Watch Panchen Lama
asia sentinel, June 9, 2010
The Chinese, having perfected the art of copying watches and DVDs, believe they have made a perfect copy of the Panchen Lama, Tibet’s second-most revered religious figure, and set him loose on the streets of a prefecture in Southern Tibet. The state-owned Xinhua news service reported Tuesday that thousands of Tibetan Buddhists had gathered in Lhoka prefecture on China’s border with India to see Gyaltsen Norbu, Beijing’s copy of the Panchen Lama, who was appointed by the Chinese as a six-year-old boy in 1995.
The method of picking the successor to Tibet’s high priests normally is a complicated one – unless you are a Chinese Communist, which makes it possible to ignore obscure religious practices that stretch back hundreds of years. Tibetan Buddhists believe the top lamas are reincarnations of an unbroken line of religious figures stretching back to the Buddha himself, whose soul never disappears. The Chinese Communists appear to believe it just takes a religious bureaucrat to run the place. [Read the full article...]
