Rebirth Control
Some days ago I read in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung about new directives the Chinese government just has released to “administer the reincarnations of living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism”: The Buddhist monks have no longer the right to search for reincarnations by themselves. The Party decides who is a living Buddha. Ignoring the rules leads to punishments, and the reincarnation is illegal. So after their birth control politics the communist� rulers also have rebirth control mechanisms in their empire.
It’s such a silly thing, and wouldn’t it be another political power play to subordinate people and infringe free will, I would have laughed. The decision is a means to break the age-old reincarnation lines of insubordinate monasteries. Now 4 authorities have to agree, if a Buddha is a genuine incarnation, the monastery, the local government, the administration for religious affairs and the Chinese State Council. It is unclear if living Buddhas also have to register retrospectively. However, the newspaper reported, that not all living Buddhas are devout people. So-called reincarnations are working as businessmen and executive consultants in Chinese cities…
Maybe the whole rebirth control politics serves a good purpose in the end: The purely materialistic government might control social and religious structures, but not the reincarnation process of souls. Spirit will turn out to be stronger in the long run, even in our dark age, and the real reincarnations of highly-developed souls will find their ways to fulfil their purpose.
Our spiritual teacher, Sri K. Parvathi Kumar, once remarked, that in the Americas many native Americans who had been killed by the European colonists have come back in the bodies of white Americans and are now much involved in activities furthering a respect of nature and environment. Maybe a similar destiny happens to the souls of the suppressed Tibetan Buddhist exponents. Though old traditional forms will necessarily break this way, the essence will keep on living and enlivening the search of man along the eternal path.
Buddha-statue in Lhasa, photo of a friend
August 9th, 2007 at 2:03 am
I am wondering if the law will affect the lineage of Buddhist Karmapas, since the greatest part of Tibet is under Chinese governmental control. The spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhists is still the backbone of those people’s strength and inner resistance. The reincarnation of the next karmapa is usually perceived by the current one, thus a federal intervention would break that line and the government would receive control over the spiritual fate of those Tibetans (they couldn’t before, because the karmapas have been in exile in India for decades).
What a ridiculous idea it is after all… as if a man-made government could control cosmic laws! And as always, man will have to give in at some point… Thank God!