The Dalai Lama – 90 years old: A living Buddha?
This is getting more attention.ย The Indians are furious: blowing up another India / China (let us say it politely), deep difference of opinion. Arnaud Bertrand says:
I have to say, there’s something immensely ironic about the Dalai Lama arguing his reincarnation should be determined by a tax-exempt Swiss foundation incorporated in Zurich (https://dalailamafoundation.org/who-we-are/the-foundation/), while Beijing insists on maintaining the traditional centuries-old Golden Urn selection process.
And the even bigger irony is that everyone will doubtlessly denounce China for “destroying Tibetan traditions and culture” for doing so.
The background is that the Dalai Lama has appointed this Swiss foundation to choose the next Dalai Lama.ย (The joke is that it is all perfect, the SeeEyeAi will choose the next Dalai Lama, in line with tradition.)
In stark opposition, China says that the selection of the next Dalai Lama must be according to the ancient process, where names are put into a golden urn and selected that way.
The Chinese position according to the Chinese Ambassador to to India:
๐นThe practice of Living Buddha reincarnation has continued over 700 years, and has formed rigorous religious rituals and historical conventions.
๐นThe reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Erdeni and other grand Living Buddhas must go through the Golden Urn lotteryโฆ pic.twitter.com/wNNIibTKkN— Xu Feihong (@China_Amb_India) July 2, 2025
๐นThe practice of Living Buddha reincarnation has continued over 700 years, and has formed rigorous religious rituals and historical conventions.
๐นThe reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Erdeni and other grand Living Buddhas must go through the Golden Urn lottery procedure, and selected candidates would be subject to approval by the central government of China.
๐นThe 14th Dalai Lama himself was searched for in strict accordance with religious rituals and historical conventions after the passing of the 13th Dalai Lama, and enthroned after being granted exemption from the lottery with the then central government’s approval.
๐นThe government of the People’s Republic of China implements a policy of freedom of religious belief. It protects the tradition of reincarnation of Living Buddhas in accordance with the law. The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama must follow the process that consists of search and identification in China, lot-drawing from the Golden Urn, and central government approval, and comply with religious rituals and historical conventions as well as Chinese laws and regulations.
It is of course a wonderfully romantic view to think that some highly skilled living Buddha is somewhere to lead us all into a state of knowledge and Nirvana. This idea flourishes, until one does the homework and the reasearch and you find out that this Living Buddha is chosen either by a Swiss Foundation legally incorporated in Zurich, or by lottery, out of a Golden Urn.
And just to move the Buddhist narrative out of Tibet where it didn’t originate, there is a wonderful Chinese movie based on a real monk who travelled to India around 400 CE to refresh the teaching of Buddhism in China, he lived in India for 10 years and brought back… Read more »
It is important to speak out as well as to let each other speak. We all walk on the same path, the only difference is that we walk on our own piece at our own pace. We need each other as a mirror, because otherwise we keep walking in a… Read more »
We live in a time of bewildered people. Changes not seen in a 100 years sound great, but the speed of the changes is clearly causing cognitive dissonance everywhere. It is that we search for something real, both as a value and an anchor for ourselves, while drowning in a… Read more »
Everything is spiritual, but spirituality contains neither religion nor ideology. God is spiritual. Unconscious people are religious and ideological. Conscious people are spiritual. Religion and ideology are vehicles for human beings that drive them away from God more honorably than they bring them closer. Only very strong people are able… Read more »
Anointing a Swiss-based (tax-exempt no less!) foundation to elect his successor… Do we need any more evidence that the Dalai Nonce is nothing but a political leader, posing as a living god enlightened being? Requesting a little boy to tongue kiss him in public wasn’t enough to wake people up… Read more »
Very curious things happen when spiritual practices become systematically organized for the purpose of providing a religious and cultural foundation for the maintenance of a particular culture. The entire project now has to become intelligible to the common “unspiritual” everyday person. So gold has to mix with the dross of… Read more »
Hi Snowy, forgive me for being very brief with my initial response. But we, in human form, are not alone. Messengers or Enlightened Beings (not false ones) are sent to help us with each generation. So we don’t need to set up religions. We just keep practicing the teachings that… Read more »
Hi HT: And to my ally Grieved and all of the good people here who have felt motivated to contribute to this thread. I am so struck by what I am reading here – from everyone. It feels to me that we are being driven by the world itself to… Read more »
perhaps the secular framework comes from the fact that the Dalai Lama is in many ways mostly a political hence secular figure. The Dalai Lama by Michael Parenti
If I may say, this commentary is a highly secular take on a matter that is rather more spiritual than that. It would have been worthy of a more spiritual view, coming from those who are more involved in the spiritual path presented by the teachings of the Buddha. For… Read more »
There is nothing spiritual about any of this. We have an alphabet agency cut-out, and this alphabet agency obviously wants to continue and maintian this relationship in terms of a successor, and we have a lottery. At least we could have had some thundering voice from the heavens to speak… Read more »
Amarynth, dear friend and colleague, I can only say that there IS something spiritual here. I only spoke to that. But I couldn’t explain, it was beyond me. I am low on strength at the moment so I cannot offer much, but I will take the spiritual aspect of all… Read more »
Hi Grieved, i’m commenting as someone who is involved in a spiritual practice so i understand what you are saying and i mean no disrespect to any sincere practitioners. I am not iconoclastic like J Krishnamurti, (was he also an early US or UK cutout?) There are true Teachers and… Read more »
But K, what if the US has hijacked the top of it and yet it doesn’t actually exist at the top, but at the bottom? What if the Buddha was at the very lowest rung of any ladder, and taught that the truth of the nature of reality could only… Read more »
Dear Grieved. Good grief! You’re usually very intelligent with your perceptions and analyses. Forgive me for writing this so bluntly. I just can’t stand it to see someone on our side, so misled and so misguided. But I think you’ve hit on a blind spot you have. I say this… Read more »
On an aside, involving ALL currently coopted religions – he actually makes a profound point. “What if the bottom rung is the only real thing worth aspiring to? … What if reality cannot be stolen from any one who can experience it?” I’ve thought on this since at least 1996. … Read more »
Parenti had a great take on the Dalai Lama ages ago. This feudal leader has nothing really to do with Buddhism, and sorry but Vajrayana Buddhism is really quite removed from the Pali Canon and so on. I have admiration for Chinese Buddhism, but the popular in the west Zen… Read more »
“Jesus” is however a Roman psy-op, engineered by the intellectual and political elites to create a religion against the rebellious, violent and xenophobic “fourth philosophy”. The actual reform of Judaism is the rabbinic version that was founded under strict oversight at the same time, while the false Messiah was elevated… Read more »
the Jesus of the church is indeed a fabrication; how could it be otherwise when the religion was adopted by an empire; but the preโSt Paul Jesus it seems to me was a radical and enlightened prophet.
I have always found it strange that religions change according to the current zeitgeist. So you have a prophet who gets the truth from God and then later in time people think they can change the religion to โbetterโ understanding. Either God presents eternal truth and you follow that, or… Read more »
The concept of Dalai Lama being ‘Buddha’ itself is ridiculous. You have to follow the Theravada Buddhist teachings in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar. It’s the purest form of Buddhism that strictly follows Buddha’s own teachings without distorting them like the Mahayanists did. According to Theravada Buddhism, there’s no return… Read more »
hmm, i thought it involved ‘wise men’ searching out the re-incarnation? possibly following a star…of sorts? & these chosen (& i never questioned how they came to be chosen) talked the boy (always a guy) up, listening/waiting for/expecting to hear things, words, remembrances/objects/clues that would link him to himself in… Read more »