CCP can’t choose my parent!

As a little boy growing up in a Tibetan refugee camp in 1990s, I remember once asking my parents (well my father) about the 15th Dalai Lama and he didn’t take it kindly and gave me a good rebuke. In Buddhist tradition, it is not allowed because it is considered unreligious to talk of a Lama’s future reincarnation when he is still alive. And here we, the Tibetans, are worried and talking about the future reincarnation of Dalai Lama. To all Tibetans and Buddhists worldwide, it is already a very saddening experience to hear and talk about the present Dalai Lama’s future incarnation thanks to China’s ridiculous meddling in the issue to meet its political agenda. In the process, I feel we have discounted the relative significance of the present Dalai Lama in anticipation of the next Dalai Lama’s question – a feeling that my father would have shared had it been that he is still alive.

The Dalai Lama’s reincarnation saga is created not by choice but by force as China has left little doubt that it intends to choose the next Dalai Lama, who will certainly end up with the similar fate of Beijing’s Panchen Lama – a pro-China puppet Lama who do not enjoy real reverence whatsoever among the Tibetans as well as Buddhists worldwide and whose role merely confines to parroting the CCP’s rhetoric and acting as a political tool to China.

The ruling CCP, Chinese Communist Party, which is officially an atheist political entity, must understand Dalai Lama is a spiritual figure, not a political one at the end of the day. The spiritual affinity that Tibetans have for Dalai Lama is not something China can do away with so easy. In fact, “impossible,” if I may shoot it point-blank. One of the slogans that find cornerstone in almost every anti-China protests reported in China-controlled Tibet is the demand that the Dalai Lama be unconditionally allowed to return to Tibet, the land and the people who love him unconditionally. Yes! Mark my word - UNCONDITIONALLY. This is a measure of how much the Tibetans inside Tibet miss Dalai Lama despite 60 years of separation during which China has made every attempt to make Tibetans think and do otherwise. In my opinion, it is best left to the Tibetans and Buddhists to decide about the Dalai Lama’s future reincarnation. China will surely hurt not only Tibetans but Buddhists community worldwide if they choose the next Dalai Lama and if I try to predict using my common sense, a potentially violent scene can break out in Tibet given the deep resentment the Tibetans already have thanks to the years of oppression under China’s rule.

And finally, to many Tibetans and orphans like me, Dalai Lama is a parent and possibly everything I can say I have in this world. And we are not going to take it kindly if CCP chose my parent and mess up the whole thing!

Written on October 03, 2011.