Dearest Friends @ CAS,
On behalf of Mr Jinpa-la, our friend
and a devout Tibetan Buddhist friend in-exile, we will like
to invite all our friends to a short and simple Light Offering
Prayer session this Sunday, 23 March 2008.
The Prayer Session, to be led by
many Tibetan sangha in Singapore, will be held at a local
Buddhist centre at 221 I, Geylang Lorong 19, at 6 pm.
The prayer will be dedicated to
peace and happiness of all beings, especially with regard to
the recent brutal Tibetan suppression, both the perpetrators
and the victims.
Requesting your dedications, prayers
and support,
"Namo Amituofo."
bb & friends
____________
Some intriguing news for sharing with our friends:
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REINCARNATION RED TAPE
(Editorial, The Telegraph)
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Editorial, The Telegraph, Calcutta
Sunday, August 5, 2007, Calcutta
Totalitarian states can be cruel and comic at the same time.
The latest
Chinese restriction on Tibetan Buddhism would appear to come
straight
from the theatre of the absurd. Come September, and Tibet's
"living
Buddhas" would have to queue up before religious affairs officials,
application forms in hand, waiting to receive official permission
to be
reincarnated. The official explanation for the new restriction
is that
it is ""an important move to institutionalize the
management of
reincarnation of living Buddhas". The official version itself
gives away
the government's lie. It must be a bizarre system that seeks
not only to
manage the religious affairs of its people but also to institutionalize
them. But this is not the real import of the new regulation
because
China's "management" of Tibetan Buddhism and of all
other aspects of
life in Tibet began soon after it had taken control of Lhasa
in 1951.
The real target of the new law is none other than the Dalai
Lama. An
important provision of the 14-part regulation bars any Buddhist
monk
living outside China from seeking reincarnation for himself
or
recognizing a "living Buddha" Thus the law effectively
marks the end of
a tradition sustained by the Dalai Lama and the "living
Buddhas" who
dominated life and culture in Tibet in his name. The Chinese
had earlier
tried this endgame by propping up a puppet Panchen Lama, the
second most
important religious leader of the Tibetans. Now they want to
foist their
own "living Buddhas" on the Tibetans.
But totalitarian regimes are also known to do silly things
out of fear.
After nearly half a century of repressive measures, China has
not quite
succeeded in killing the soul of Tibetan Buddhism. Despite
five decades
of living in exile, the Dalai Lama remains the most important
influence
in Tibetan life. China fears that the "living Buddhas"
may do at home
what the exiled leader cannot. This Chinese fear is clearly
born of a
failure. Despite five decades of bitter campaigns against the
"feudal
and splittist" Dalai Lama and the "obscurantism"
of Tibetan Buddhism,
China has failed to wean the Tibetans away from either their
spiritual
leader or from their religion. Worse, the communist state is
never free
from the fear of Tibetan revolts. Historically, the State and
religion
have an uneasy relationship.
The latest Chinese attempt may therefore be defeated by its
own irony.
It may help tighten the State's control over the lamas and
the
monasteries, but it may further erode China's authority over
what the
writer, Patrick French, called : the Tibet of the mind? Another
impact
of the law may be more immediate and direct. It is likely to
further
cloud the talks between the Chinese government and the Dalai
Lama's
representatives on the issue of Tibet's autonomy.
------------
China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before
they reincarnate
(Times)
------------
Jane Macartney in Beijing
The Times (UK)
August 4, 2007
The rules effectively exclude the Dali Lama from any role in
recognising
a living Buddha
Tibet's living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation
without
permission from China's atheist leaders. The ban is included
in new
rules intended to assert Beijing's authority over Tibet' restive
and
deeply Buddhist people.
"The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government
approval is
illegal and invalid," according to the order, which comes into
effect on
September 1, 2007.
The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for
Religious
Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet's exiled
god-king,
the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the
72-year-old
monk without approval from Beijing.
It is the latest in a series of measures by the Communist authorities
to
tighten their grip over Tibet. Reincarnate lamas, known as
tulkus, often
lead religious communities and oversee the training of monks,
giving
them enormous influence over religious life in the Himalayan
region.
Anyone outside China is banned from taking part in the process
of
seeking and recognising a living Buddha, effectively excluding
the Dalai
Lama, who traditionally can play an important role in giving
recognition
to candidate reincarnates.
For the first time China has given the Government the power
to ensure
that no new living Buddha can be identified, sounding a possible
death
knell to a mystical system that dates back at least as far
as the 12th
century.
China already insists that only the Government can approve
the
appointments of Tibet's two most important monks, the Dalai
Lama and the
Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama's announcement in May 1995 that
a search
inside Tibet and with the co- operation of a prominent abbot
had
identified the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, who
died in 1989,
enraged Beijing. That prompted the Communist authorities to
restart the
search and to send a senior Politburo member to Lhasa to oversee
the
final choice. This resulted in top Communist officials presiding
over a
ceremony at the main Jokhang temple in Lhasa in which names
of three
boys inscribed on ivory sticks were placed inside a golden
urn and a lot
was then drawn to find the true reincarnation.
The boy chosen by the Dalai Lama has disappeared. The abbot
who worked
with the Dalai Lama was jailed and has since vanished. Several
sets of
rules on seeking out "soul boys" were promulgated
in 1995, but were
effectively in abeyance and hundreds of living Buddhas are
now believed
to live inside and outside China.
All Tibetans believe in reincarnation, but only the holiest
or most
outstanding individuals are believed to be recognisable a tulku,
or
apparent body. One Tibetan monk told The Times: " In the
past there was
no such regulation. The management of living Buddhas is becoming
more
strict."
The search for a reincarnation is a mystical process involving
clues
left by the deceased and visions among leading monks on where
to look.
The current Dalai Lama, the fourteenth of the line, was identified
in
1937 when monks came to his village.
China has long insisted that it must have the final say over
the
appointment of the most senior lamas. Tibet experts said that
the new
regulations may also be aimed at limiting the influence of
new lamas.
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