On the lighter side, I thought this was a new urban legend, but it's on MSNBC and Newsweek so it's a pretty good urban legend if it is.
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Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."
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I thought surely the Dalai Lama would, in a translife act of civil disobedience, declare that he was going to reincarnate in Tibet, but he says he will abide by this directive. He says he doesn't want to be born in Tibet anyway. Sour grapes?
Interestingly, officials are worried about rival claimants to the succession inside and outside of Tibet--Avignon Lamacy? Perhaps they'll read the discussion on the post below--Onward Christian Spaceman--and conclude that they can *both* be the Dali Lama!
The story is available here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/
Matthew - there is actually a serious issue about state control of religious institutions here. As I understand it, when a Lama dies, monks select a child who will be the successor, a child who is believed to be the reincarnation of the previous Lama. The Chinese government wants to be the one to declare who is and who is not a reincarnation of a Lama, that is who is born to lead. By declaring that he will not be reincarnated in Tibet, the Dalai Lama ensures that the next spiritual leader in exile will be someone born in exile.
According to a report on this story I heard on NPR, one doesn't have to get the state's permission to reincarnate as an invertebrate.
Ben, I'm Trent, but I can't blame you for calling me "Matt", I refered to Tim as "Matt" when I said in "Onward Christian Spaceman" that I was sure Alex or Tim would tell me if I were saying something heretical.
There is definately a serious issue here. But it's still funny. There's no contradiction there.
Kevin, interesting loophole, but don't worry, I'm not going to put a top level post on whether an invertibrate could be a religous ruler!
My omnipresence frequently gets others mistaken for me! :) One of the downsides of being ubiquitous.
Trent, thanks for posting this. I'd seen it the other day and thought it made good "news of the ridiculous"!
So is it the reincarnating itself or the announcing of an impending reincarnation or the declaring of a reincarnation as having occurred that is to be controlled? Or all of the above?
Trent - sorry about that, I was looking at the top, 'By Matthew Philips'; of course, that's the newsweek reporter.
I've found an English translation of the actual law here: http://www.savetibet.org/news/newsitem.php?id=1159
In answer to Alexander's question, the overall intent of this seems to be to handle 'Reincarnation of Living Buddha Affairs', treating this as a practice of Tibetan Buddhism that is to be permitted, provided certain laws are adhered to:
Article 1 states:
"These measures have been formulated in accordance with the "Regulations on Religious Affairs" in order to guarantee citizens' freedom of religious belief, to respect Tibetan Buddhism's practice of inheriting living Buddha positions, and to regulate the management of living Buddha reincarnation affairs."
In other words, the document is regulating how positions of authority are handed on, where the holder of such a position is called a 'reincarnating living Buddha' because that is what Buddhists believe him to be.
There are parts of the English translation, such as Article 4, which, if quoted out of context, seem to imply that reincarnation itself is a real event, and one subject to government regulation. If the document had been written in English, one would expect the use of quotation marks at this point, in order to indicate agnosticism about the reality of reincarnation itself. However, I'm certainly not going to criticize the original Chinese document because of this, at least not on grounds of unclarity.
I do see the humour that Trent was talking about, but I think the humour only comes if you take a Chinese document, translate it, then take part of it out of context and interpret it against the original intention of the author, albeit in keeping with the strict grammatical meaning of the English sentence in front of you.