Resource Center
- Who are Tibetan Monks?
- How are Tibetan Lamas reincarnated?
- Who is the Dalai Lama and what does he have to do with the Panchen Lama?
- What did the Chinese government do to the Tibetans?
- What Happened to the Panchen Lama before Gedhun Choekyi Nyima?
- Why did the Chinese pick someone else as their own Panchen Lama?
Who are Tibetan Monks?
Tibetan monks spend years and years learning as much as they can about the religion of Tibetan Buddhism. They live in monasteries and usually start their studies when they are very young. A long time ago there used to be lots and lots of monks and nuns in Tibet because Tibetans believe that it is a very noble thing to study Buddhism for the rest of your life. The Chinese government doesn't like the monks and nuns because the monks and nuns are not afraid to say that they want to keep studying. They are also not afraid to protest in public to say that the Chinese rules are very unfair and unkind to the Tibetans. So this is why the Chinese soldiers close the monasteries down sometimes and tell the monks and nuns to go away.
How are Tibetan Lamas reincarnated?
Have you ever thought about what makes you different from others? You have your own personality and other people have their own personalities. In Tibetan Buddhist religion, we say that our mind makes up our personality and that it is just like everybody else's mind. It is hard to understand this because we always see our own personality first.
When a person dies, Tibetans believe that the parts of the mind that created the personality falls away. This is why we forget our past life. Even though that person does not have a clear personality anymore, the mind is still alive.
Tibetan Buddhists also say that all creatures with minds are reborn after they die. When someone is reborn with a new personality, we call this reincarnation. This happens over and over again, until a person has had many lives. Sometimes, people who can concentrate very hard can remember their past lives.
Tibetan Buddhists believe that some people like the Dalai and Panchen Lama choose the path of enlightenment because they are compassionate and want to do good things for others. Tibetans think that these good people can also choose how and where they will be reincarnated in their next lives. These compassionate people are called Tulkus. They keep reincarnating in the same place to help groups of people. Tibetans believe that Tibet has many Tulkus to help them.
Since so much of our religion depends on Tulkus being born again and again, we have developed many ways of finding out who and where they are. When a very important religious leader (called a Lama) dies, people go out and search for his reincarnation. When the reincarnation is found, the young child is taken to a monastery, and there he learns again all of the religious teachings which he knew in his past life.
But how do they know when they have found the right child? Sometimes, the Lama writes a letter before he dies, saying when he will be born and where. Other times, the Lama will only give general clues about where he will born next and then people have to do tests to make sure that the child they have found is the true reincarnation. Sometimes Tibetans look for good luck signs to find the child-Lama. After the Thirteenth Dalai Lama died, rainbows and clouds shaped like holy objects appeared in the East, and people thought that this meant that he would be reborn there.
A man named Reting Rinpoche (Rinpoche means "precious" in Tibetan) was put in charge of finding the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. He had a dream and in it was a small house with turquoise-coloured tiles on the roof. A small boy was standing next to a brown and white dog in the yard. Reting Rinpoche thought that this was the sign he had been waiting for, and he sent out a group to find the boy.
A group of Lamas went to Eastern Tibet and spent a few weeks testing many young boys. None of them passed the tests. Then, the group of Lamas found a house that looked like the one that Reting Rinpoche had seen in his vision. They entered the house pretending to be merchants, and while they were having tea a young two-year old boy appeared.
He was not frightened by the strangers, and he sat in one man's lap and played with his tung-na (Picture). When the Lama, who was dressed as a merchant, asked the boy if he knew who he was, the boy said "You are a Lama of Sera" which was exactly right. The Lamas were shocked, but they left the house without telling the boy or his parents who they really were.
The next morning, the young boy woke up early and found that the strangers were in his house once again. This time, they had a table set up, covered with things that the old Dalai Lama had owned and some things that belonged to other people. They asked the young boy to choose the things from the table that were his, and to their surprise, he only picked the things which had belonged to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama.
Then the Lamas looked at the young boy, because it is thought that tulkus have special features or signs on their bodies. Some of these are: large ears, long eyes, streaks on the legs like a tiger's stripes, or sea-shell shapes on the hands. The young boy had all of these signs. Soon after, it was announced that he was the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. This little boy became Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, and the leader of the Tibetan people.
Who is the Dalai Lama and what does he have to do with the Panchen Lama?
Birthday: July 6, 1935
Age: 69
Birthplace: Amdo, Tibet
Address: Dharamsala, India
Nobel Peace Prize Winner
The Dalai Lama is the leader of the Tibetan people. He is very famous because he travels all over the world to talk about peace and compassion. He is the 14th Dalai Lama and he is a reincarnated religious teacher just like the Panchen Lama. He is also very smart and wise.
In Tibet we have a tradition. When the Panchen Lama passes away, the Dalai Lama helps find his reincarnation and when the Dalai Lama passes away, the Panchen Lama helps find his reincarnation.
This is why the Tibetans asked the Dalai Lama to help them choose the real Panchen Lama.
What did the Chinese government do the Tibetans?
When the Chinese soldiers came...
They forced the Tibetans to grow wheat instead of barley. Barley is a type of plant that Tibetans have always grown in Tibet. The wheat didn't grow well in Tibet because it was too cold so a lot of people died of famine.
They tore down many of the monasteries and ruined the paintings and statues in them. Monasteries are where the monks lived. They had nowhere to study after the Chinese destroyed them.
They forced Tibetans to help them chop down the forests and let hunters kill wild animals like the snow leopard. Now there are not many of these rare animals left in the world and they are in danger of becoming extinct.
Today, the Chinese government forbids Tibetans in Tibet to own or put up any pictures of the Dalai or real Panchen Lama. There is not much freedom for Tibetans. Even if the Chinese government is doing all these bad things, it is hard for the Tibetans to say anything about it to make things better because if they do they know they will be thrown in jail.
Tibetans speak Tibetan. That is what our language is called. To get a good job in Tibet now you have to speak Chinese and not many Tibetans have enough money to go to a really good school that teaches Chinese.
Tibetan children in Tibet are made to feel stupid in their schools because a lot of them don't know Chinese as well as the Chinese children who speak it at home.
What happened to the Panchen Lama before Gedhun Choekyi Nyima?
The 10th Panchen Lama In 1962 he wrote a long letter to Mao who was the Chinese president back then. In the letter he told Mao that the Chinese soldiers were destroying buildings and killing Tibetans and that they shouldn't be allowed to do these things. China didn't like this so they arrested him and put him in prison for over 10 years. No one knew where he was. People thought he was dead.
Then around 1980 people saw him in Beijing, the capital city of China. The Chinese government thought that if they could get the Panchen Lama to say China was doing good things for Tibet, they could fool every body in believing this was true.
The Panchen Lama told the Chinese he wanted to go back to Tibet so they let him. In 1985 he told Tibetans in Tibet that he and the Dalai Lama were friends. This made the Chinese angry. In 1987, he told the Chinese government in China that the Chinese were not treating the Tibetans fairly. Then in 1989 he was in Tibet again and told everyone there that the Chinese rules were wrong because they were destroying the Tibetan people. He died soon after. Some Tibetans think the Chinese poisoned him but no one knows for sure.
Why did China pick someone else as their own Panchen Lama?
Age: 15
Born: Lhari, Tibet
Address: Beijing, China
Have you met some people who want you to play by their rules ALL the time? It's very selfish and not very nice.
And, this is partly why the Chinese government picked their own Panchen Lama. The Chinese government wants people to do what they say ALL the time even if this involves human rights abuse.
This is a big problem because Tibetans will always believe that the Dalai Lama is the real leader of Tibet and that China has shouldn't make important decisions like picking the Panchen Lama. This makes the Chinese government very angry because they want to be the only ones in control.
Remember when we said that if the Dalai Lama passes away, the Panchen Lama helps find his reincarnation? Well just like they did with the Panchen Lama, the Chinese government want to pick their own Dalai Lama too when he dies. They think that if they can force their own Dalai Lama to say what they want him to say, they can get the Tibetan people to do what they want ALL the time without question.
