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March 12, 2015

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Dalai Lama’s attitude ‘irresponsible, disrespectful’

Source: Xinhua/Shanghai Daily | March 12, 2015, Thursday | Print Edition

A TOP Chinese official has urged the Dalai Lama to “forsake his evil ways and return to the good,” stressing that Tibet will not descend into chaos.

“We hope the Dalai Lama can abandon his separatist stance and his deceptive ‘middle way’ approach,” said Zhu Weiqun, head of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, China’s top political advisory body.

The core contents of the “middle way,” proposed by the Dalai Lama in the 1980s, are “greater Tibet” and “high-level autonomy” for the autonomous region.

The central government will not talk about Tibet’s “high-level autonomy” or a “greater Tibet” with the Dalai Lama, Zhu said.

He said the Dalai Lama he is becoming less influential, both abroad and in Tibet.

In recent years, fewer world leaders have met with the Dalai Lama, Zhu said, attributing the monk’s growing unpopularity to Tibet’s development and stability.

Such meetings will cause people “who don’t know right from wrong” to “lose status” in the eyes of Chinese people, Zhu told reporters on the sidelines of the annual session of the CPPCC.

“We hope the Daila Lama’s visits will not affect the development of the good relationship between China and other countries,” the official said.

Zhu said that even in Tibet, the Dalai Lama is exerting less influence, as demonstrated by the decline in the number of people immolating themselves.

“I think that Tibet’s development has made the situation in the autonomous region better and better, and this is the basic reason for the fall in the Dalai Lama’s international standing,” he said.

Zhu called on the Dalai Lama and his followers to stop inciting self-immolation among the Tibetan people and to sincerely discuss his future with the central government.

The door to dialogue with the Dalai Lama is always open, but when that dialogue starts depends on the attitude of the Dalai Lama, he said.

Zhu also accused the Dalai Lama of betraying and being disrespectful toward the Tibetan religion by saying there might be no more reincarnations after his death.

Tibetan Buddhism holds that the soul of a senior lama is reincarnated in the body of a child on his death.

“The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama has to be endorsed by the central government, not by any other side, including the Dalai Lama himself,” Zhu said.

Tibetan Buddhists believe the soul of a Living Buddha is reborn after death and “soul boy” candidates might be found through the interpretation of arcane signs.

The “soul boy,” among the candidates, comes out after lot drawing from a gold urn and must be approved by the central government, unless the authorities agree to exempt the “soul boy” from the ritual.

Such a rule was inked in the “29-Article Ordinance for the More Efficient Governing of Tibet,” promulgated in 1793.

The Dalai Lama said last year he does not wish to have a successor, and that the Tibetan Buddhism tradition of reincarnation should cease with his death.

“Politically speaking, the Dalai Lama has betrayed his homeland,” Zhu said.

“The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama must be approved by the central government. Without the central government’s approval, all would be illegitimate,” he said.

“Religiously speaking, he has betrayed Tibetan Buddhism and the succession system, which requires strict religious rituals,” he said.

Zhu said the Dalai Lama has taken an irresponsible and disrespectful attitude toward the reincarnation, citing the monk’s earlier claims that his reincarnation could be “a female, a foreigner or even a bee.”

“One minute he will reincarnate as a foreigner ... the next as a woman. If you gave him a jar of honey, he’ll happily tell you that in his next life he’ll be a bee,” said Zhu, who was heavily involved in the past in talks with the Dalai Lama’s representatives.

“Now he is talking about a termination of the reincarnation,” Zhu said.

“Is it irresponsible to his own faith?”

Nation


 

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