China prepares the 'after-Dalai Lama' era

China continues to prepare the ‘after-Dalai Lama’ era.
On March 2, Xinhua reported that, a day earlier, Sun Chunlan, a member of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee and boss of the United Front Work Department dealing with Tibetan affairs, had met Gyaltsen Norbu, the Chinese-selected Panchen Lama in Beijing.
As usual, Sun lauded Norbu’s patriotism and his 'increasing' influence in the Tibetan society.
She asked him to continue “to contribute to national unification and ethnic solidarity.” Norbu was also complimented for his diligence and commitment in Buddhist studies.
Now comes the interesting part.
Xinhua says: “Sun expressed the hope that the Panchen Lama will follow the instructions of the CPC Central Committee's general secretary Xi Jinping during their meeting in June last year and carry forward the fine tradition of his predecessors.”
Why to ‘hope’ only?
Does it mean that it is not a certitude for Beijing?
It appears that with Gyaltsen Norbu, Beijing often ‘hopes’.
Regarding the Panchen Lamas’ ‘fine tradition’ to serve China, it is well-known that of the 10th Panchen Lama revolted against the Party.
See my post Does history always repeat itself?
Norbu replied to Madam Sun that he will “bear in mind the care from the CPC Central Committee and the central government as well as Xi's instructions.”
It is clear that China does not want to put all its eggs in the same basket, by betting everything on 'their' Panchen Lama.

The restoration of Shide monastery
This probably explains why the Communist leadership has decided to 'diversify' its tactics and restore the ancient Shideling (or Shilde) Temple in Lhasa.
Yesterday, China Tibet Online reported that “the Shideling Temple in the heart of Lhasa have long displayed a desolate scene. Now, this thousand-year-old ancient temple will welcome its first major facelift.”

It is clearly a political facelift.
Shide monastery, built during the 9th century, used to be the Lhasa residence of the Reting Rinpoches.
The 5th Reting, one of the two Regents of Tibet died in mysterious circumstances in 1947 in Lhasa.
The Cultural Relics Bureau of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) announced that Beijing plans to ‘invest’ 15 million yuan “in special subsidies from the national cultural relic protection fund for restorations to the ancient Shideling Temple.”
And guess what Shideling will become?
A museum open to the public; in other words, a touristic site for the Chinese wanting to learn the history of Tibet.
Truzhen, a deputy director of the TAR Cultural Relics Bureau, stated that the restorations will use historical photos from the mid-20th century “to maintain the original shape, layout, style, and artistic elements of the temple.”
The Chinese website explains that the buildings and the walls which have been seriously damaged and pose a danger to construction safety, will be torn down and rebuilt and “existing rare murals will be repaired by specially-qualified professionals”.
The project will “not change the original appearance of the cultural relic …[it will be rebuilt] in strict accordance with traditional construction methods, adhering to traditional construction materials, and using multiple methods to ensure the ancient temple will reappear as it did in olden times,” says the official.

The Shide Monastery 
It was Reting Rinpoche's Lhasa residence.
Originally, Shide was the name of a monastic community established in Lhasa during the time of King Ralpachen in the 9th century.
In the thirteenth century, the Shide monastic community was appointed caretakers of Ramoche Temple; this lasted till 1842 when the Reting regent was disgraced.
Shide was reestablished in its present location in Lhasa in the mid eighteenth century under the Seventh Dalai Lama.
When the Third Reting became regent in 1845, he restored the monastery which became his seat in Lhasa. The Reting rinpoches belonged to a high-ranking incarnation lineage which could be selected as Regent of Tibet during the minority of the Dalai Lamas.
It is (was) one of five regency seats in Lhasa.
By restoring Shide, the Chinese bank on the 7th Reting Rinpoche, who is 19 now and has started playing a political role at the TAR level.
The China Tibet Online article quoted earlier explains that the fifth Reting served as the regent after the death of the 13th Dalai Lama, “but was persecuted to death after a political struggle. Shideling Temple was not spared, and it fell into ruins.”
Blogger Tsering Woeser who lives in Beijing, but often travels to Tibet mentioned “How was Shideling Destroyed?” in November 2012. A translation appeared on the website High Peaks Pure Earth in March 2013.
Woeser writes: “I have never met the 5th Reting Rinpoche but I have been to Shideling, the place that used to be a Buddhist monastery and was turned into ruins, innumerable times. Therefore I can only sneer at the claim that the other simultaneously reigning Rinpoche, Taktra, sent people to destroy Shideling.”
After interviewing several elderly people,

all of whom witnessed and experienced the great changes and great loss that gradually happened after the 1950s”, she could make out the Chinese official version was wrong.
The monastery was not destroyed during the power struggle between the 2 regents Reting and Taktra, she argues.

According to Woeser:

a retired cadre Wangchuk La, who was sent to Tsemonling Monastery by his mother to become a monk, told me the following: Shideling Monastery was heavily damaged in March 1959. In the name of ‘putting down a rebellion’, the army of the CCP turned the city of Lhasa into a place of massacre. Monks that were captured at different monasteries were partially locked up at Shideling, including himself. He had witnessed himself how the floor of the Buddhist temple was full of injured bodies, Buddhist statues were also ruined, bent and incomplete.

The blogger dissident continues:

But what really destroyed Shideling was the Cultural Revolution. Back then, there were the ‘Red Guards from the far-away capital’ that started the revolution, the so-called ‘serf emancipation’ vagrants, the Henan Opera Troupes, the local red guards, the pro-Tibetan rebel faction and the working class brothers. They installed a massive tweeter on the highest point of Shideling, turning it into the ‘main rebel’ broadcasting station.

She further recounts that she interviewed a former Red Guard:

He said that the broadcasting station was an immensely important propaganda point for the rebel faction. Thereupon Shideling became a battlefield where the different factions attacked and fought with each other. One hand grenade was countered with innumerous machine gun bullets. Once the smoke and fire had vanished, the once 5-storey-high Buddhist Palace was reduced to three storeys. The monks had been running away, were arrested or murdered just in time for the empty rooms to be taken over by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), subsequently occupying it for many years. Shideling became a barrack, in the same way that Jokhang Temple became the PLA’s pigsty.

She says that some CCP intellectuals have now revised history and do not want to mention the Cultural Revolution: “Reting Living Buddha has become a ‘patriot’, and after he was persecuted to death by the ‘Taktra Living Buddha’ under the guidance of the British Imperialists, Shide Dratsang [monastery] was burnt down.”
She concludes: “Turning a monastery into a battlefield, a military barrack, a stronghold is more shocking than turning it into a hotel or a storehouse.”
It was however a fact that Shilde was bombarded in 1947.

The 7th Reting 'blessing' devotees

A museum
Now it will be turned into a Museum for the tourists visiting Lhasa; there is no doubt Beijing’s ‘official’ version of the history of Tibet will be shown.
(Incidentally, 900,000 Chinese tourists visited the Potala last year).
But to come back to the other angle, the 'post-Dalai Lama’ era, the 7th Reting Rinpoche is bound to play a political role.
It is at least what China plans.
After all, they rationale, the 5th Reting was the 14th Dalai Lama’s first tutor.
Why not the 7th Reting becoming the 15th Dalai Lama’s teacher?
It seems a joke, but perhaps, it not for the Communist leaders.

Searching for Rinpoches...

Sitar of the United Front and Drukhang on the right

Find your rinpoche...

In April 2015, the State Council Information Office published a White Paper on Tibet. It was entitled “Tibet's Path of Development Is Driven by an Irresistible Historical Tide”.
In the section about ‘religious freedom’, it was mentioned that ‘currently, Tibet has 1,787 sites for different religious activities, over 46,000 resident monks and nuns, and 358 Living Buddhas; there are four mosques and over 3,000 Muslims, and one Catholic church and 700 believers.”
358 rinpoches in an atheist country was surprising.
However a month later, on May 21, 2015, an article, Fake Lamas flourish as China's middle class grows, in China.org gave different figures.
It affirmed that according to the China's State Administration for Religious Affairs, there were ‘only’ 1,700 real Living Buddhas of Tibetan Buddhism as of 2007. The site even commented: “The small number of masters is not enough to meet the spiritual needs of the rapidly growing number of wealthy men and women in China.”
Being probably adept of the Middle Path, the Chinese Buddhist Association has now announced that 870 Rinpoches have been ‘verified’, for whatever ‘verified’ means.
On January 18, a new search engine was launched, at the Guangji Temple in Beijing by officials of the United Front Work Department and the Buddhist Association of China.
China Tibet Online announced: “The system published information on the first group of 870 Rinpoches and is the first online query system to release information about religious personnel.”
Users can check information on their Rinpoches via the Internet.
But why having announced 358 Rinpoches in April and now have a database of ‘at least’ 870 'living Buddhas'?
The Communist Party seems very confused when it deals with ‘reincarnations’.
According to China Tibet Online, the Vice president of China’s Buddhist Association and President of the Tibetan Branch, the 7th Drukhang Rinpoche Thubten Khedrup affirmed: “the query system going online is an important step for China’s Buddhist Association to promote religious education and further standardize matters related to reincarnation of Rinpoches.”

Drukhang (3rd left), a 'real' rinpoche?

The article does not say if Drukhang himself is included in the database.
What about the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa Ogyen Dorje?
The State Administration for Religious Affairs affirmed that "anybody claiming to be a living Buddha who is not on the list should be considered a fake."
The South China Morning Post checked and the Dalai Lama is not on it.

Fake Rinpoches
Inaugurating the search engine, Drukhang said that in recent years some fraudsters have been posing as Rinpoches in Tibet and inland China, harming the interests of believers and ruining the reputation of Tibetan Buddhism: “Now that there is a Rinpoche query system, net users can check to see if a Rinpoche is genuine or not, which will help protect the legitimate rights and interests of Tibetan Buddhism. It will also help promote community awareness of Tibetan Buddhism and Rinpoche groups.”
The search engine has eight categories of information: name, religious name, Buddhist name, date of birth, religious sect, Buddha permit number, monastery and a photo.
What is the Buddha Permit Number remains a mystery?
Is it the rinpoches’ Party Card number?
A mobile app for the search engine, in case if you have an android phone, is available.
However to search the database for a living Buddha, you have to provide a mobile phone number and only after receiving a verification code, you will be able to start your search. Further, a limit of only five searches per day is allowed. In other words, it will take you half a year to search the entire database.
The website does not forget to remind its readers that in 2007 the State Bureau of Religious Affairs introduced the ‘State Bureau of Religious Affairs Order No. 5’, to “legalized the system of management for reincarnation and in 2010 China’s Buddhist Association started issuing certificates to Rinpoches.”
It added that Rinpoches approved by the government have already received the certificates.
It is not mentioned if there is a possibility to apply online if one wants to register as a rinpoche.

China’s ‘good monk’ versus ‘bad monk’

My article China’s ‘good monk’ versus ‘bad monk’ appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer

Here is the link...

Beijing is busy manipulating even the religious sentiments of its citizens. Earlier it practised atheism, but realising the people’s deep faith in Buddhism, it has begun promoting its official religious leaders

Modern China has several facets.
Unfortunately, the most disturbing, the totalitarian one, has come to the fore during the past year. Take the example of Ursula Gauthier, the French correspondent based in Beijing for the weekly, L’Obs; the renewal of her Press visa was refused by the authorities. because she had offended the Chinese Government with an article questioning Beijing’s Xinjiang policy and refusing to compare some events there to terrorism.
Then, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee passed China’s first counter-terrorism law. In an editorial, The South China Morning Post commented: “Wherever Governments have passed unprecedented security laws to confront the threat of terrorism to civilised society and its way of life, their actions have prompted concerns about adverse effects on freedom of expression and intellectual property rights.” For sure, life will be tougher for the minorities and citizens in general who dare to express their genuine grievances.
Further, news agency Xinhua stated that the new counter-terrorism law makes it legal for China’s People’s Liberation Army to get involved in anti-terror operations abroad. Does it mean the PLA can be sent anywhere, when China’s interests are at stake, for counter-terrorist missions? These signs demonstrate a high degree of nervousness.
Last weekend, President Xi Jinping and the entire 11-member Central Military Commission visited the offices of The PLA Daily. Mr Xi called on the journalists/officers to play a leading role in “strengthening the military”. President Xi affirmed, “The PLA Daily must adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party of China and serve the PLA.” He added that the publication should uphold party principles and “unswervingly” embrace the CPC leadership.
Did some officers lately refuse to unswervingly embrace the party? Apparently, some did not fully appreciate the reforms undertaken by Mr Xi and his colleagues. A few weeks ago, Sun Kejia and Han Xiao, two researchers at the PLA National Defence University had warned in The PLA Daily, “The reform will surely… touch on the interests of numerous fellow soldiers… but if it was not handled properly, it could threaten not only the stability of the military but also society.” Now, all officers have been told in no uncertain terms that they should support and take part in the reforms. There are several other signs of nervousness in the Middle Kingdom.
Ironically, the Communist Party of China has opted to develop expertise in ‘soul re-incarnation’. The atheist party has realised that ‘Living Buddhas’, as Beijing calls the reincarnated lamas or rinpoches, wield a great influence amongst the masses. They could be a destabilising influence on the nation, if not properly controlled by the party.
With Buddhism becoming highly fashionable in China, Beijing knows that things could get out of hand; it has therefore decided to differentiate between the ‘good’ lamas (those who are obedient to the Marx doctrine), and the ‘fake’ ones, who are running their own private business (their number may run in tens of thousands).
During a meeting of the United Front Work Department in June, Mr Xi said: “Active efforts should be made to incorporate religions in socialist society. The Chinese President added, “Religions in China must be Chinese.”
Beijing has now decided to develop a database of ‘Living Buddhas’ to help differentiate fake from real (communist) rinpoches.
The China Daily reported, “Authorities are setting up a database of legitimate Living Buddhas and will publish the information online. This will enable followers of Tibetan Buddhism to distinguish between real Living Buddhas and fake ones.” The newspaper added that “some fake Living Buddhas have posed threats to national security, as they use money they collect to sponsor illegal or even separatist activities in Tibet”.
How is one to get a certificate from Beijing that one is the right ‘returned-soul’? Simply follow the party’s rules, which explains, “Living Buddhas are deeply revered monks in Tibetan Buddhism, where it is believed that the soul of a senior Buddha is reincarnated in a child on his death.”
In September 2007, the State Administration for Religious Affairs in Beijing had already decided that all reincarnations of ‘Living Buddhas’ in Tibetan Buddhism must receive Government approval. The regulation’s main purpose is to control the future ‘reincarnation’ of the Dalai Lama. Whoever controls the Dalai Lama, controls the masses on the plateau.
According to Beijing, there are 358 ‘Living Buddhas’ in the Tibet Autonomous Region alone. That is quite a lot for a supposedly atheist region and considering that the Dalai Lama and the rinpoches living in India or in the West are outside Beijing’s database.
In a CCTV interview, Mr Zhu Weiqun, Chairman of the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Committee of the People’s Political Consultative Conference and a former interlocutor of the Dalai Lama’s envoys, asserted, “Some fake Living Buddhas are cheating people out of their savings or luring them into sexual activities using religious practice as an excuse.”
In October, one ‘Holiness’ Pema Woeser (alias Baima Aose) Rinpoche, himself a self-styled Living Buddha, had ‘ordained’ Zhang Tielin, a well-known Chinese actor, as a rinpoche. The footage of the enthronement went viral on the Chinese Internet.
Duoshi Rinpoche, a ‘good’ Living Buddha endorsed by Beijing, told China Daily, “I’ve heard that some monasteries in remote places even put the title of Living Buddha up for sale.” It is probably true that even nirvana can be bought in China today.
In March 2015, China.org.cn ran a feature showing that “Fake Lamas flourish as China’s middle class grows”; it said that authentic and fake rinpoches are becoming sought-after advisors and status symbols. A 2014 report in The Financial Times affirmed that 50 per cent of China’s richest class people admit that they adhere to some kind of religion and one-third of the 50 per cent claimed to be Buddhist.
In this atmosphere, the importance to control the next Dalai Lama is crucial. In an Op-ed in China Tibet Online earlier this month, Mr Zhu Weiqun wrote that “historical facts show that determining the existence of the Dalai lineage and reincarnation of the Dalai Lama had never been a purely religious matter, neither the individual rights of the Dalai Lamas themselves”.
Mr Zhu said that it was an important political matter for the TAR Government and a “manifestation” of Beijing’s exercise of sovereignty over Tibet. Many other factors such as the increasing pollution or the slowing-down of the economy also worry Beijing’s leadership. Unfortunately, the only outcome the leadership has found in 2015 is more repression and greater restriction of individual freedoms.

China's living Buddhas: Nirvana for sale?

My article China's living Buddhas: Nirvana for sale? appeared in Rediff.com

Communist China has recently developed a great expertise in 'soul reincarnation', says Claude Arpi

Communist China has recently developed a great expertise in 'soul reincarnation'.
The reason why the atheist Chinese Communist Party looked into the issue is that 'living Buddhas, as Beijing calls the reincarnated lamas or Tulkus, usually wield great influence.
They can have political power, but also economic sway. It is, in fact, one of the best businesses nowadays, whether in the West or in the Middle Kingdom. More rarely, they have spiritual authority.
The Communist Party is also conscious that things are getting out of hand. It has now decided to differentiate between the 'good' lamas, who will pay obedience to Karl Marx's doctrine and the fake ones, who run private businesses.
During a meeting of the United Front Work Department in June, President Xi Jinping said, 'Active efforts should be made to incorporate religions in socialist society.'
'Religions in China must be Chinese,' Xi added. 'The development of religions in China should be independent from foreign influence.'
That is probably why Beijing has decided to develop a database of 'living Buddhas' to help differentiate the fake from the real (that is, those who owe allegiance to the Communist party) Rinpoches (an honorific title).
Last month, The China Daily reported, 'Authorities are setting up a database of legitimate living Buddhas and will publish the information online. This will enable followers of Tibetan Buddhism to distinguish between real living Buddhas and fake ones.'
'Some fake living Buddhas have posed threats to national security,' it added, 'as they use money they collect to sponsor illegal or even separatist activities in Tibet.'
How can one get a certificate from Beijing that one is the right 'returned soul'?

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