The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said on Wednesday that the 600-year-old institution of the Dalai Lama would continue after his death.
The Dalai Lama joined thousands of Buddhist followers on Monday at prayer celebrations for his 90th birthday, a landmark event resonating far beyond the Himalayan town where he has lived for decades.
The Dalai Lama said that the Gaden Phodrang trust has sole authority to recognise the future reincarnation, ending years of waiting by followers of the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader for details about his succession.
“Although I have had no public discussions on this issue, over the last 14 years leaders of Tibet’s spiritual traditions, members of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile, participants in a Special General Body Meeting, members of the Central Tibetan Administration, NGOs, Buddhists from the Himalayan region, Mongolia, Buddhist republics of the Russian Federation and Buddhists in Asia including mainland China, have written to me with reasons, earnestly requesting that the institution of the Dalai Lama continue,” he said.
“I have received messages through various channels from Tibetans in Tibet making the same appeal. In accordance with all these requests, I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue,” the Tibetan spiritual leader said.
The leader, who turns 90 on July 6, is, according to Tibetans, the 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.
He stated, “The process by which a future Dalai Lama is to be recognized has been clearly established in the 24 September 2011 statement which states that responsibility for doing so will rest exclusively with members of the Gaden Phodrang Trust, the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.”
“They should consult the various heads of the Tibetan Buddhist traditions and the reliable oath-bound Dharma Protectors who are linked inseparably to the lineage of the Dalai Lamas. They should accordingly carry out the procedures of search and recognition in accordance with past tradition,” he added.
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He and thousands of other Tibetans have lived in exile in India since Chinese troops crushed an uprising in the Tibetan capital Lhasa in 1959.
