[Buddha-l] Panchen Lama

[Dan Lusthaus]

NYTimes piece on the Chinese-picked Panchen Lama, now 21 yrs old, whom they 
are aggressively promoting, and how the Tibetans are reacting. Go to the 
link for photos.
Dan

http://tinyurl.com/44zzbbj

China Hopes to Bolster the Credentials of a Handpicked Lama

China recognizes Gyaltsen Norbu as the Panchen Lama, a major figure in 
Tibetan Buddhism.
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: August 6, 2011

XIAHE, China - His name is on the lips of the ruddy-cheeked monks, the 
anxious hotel owners and the intrepid tourists who make their way to this 
isolated and starkly beautiful town in the mountains of Gansu Province: will 
he come to Xiahe, as unverified reports suggest, and how long will he stay?
Related

In 1995, China rejected the Dalai Lama's Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.

"He" is China's handpicked Panchen Lama, the second-most important religious 
figure in Tibetan Buddhism, and despite his formidable rank, his presence is 
not universally welcomed by the faithful in and around the white-wall 
Labrang Monastery that sprawls into a cavernous valley here.

In recent weeks, as word has spread that he might be coming to study at the 
monastery, emotions have spiked, as have the numbers of police officers, 
both uniformed and in plain clothes, hoping to head off trouble in a place 
where ethnic Tibetans have been unafraid to express their enmity toward 
Chinese rule.

"Nobody wants him to come, and yet still he will come," said one 26-year-old 
monk. "We feel powerless."

The main problem is that this Panchen Lama, 21, is one of two young men with 
claims to the title. The one chosen by Communist Party officials in 1995, 
named Gyaltsen Norbu at birth, is often referred to by local residents as 
the "Chinese Panchen Lama." The other is Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who would now 
be 22, a herder's son who was anointed that same year by the Dalai Lama, the 
exiled Tibetan leader.

Most Tibetans are still loyal to the memory of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, even if 
he has been missing since Chinese authorities swept him and his family into 
"protective custody" more than 16 years ago.

"We just hope he is still alive," said Tsering Woeser, a Tibetan essayist 
and blogger who noted that Gedhun Choekyi Nyima's visage, frozen as a 
5-year-old, hangs in many homes and temples. "We are waiting for him."

As Gyaltsen Norbu moves from adolescence to adulthood, Chinese authorities 
are facing a quandary over how to burnish his bona fides: his standing will 
continue to suffer if he remains apart from Tibetan monks and the faithful, 
but officials risk inflaming passions by foisting him on a community that 
remains deeply suspicious.

In recent years, the Communist Party has tried other means to raise his 
profile. They named him vice president of the state-run Buddhist association 
and appointed him to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, 
an advisory body that meets annually in Beijing.

But so far most of his public statements have left Tibetans unimpressed. In 
one typically stolid remark last March, he said, "We live in a society 
governed by law, while the religious practices fall into the category of 
social activity; therefore, only by administration according to law can we 
ensure a stable and harmonious development of religious affairs."

The government bureaucrats who oversee Tibetan affairs have come to the 
conclusion, one rooted in history, that only a significant stint in a 
prominent monastery can bolster the Panchen Lama's religious credentials, 
according to scholars and local religious figures.

"The Tibetans respect good Buddhist practice and accomplishment," Hu 
Shisheng, a researcher at the China Institute of Contemporary International 
Relations, said in a telephone interview from Lhasa, Tibet's capital.

The government's struggle to legitimize the Panchen Lama among Tibetans 
foreshadows the deeper struggle Beijing will face upon the death of the 
Dalai Lama, when it has said it will name a successor. The Dalai Lama, 76, 
is still revered on the Tibetan plateau despite years of fierce propaganda 
that brands him as a troublemaking separatist, even as he insists that he is 
interested only in genuine autonomy for Tibetans.

Although officially atheist, the Communist Party asserts that only it has 
the authority to pick top spiritual leaders, who, according to Tibetan 
theology, are reincarnated from deceased religious figures.

A previous attempt to improve the Panchen Lama's religious standing in 1998 
did not end well. After officials sought to pair the boy with the abbot of 
Kumbum, a revered monastery in Qinghai Province, the abbot, Arjia Rinpoche, 
fled China and sought asylum in the United States. "It was a very difficult 
decision, but I did not want to be seen as a collaborator with the Chinese 
government," Arjia Rinpoche said by telephone from Indiana, where he now 
lives.

According to several Tibetans, both in China and abroad, the antipathy has 
been strong enough that the authorities may have already scaled back their 
plans to have the Panchen Lama spend months studying at Labrang Monastery, 
one of the most important centers of Buddhist learning - and the scene of 
recent protests against Chinese rule that were prompted by much deadlier 
ethnic rioting in Lhasa.

One Qinghai-based scholar who said that he had spoken to senior lamas at 
Labrang in recent days noted that many rank-and-file monks had expressed 
concern that the Panchen Lama would bring with him security agents, 
surveillance cameras and even more restrictions than those that already 
govern the lives of the monastery's more than 1,000 monks. "There is no 
historical precedent for installing a Panchen Lama at Labrang," said the 
scholar, who asked for anonymity to shield himself from potential trouble. 
"But more importantly, they worry Labrang will become like a circus, not a 
monastery."

He and others said Xiahe was most likely selected because the region's most 
senior religious figure has been especially cooperative with Beijing. 
Another factor may be that one of the tutors who teaches the Panchen Lama at 
his home in Beijing hails from Labrang.

But the monastery also includes a coterie of fiercely independent monks who 
could make things uncomfortable for the Panchen Lama.

A few months after violent protests that jolted the Tibetan plateau in 2008, 
15 monks rushed out of the monastery waving the banned Tibetan flag during a 
government-arranged visit for foreign journalists. "We have no human rights 
now," they told reporters before older monks dispersed them. (Three of them 
later escaped to India to avoid punishment.) Another senior monk was later 
jailed for six months after posting a video online that described his 
torture during a previous detention.

Despite what might seem like insurmountable obstacles to the Panchen Lama's 
legitimacy, a number of experts said the government's long-term strategy 
might give him at least some credibility. Even if they are unhappy with the 
arrangement, Tibetans understand the necessary bargain that their spiritual 
leaders must make with the authorities. Arjia Rinpoche, the exiled former 
abbot, said that if the Panchen Lama one day showed a hint of independence, 
Tibetans could come to respect him.

"People say that even if he's not a real reincarnation, at least he's a real 
Tibetan, and maybe when he grows up he can believe in the Dalai Lama and do 
something good for Tibet," he said.

More immediately, however, the prospect of a visit to Xiahe is causing 
consternation, and not only among the monks. Several government workers who 
are ethnic Tibetans have in recent days said they were threatened with wage 
cuts or dismissal if they did greet the Panchen Lama with open arms.

Before he was interrupted by a Han Chinese business owner, one middle-age 
monk who spoke to a foreign visitor acknowledged the widespread discontent 
but said he was resigned to the Panchen Lama's arrival. "I will not allow it 
to impact me," he said. "I will continue to pray and be fully observant."

Adam Century and Edy Yin contributed research.