Test for dalai lama reincarnation1/17/2024 ![]() Elijah, who drew the Potala Palace, said he loved it because that’s where the Dalai Lamas lived. In third grade, Elijah and his classmates had to draw their favorite place and tell the others about their picture. ![]() And yet, as time went on, it became clear to them that Western life wasn’t working for him. ![]() While the most high-profile tulku lineages are those of the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa, there are many others.īuddhist scholar Amelia Hall notes that the enthroning of foreign tulkus could be motivated by political needs as Tibetan Buddhism becomes international, but adds, “Who knows where the ordinary and the extraordinary converge?” As she puts it, when she takes off her academic hat and puts on her practitioner hat, she thinks, “Tulkus appearing in the West? Of course! They’re here to help.”īut while Tibetan parents might consider it an honor to send their tulku child to be trained in a faraway monastery, as far as Elijah’s parents were concerned, there was no way they were going to send their son to live with people they didn’t even know. The tulku system, which emerged in Tibet around the twelfth century, is based on the belief that bodhisattvas are reborn again and again to help sentient beings, and that their reincarnations can be identified. Their experience has not always been easy, let alone magical. But there are exceptions, including the three Westerners-all now adults-who talked with me about the unique turn their life took when they were recognized as tulkus. In virtually all cases, those who are recognized as tulkus are of Tibetan heritage. Literally meaning “magically emanated body,” a tulku is a person-almost invariably male-who’s said to have been a realized Tibetan teacher in a past life. Please return him as soon as possible.Įlijah, now age forty-eight, is one of the handful of Westerners who in childhood were recognized as tulkus. Addressed to Elijah’s parents, the gist of it was: You have our teacher. Soon a letter arrived from a monastery in India. Pema Gyaltsen investigated the boy’s past life, and eventually it was determined he’d been Geshe Jatse, a monk who’d died in the 1950s. ![]() “I know these people he’s talking about,” the khensur exclaimed. I don’t have to be a tulku in order to do that.” -Elijah AryĮlijah’s parents were charmed by their son’s imagination, but for Pema Gyaltsen, Elijah wasn’t being cute or creative. If my existence has meaning, it’s because I’m doing good in this world. Elijah didn’t take much interest until, one day, a new visitor came: a monk named Khensur Pema Gyaltsen.Īlmost immediately, four-year-old Elijah began talking about people he said he used to know-people with Tibetan names-and he described a house in the mountains that belonged to one of them and the yellow bears that lived in the area. When Elijah was a child, his parents ran a meditation center, and renowned Buddhist teachers and scholars often visited the family home. But something set him apart: according to the Dalai Lama, he was the reincarnation of a Tibetan Buddhist master. He lived in Montreal with his mom and dad and two sisters, he loved playing hockey, and he didn’t like school. Photo courtesy of Tenzin Ösel Hita.Įlijah Ary seemed like a typical Canadian kid. He was one of the handful of Western boys born in the seventies and eighties who were recognized as tulkus. Young Tenzin Ösel Hita in the traditional robes and pandita hat of a Tibetan Buddhist teacher.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |