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Steven Seagal, tulku, in the news again
Cinorjer
Veteran
According to several news sites, Steven Seagal was palling around with Vladimir Putin recently where they discussed how Russia needed to revive boot-camp type physical training for civilians because those people were starting to get flabby. He discussed restarting a compulsary Stalin-era physical fitness "for defense of the motherland" program.
Is there anyone in the West who isn't aware by now that this man was declared a reincarned tulku by his teacher, Penor Rinpoche? Certainly, the news reporters always manage to fit that in. I have a question for the Tibet Buddhists in the crowd. Is there any method of saying "Oops, the Rinpoche made a mistake. This nimrod wasn't a reincarnated tulku, after all. Our bad." because this makes your entire tulku tradition look foolish.
Is there anyone in the West who isn't aware by now that this man was declared a reincarned tulku by his teacher, Penor Rinpoche? Certainly, the news reporters always manage to fit that in. I have a question for the Tibet Buddhists in the crowd. Is there any method of saying "Oops, the Rinpoche made a mistake. This nimrod wasn't a reincarnated tulku, after all. Our bad." because this makes your entire tulku tradition look foolish.
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Comments
Segal isn't a Buddhist Tulku... it was supposed to read "Fitness Guru".
it's what you do with it.
Seagal may have been 'recognised as the reincarnation of a previous Lama - but as his Guru stated, what he chose to do about that was entirely up to him.
He obviously chose to not do anything about it.
I'm informed that after a while, if the 'reincarnation' is not nourished, it fades and becomes insignificant and never manifests.
Rather like a rare plant that needs nurturing, if there is complete neglect, the existence is academic....
But I take a wider view. Actually we are all tulkus. And we've been at this suffering game for many life times. Sure theres no entity, but an appearance of a casual continuance. One mans failure is our failure.
My question that started this isn't loaded. I really do want to know, once a Rinpoche has declared someone a tulku, is there any way of taking that back, or is that the final decision and not subject to change? Is there no safeguard, such as having to get the opinion of another Rinpoche?
Even though the process according to the article is that this tulku must undergo training before he's realized, claiming the ability to recognize a tulku in the first place means you're saying there's something special about the man to begin with. After all, Seagal is supposed to be the reincarnation of someone so spiritually advanced that he had power over death, at least the process Tibetan Buddhism calls death. If this advanced spirit or subtle mind or whatever (I won't get into that debate) is no different from you or me, then being a tulku doesn't mean anything. It's only the training that makes a difference, and any of us can be trained. See what I'm asking?
I am beginning to suspect we non-Tibetan Buddhists have a wrong idea about what this tulku business is all about. I think we see being a tulku as something much more important and special than it actually is to the people who have this belief as part of their practice. So we're expecting something different from the reality?
Someone who's highly realized will need little to no training to become a great teacher, whereas someone else may need a lot more (which I guess is one of the reasons they try to find them while they're still young). In addition, since reincarnation isn't limited to that of a single, immutable soul, one can have theoretically multiple reincarnations. So, basically, just because Steven Seagal is recognized as the reincarnation of so-and-so, it doesn't mean he's automatically an enlightened master (although it's implied that he's spiritually advanced), nor does it mean that he's the only reincarnation of so-and-so.
That's my general understanding of it, at any rate. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the system of 'recognized' lamas as I think it's akin to a spiritual form of nepotism and often leads to young children being indoctrinated and used for the benefit of those who recognize/tutor them.
BTW, for practical purposes, a loaded question is typically asked in a form resembling "Don't you think...?" So, it would never occur to me to call the OP's question a loaded one. I'd like to be set straight on this if I err, though. The research I did on this on Wikipedia just confused me.
A loaded question implies some sort of guilt. An example, in the courtroom, might be "how long before you stopped beating your wife...?" I guess my point here is that the OP most likely never thought being a tulku was a bad thing; therefore the "loaded question" issue is a nonissue, really.
So sorry if I wasted anyone's time.
But I might salvage this post a bit if I fessed up and said I didn't know the tulku bit about Seagal when Cinorjer first posted this.
The tulku tradition is on rocky ground. Tibetans themselves are noticing that not all the tulkus are cut out for their appointed profession. Dzongsar Khentse Rinpoche said, in Gesar Mukpo's film, "Tulku", that the tulku tradition is at risk of destroying Buddhism (a bit over-dramatic, but to the point). Some tulkus themselves have renounced their status, and I think the 6th Dalai Lama was a big "oops!", dedicating his life to womanizing and composing love poetry. But AFAIK no tulku has actually been deposed. There seems to be a little buzz going around, though, about some sloppy selection going on in modern times.
“If someone asks me whether I am the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama”, he said, “then I answer, without hesitation, yes. This does not mean I am the same being as the previous Dalai Lama. Some Dalai Lamas are manifestations of Manjushri. Some are manifestations of Chenrizi. Chenrizi is the manifestation of compassion. Manjushri is the manifestation of wisdom. I have a special connection with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and the Fifth Dalai Lama. I have felt some kind of karmic relations or connections even with the Buddha. I feel I can say I have some kind of connection with the previous Dalai Lamas, some of the previous masters, with Chenrizi, even with the Buddha.”
“This English word connection you keep using,” I said. “It doesn’t give a true explanation of everything that you mean when you use it.”
“It has a number of meanings,” the Dalai Lama said. “It can mean that there was a personal connection; we might have been born in the same time during a past life; a teacher a student; or ruler and a subject or we might have even been spiritual friends. There could have been a personal life connection. Also, there can be other factors. In my own case, from my previous lives, there is some connection to virtues. So on the basis of these virtues, a connection is formed. From devotion, faith, or belief in the Fifth Dalai Lama or some of these other masters, these connections can cause a birth or human life where the work of the Fifth Dalai Lama can be carried on. Though we may never have met, even in a prior life, never met personally, but spiritually because of strong faith, it is possible that you are carrying out his work.”
Pointing at himself, the Dalai Lama said, “This person's connection with the Fifth Dalai Lama, this person now has the power or merit to carry out some work or duty in such and such a period. So all these forces are connected and then a birth is caused.”
As I listened carefully to the Dalai Lama, and image took shape in my mind of how reincarnation shaped the history the Dalai Lama spoke of. I thought of different human “souls” as strands braided together, down through time, forming one rope. The lineage of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has not been a reincarnation of one human soul. Several human souls have been the vessel for Chenrizi in their own time, and a few of these have reincarnated several times. At the same time they all interact with one another, as humans, during different incarnations. This was completely different from the idea I had previously had that the Dalai Lama was the fourteenth reincarnation of a single human soul, who was also a manifestation of the compassion of the Buddha.
“Is it possible, “I asked, “for the human being who is today Tenzin Gyatso to have been reincarnated
earlier? Not has the Dalai Lama, but as person who was a friend of, or worked with, the Fifth Dalai Lama?”
“Yes that is possible,” the Dalai Lama said. “Yes. When someone asks me if I am the Dalai Lama, or reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, then without hesitation I say yes. If they ask me if I am the reincarnation of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, then I say I don't know.”
Surprised at the turn of conversation, I carried on. “So the Thirteenth Dalai Lama as a human being is separate from the Thirteenth Dalai Lama as a manifestation of Chenrizi?”
“Yes, he answered, “although there are a lot of interpretations of the word soul.” Buddhist do not believe in the existence of a “soul” that migrates from one body to the next. Reincarnation is more complex than that. When the Dalai Lama or I used that word, we both knew it had quotation marks around it. “Still, speaking simply, my soul may not be the same soul as the soul of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama.”
“But the Chenrizi in you,” I asked, “is the same Chenrizi that was in the Thirteenth Dalai Lama?”
“No, not Chenrizi, he said, gently correcting me. “It's some kind of special connection or special blessing from Chenrizi in the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. Or in my case, yes, perhaps a special blessing from Chenrizi. Whereas with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, maybe he was a true reincarnation of Chenrizi. But these things are very mysterious.”
“Yes, mysterious,” I added, “but at a simple level there are two distinct things happening simultaneously. There is the Chenrizi connection, and there is a human connection. These two braiding together through time, going forward. It is difficult to understand.”
“Yes”, he said, nodding his head, “mysterious...”