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Recognizing Incarnations
thegoldeneternity
Veteran
I was just reading about Chogyam Trungpa. Looking on wikipedia, I see that he died in 1987. However, that wasn't the last thing on his timeline. It then says:
1989: The child recognized as his reincarnation, Chokyi Sengay, is born in Derge, Tibet; recognized two years later by Tai Situ Rinpoche.
How the heck is this supposed to work? How could someone recognize a two-year-old as a reincarnation of anyone? And, if told from the age of 2 that you were the reincarnation of (fill-in-the-blank), I think most everyone would just take it as truth, and it would very much influence your development.
Thoughts?
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Comments
Seems like one of those shared fictions that are kept up for appearances, IMHO. This reincarnation business is more complicated than even a literal understanding of rebirth.
I am the self-recognised re-incarnation of myself from yesterday. I brought myself to recognise my bicycle and cycle helmut as two of my favoured possession this morning. I then went on to appear to everyone who had known me from yesterday to be just like myself in most ways imaginable, and today I showed everyone that I was who they truly believed me to be by cycling for 45 miles without showing signs of serious distress or fatigue.
Recognising your own reincarnation, perhaps is not as hard as you may think!
Now where did I put the deadly nightshade...
Reincarnation is only recognised as a legitimate process in
in Tibetan Buddhism I believe.
It's not a question of simply identifying a random child of tender age... It's actually quite a convoluted process and this is how Tibetan Lamas have perpetuated their lineage for centuries.
It's worth investigating just to be informed, even if you choose to dismiss it as nonsense...
I dismiss nothing as nonsense @federica; everything should be explored. Indeed I have reflected a little on reincarnation this week. It can be fascinating when you really investigate it. Especially when you consider that in buddhist terms, where there is no eternal soul, such a concept exists. So what is being reincarnated, in the context of the 3 marks of existence.
You would have to ask a devout practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism...
One thing to note is that reincarnations are not always realized in the dharma. They might be a bus driver.
If you read 'the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying' Sogyal Rinpoché talks at some length about reincarnation and Lamas recognised in the most unlikely people and places...
Well, I'm not a Tibetan Buddhist but I've had conversations with them. They have an elaborate belief system built up around the process of dying involving Bardos (states of consciousness) and an energy model of life defined by the alchemy version of the elements earth, fire, water, etc. I can't begin to remember all the details, but they claim it can take up to 10 days for a person's mind to realize that they're dead. And that the Living Buddhas have the power to direct their stream of consciousness into a new body of their choice.
This is a unique belief of the esoteric and mystical Tibetan Buddhists, and it's easy enough to see what purpose is served by declaring an unbroken line of leaders from generation to generation if you remember these monks were also the rulers of the land, Priest-Kings in every sense of the title. Their temple was full of monks busy playing politics and controlling the treasury of the country and jockeying for power in the temple. In other words, people being people.
Now, other countries had royalty, families busy making little baby kings to replace the old King. This kept the assassinations and palace backstabbing to a minimum. But the Tibetan Dali was celebate. So every time one died, there would be civil war or at least chaos in the temple as the various important monks fought for the title.
This is a fascinating and impressive invention to solve that problem. You still get the little King who can be brought up with the proper attitude and discipline so the second most powerful monk knows he will never be able to take over the title of Dali and must be satisfied with being the power behind the throne, so to speak. He rules in the name of the child Dali.
Fascinating. The question is, is this unique practice that strains the Buddhist no-self teaching past the breaking point still necessary?
To the OP: It makes for a nice story. It certainly didn't hurt in perpetuating a belief system or to help legitimize power, at least back in the day.
Ultimately it seems no thing is truly known and if so no thing can be discounted. That said I base my beliefs on evidence and there doesn't seem to be much in the case of literal reincarnation. On the other hand stars went supernova and in the process created the heavier elements that we and everything around us is made of. We are figuratively the reincarnate of stars. Bob
There is a movie about 10 years old now called Unmistaken Child. It follows the search for and recognition of a tulku, its worth watching if you want to know about the process.
I happened to meet one of these children while I was in India, he was maybe 6 or 7 at the time. Apparently when he was 4 he repeatedly demanded his mother take him to his monastery until she did, where he stayed. There are many such stories like that, all I can say is that he was a bright, warm and grounded child.
There is a process that is gone through, as @person says above, to recognize tulkus. I've read about it a bit and find it interesting, I'm not sure if I trust the validity, or not. Some of the stories, if they are to be believed are pretty fascinating. Tenzin Palmo, in her story "A Cave in the Snow" talks about how her master died, and his tulku was found, and how even as a very young child he identified her. They are supposedly able to identify items that were theirs in their past lives. The testing is an interesting process, anyhow.
There is a recent story here, about a boy in Minnesota who has been recognized as a reincarnated lama/tulku. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing, about such young children going away from their families to study in such situations, and also I wonder too about how much of it is just the child being raised in such a manner. This is how the Dalai Lama title works, as I understand. Someone goes looking for the reincarnated child version of the previous master and tests are done to determine the validity.
Despite my mixed feelings, I am open to it. As a parent, I cannot imagine sending my child at such a young age to live with strangers in another land. But I also can't fathom that kind of devotion to my beliefs, so I can't really judge them.
Anyhow, here is the story about the MN boy, it's an interesting read..
http://www.startribune.com/local/north/135804688.html
@karasti I wonder about this recognizing of objects aspect. I mean I just had a genius thought about it that makes sense without being "supernatural". There used to be a horse that could do math or count (or something), or at least they thought it could. Turns out it was picking up on non-verbal cues (body language) from the human involved. If a horse can do it, I'm sure young children might end up doing the same thing if they're pressured to identify the "correct" objects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans
And I just verified my suspicion that it's possible by checking out that Wiki:
"As Pfungst's final experiment makes clear, Clever Hans effects are quite as likely to occur in experiments with humans as in experiments with animals." (bold/italics mine)
I'm sure it is possible. In my understanding, there is no talking or influencing (or is not supposed to be) and the children are often very young, 2 years old or so. I know my 5 year old picks up very little subtle body language (heck, half the time my husband doesn't, either, LOL) but will pick up obvious gestures or reactions on my part. I've never been present during one of these tulku verifying events, so I couldn't say. I'm not sure what would lead them to choose one child over another though. They often travel very long distances in remote ares and meet with many children/families before they set their sights on anyone, or before any child shows "promise."
It's quite a lengthy overall process, and I have read only a little bit about it. I can't pretend to fully understand it by any means, so I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it at this point. There is a lot of dream work and other things involved, which is actually a pretty fascinating thing to read about.
I'm pretty sure just about every step of the identification process is open to manipulation. I don't think there has ever really been an investigation to look for those type of things though so we can't say one way or another if manipulation has or has not occurred. There's plenty of room for skepticism or belief on either side.
@person They're probably just overall looking for a child that has the potential to become a leader or a great monk, or makes them think of the old monk for some reason, and the reincarnation thing is superficial to that if not a form of self-deception. I've lost interest now in this whole thing.
Back to my practice!
It's very easy to dismiss other people's beliefs from the lofty heights of your own superiority, isn't it?
Given that it's a "tried and tested " tradition that has existed for centuries and has been shown to produce extremely valued and capable Lamas, it does seem extremely dismissive and disrespectful of some members to discuss the process in such tone...
Simply because we disbelieve something, it does not give us the freedom to denounce it as frivolous invention and be so rude about it.
Shame on you.
I guess it goes beyond beliefs in that they have developed a method that works to their satisfaction.
The lengths one would have to go to to prove that they are wrong in their conclusions is so far beyond my capability, that I wouldn't know where to start.
I have nothing to base my disbelief on. I could say that I dont believe because I haven't seen it with my own eyes. But that won't make much of an arguement to those who say they have.
Probably better to say that I don't have a clue and leave it at that.
Another film where the process of recognition and selection of a reincarnated lama, in this case, is Bernardo Bertolucci's "Little Buddha."
Like @federica said above, we can't dismiss such a long-standing tradition as utter non-sense just because it defies our logic.
As with rebirth, I am very open-minded about it. Could be. Could be not. We haven't found convincing arguments neither for the acceptance nor for the rebuttal of both issues.
I choose to put both issues aside with a "maybe" until my mind broadens to both concepts and continue learning how to deal with suffering here and now.
I just read through the posts, and I can't find anyone being rude or saying this tradition is frivolous. I see some very valid questions and criticisms of the practice. I'm truly sorry if my own post struck you as either.
Simply because this is a tradition does not mean it's beyond criticism. Slavery also had a long tradition in Tibet and elsewhere and worked very well. If you weren't a slave. I don't think I'll ever agree that it's OK to yank a very young boy from his family and force him to be a celibate monk the rest of his life. Some traditions should be retired.
The latest news on the Dalaï-lama and his opinion of his 'reincarnation' would appear to support your view.
Incidentally the Dalai Lama was not separated from his family....