Dharamshala (India).- The
Dalai Lama ended this Wednesday decades of speculation about his future by confirming, in an expected video message, that his 600-year lineage will continue and that his circle of maximum trust will be the only authority to find his reincarnation, in a direct challenge to China's attempts to control the process.
The announcement, which has become the spiritual leader's living testament, outlines the roadmap for an eventual succession, a mystical process that has not been carried out in almost nine decades.
"The institution of the Dalai Lama will continue," he said in the statement, in which he named the Gaden Phodrang Trust, a foundation created by him to protect the tradition, as the "exclusive authority" to direct the search.
"No one else has any authority to interfere in this matter," he declared.
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The decision immediately received the backing of the
15th Religious Conference, the historic conclave of high lamas gathered in Dharamshala, which responded with a unanimous resolution, supporting the plan and "strongly" condemning Beijing's interference in a matter they consider sacred.
The news was received with jubilation in this city nestled in the Himalayas, the epicenter of Tibetan exile.
"As a Tibetan, I felt very happy and proud," explained a woman on the streets of McLeod Ganj, home of the Dalai Lama, to EFE. "Perhaps in the future we can return to Tibet," she added, summarizing the fundamental longing of her community.
A geopolitical battle for a mystical rite
The reincarnation process of the Dalai Lama is a complex ritual that traditionally begins after the leader's death. Tenzin Gyatso himself, the fourteenth and current Dalai Lama, was found through this method.
Born as
Lhamo Dhondup in 1935 to a peasant family, he was identified as the reincarnation at the age of two, after a search group concluded a four-year investigation and the child identified objects of his predecessor with the phrase: "It's mine, it's mine."
Historically, the Panchen Lama, the second figure in Tibetan Buddhism, plays a crucial role in validating this finding. But China, which considers the Dalai Lama a separatist since his flight to India in 1959, kidnapped in 1995 the child recognized as the Panchen Lama, whose whereabouts remain unknown.
The spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry,
Mao Ning, defended this Wednesday that the succession "must respect the procedure of the golden urn draw" and be approved by the central government.
Beijing insists that these rules protect tradition and argues that the "sinicization of religion does not constitute a restriction on religious freedom".
Faith as a Strategy of Resistance
The Dalai Lama's roadmap is the culmination of years of preparation to counter this strategy. In a recent book, he had already anticipated that his reincarnation would be born outside of Chinese territory.
Faced with the crisis, the exiled community relies on an unwavering faith, the belief that the Dalai Lama will live to be 130 years old, fostered by himself, and which offers solace to a people who have lived decades in exile.
But "it depends on the luck of the people," the same woman clarifies to EFE. "That all of us maintain unity and obey his words. Thus, with luck, we will have his reincarnation for a long time," she predicts.
The announcement comes on the eve of the leader's 90th birthday this Sunday, with Dharamshala becoming a hotbed of activity, with a multitude of pilgrims, monks and the highest lamas traveling through the Himalayas to pray for the long life of the leader of Tibet.
With the roadmap on the table, the weekend's celebrations take on a new meaning: that of the beginning of the execution of a political and spiritual testament designed for Tibet to survive its most iconic leader.
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