‘A Chinese Dalai Lama? That would not make any sense ‘

A colorful pyramid of green, red, blue, yellow and red prayer flags is next to a modest stage. Short groceries are written on the flags, mainly in Tibetan. Under a gray air and rain that comes from the sky with bins, this colorful construction catches the eye.

According to Tashi, a thirties with a shaved head and a black cap, you normally only see these flags ‘in the Himalayas’. He would rather not give his last name, for fear that his family in Tibet may otherwise be harassed by the Chinese police.

Tashi is one of the approximately one hundred Tibetan Dutch who gathered this Sunday afternoon on Dam Square in Amsterdam to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader. There are stalls where information leaflets are handed out and there is a large screen on which quotes of the Dalai Lama are shown. “My Religion is very simple. My Religion is Childness“There are speeches, visitors can leave a message for the Dalai Lama, there are people, young and old, dressed in long traditional Tibetan robes.

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New reincarnation

Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, announced last Wednesday that after his death a new reincarnation is waiting, which means that there is a next highest spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. “I am so happy!”, Says Chairman Tsering Jampa of the Tibet Support Group, a foundation that is committed to the Tibet region and this event also organizes. “He is now ninety, a wonderful age. He himself predicts that he will be 113 years old, but the end of this life is getting closer. And this community without a Dalai Lama is not possible.”

The follow -up issue is politically sensitive. In 1950, China Tibet invaded, after a failed uprising nine years later, Gyatso fled to India together with a group of followers. He resides in India, together with the Tibetan government in exile.

China is communist, so they find religion toxic. Such a country can’t make a choice for such a saint?

In the meantime, China demands the right to designate a successor herself. China regards the ‘autonomous region’ Tibet as an internal affair that other countries are not allowed to interfere, and hopes that a pro-Chinese spiritual can be designated after the death of Gyatso. Chances are that there will soon be two Dalai Lama’s. Gyatso said before Time That it would be logical that a successor would appear “in the free world.”

‘Political Tool’

“A Chinese Dalai Lama? That would not make sense,” says 45-year-old Norbu Tsering. The Tibetan Dutchman holds a photo of the Dalai Lama against his chest. He believes that China would only use the successor as a “political tool.” “China is communist, so they think religion is toxic. Such a country can’t make a choice for such a saint? Only we Tibetans have the right to choose the fifteenth Dalai Lama.”

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While the rain has stopped and on stage a white -dressed group De Dalai Lama is a beautiful birthday, Tsering says that he is worried about the future: “China is so powerful, I fear that they will get everything out of the closet. We have seen it before, in 1995.”

In that year the number two within the Buddhist hierarchy, the Panchen Lama disappeared. The six -year -old boy turned out to have been abducted by the Chinese authorities, shortly after he was designated by the Dalai Lama as the second spiritual leader. In the same year, China came up with its own Panchen Lama: the then sixteen -year -old Gyaltsen Norbu. He visited Chinese President Xi Jinping last month, where he expressed his faithfulness to the country. “I hope the new Dalai Lama knows how he or she can stay out of the hands of the Chinese,” says Tsering.

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