Bee? Blonde girl? Dalai Lama is ‘making a fool’ of Buddhism, says Chinese official

Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is “making a fool” of Tibetan Buddhism with suggestions he may not reincarnate, or reincarnate as something inappropriate, and the faithful are not buying it, a Chinese official wrote on Monday. Zhu Weiqun, chairman of the ethnic and religious affairs committee of the top advisory body to China’s parliament, said the Dalai Lama had to respect tradition. "The Dalai Lama continues to proclaim his reincarnation is a 'purely religious matter’ and something only he can decide, but he has no way to compel admiration from the faithful,“ wrote Zhu, known for his hardline stance on Tibet.

He’s been proclaiming he’ll reincarnate as a foreigner, as a bee, as a 'mischievous blonde girl’, or even proposing a living reincarnation or an end to reincarnation.

Zhu Weiqun, writing in the Global Times

"All of this, quite apart from making a fool of Tibetan Buddhism, is completely useless when it comes to extricating him from the difficulty of reincarnation,” wrote Zhu. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning monk has suggested his title could end when he dies. China accuses him of betraying, and being disrespectful towards, the Tibetan religion by saying there might be no more reincarnations. Tibetan exiles worried China will appoint its own successor to the 80-year-old leader can point to a precedent. In 1995, after the Dalai Lama named a boy in Tibet as the reincarnation of the previous Panchen Lama, the second highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, China put the child under house arrest and installed another.

Dalai Lama