Despair has overtaken Buddhists in Syracuse and worldwide after China recently again went on the attack against the Dalai Lama. Michael Martina of Reuters has reported for the Tibet Sun "China invokes Waco siege in denouncing Dalai Lama." On Monday the Chinese state media denounced the Dalai Lama for his views on reincarnation, saying the Buddhist spiritual leader was compounding his crimes as a separatist by trying to revise history. The Dalai Lama has said that he or other Tibetan leaders should be the ones to make the decision on his reincarnation, not Beijing.
The People’s Daily, which is the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party in China, has responded in a commentary “The Dalai Lama not only is attempting to bury long established historical tenets of Tibetan Buddhism with him when he dies, but is adding another criminal charge to his teachings of separatism, which damages Tibet and Buddhism.” China has taken the position that it has the final say in all reincarnations of living Buddhas, or senior religious figures in Tibetan Buddhism, and that China has to sign off on the selection of the next Dalai Lama.
Back in 1995 after the Dalai Lama named a boy in Tibet as the reincarnation of the previous Panchen Lama, who is the second highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, the Chinese government placed that boy under house arrest and installed another in his place. Now the 76 year old Dalai Lama has been saying that he will not be reborn in China if Tibet is not free.
The Chinese government has cleverly made an analogy from recent American history in dealing with the issue of the Dalai Lama. In The People's Daily commentary it was noted that when US federal agents raided the headquarters of David Koresh’s Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco, Texas, amid allegations of child abuse, statutory rape and underage marriage as David Koresh called himself Jesus, ensnared large groups of followers, publicly opposed national law, in 1993 he was eliminated by U.S. federal agents who even used tanks. His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Buddhists worldwide do not see any rational reasoning behind this analogy and point out that Buddhism has been an internationally respected religion with the Dalai Lama as its religious leader for a long time.
