24th Annivesary of Tibet’s Missing Panchen Lama

Gedhun Choeki Nyima, who is recognized as Tibet’s 11th Panchen Lama was taken when he was six-years-old by the Chinese government along with his family.  

Tibetan, Gedhun Choeki Nyima became the youngest political prisoner after he was abducted by the Chinese Government in 1995.

The 11th Panchen Lama is the second most revered position in Tibetan Buddhism and regarded as the reincarnated Buddha.

The Chinese Government regard people such as the Tibetan Lamas a threat to total control as spirituality and having a spiritual leader does not align with the Party’s ideology.

Buddhists believe that a persons life is karmic retribution. It directs a person’s future reincarnation. However, those who have achieved enlightenment through cultivation of the heart and mind may direct their own path, choosing the body of their rebirth or complete ascension.

Interpretation of ancient Buddhist texts allows monks to recognize the reincarnated body of a leader.

In the 1950s the Chinese government seized the region by force and killed tens of thousands of Tibetans who resisted communist rule.

Since 1959 The Dalai Lama and his followers have lived in exile in Dharamshala, India.

China’s atheist government decreed that all reincarnations of living Buddhas have to be approved by Beijing given that Tibet is officially part of China.

In November of 1995, the Chinese had officially enthroned a Tibetan boy named Gyaltsen Norbu, whose parents were members of the Communist Party, as the eleventh Panchen Lama.

Tibetans say that the current Dalai Lama cannot be replaced just as the Leaders of Freedom movements such as  “India’s  Gandhi and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela.

But out but of democratic movements, there have been new leaders.

Tenzin Lekshay, deputy director at the think tank Tibet Policy Institute, said: “Tibetans should keep in mind the history of the transitory periods that occurred over the past few hundred years.”  He urged Tibetans to use wisdom and discernment.

“In the absence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, one of the viable alternatives to maintain stability within the Tibetan community is to develop collective leadership,” he said. —Religion News Service