Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling

“But of course, religion is poison!” exclaimed Mao Zedong to Tenzin Gyatso, the “Great Fourteenth” Dalai Lama of Tibet.(1) Though initially impressed by China’s first communist leader and promise to modernize Tibet and interest in socialism, the Dalai Lama will always be stunned by Mao’s troubling words, declared at the end of their 1954 meeting.

But now, with China’s resolve to never give up the “right” to decide on the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, or living Buddha, China’s atheistic Communist Party is the real poison.(2) Indeed, Tibetans fear China will use reincarnation to decide succeeding religious leaders, causing division and completely eliminating Tibet’s self-determination.

The people of Tibet also fear China’s reincarnated religiocide and sociocide. To be certain, China’s invasion and military occupation, starting in 1950, destroyed all but 12 of more than 6,000 Tibetan monasteries. In addition, thousands of sacred treasures, relics, books and statues have been stolen or sold on the black market.(3)

As for Tibetan women, they are routinely forced to undergo sterilization or have abortions. Meanwhile, an estimated 3,000 political and religious prisoners are in labor camps with the Chinese directly responsible for the deaths of 1.2 million Tibetans. More than 120,000 Tibetan refugees have fled to other countries, like India.(4)

Unlike Mao Zedong’s Mandate of Communism, a recent exclusive materialistic phenomenon, reincarnation existed for centuries among Tibetan Buddhists. A continuous cycle of rebirth to which all human beings belong, an individual is reincarnated in a succession of lives based upon prior deeds and actions in past lives.

Regarding the Dalai Lama, Tibetans believe each succeeding Spiritual Leader is the reincarnation of the previous one. In 1937, a mission of high officials came to a peasant village to question a young child. After passing all tests, Tenzin Gyatso was taken to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. There, in 1940, he was enthroned as His Holiness.

Moreover, reincarnation provides answers to the meaning of life, along with identity and eternity. Indeed, to live is to suffer. But suffering comes from desire. To end suffering, then, one should desire less. Release from suffering, in addition, is only possible through inner peace, or right understanding, thinking, speaking, action, work and meditation.

Sadly, there was no release of suffering from China’s Mandate of Communism and its recent capitalistic makeover. Not only did Mao liquidate 800,000 “class enemies,” but his Great Leap forward embodied millions of deaths. As Tiananmen Square reaffirmed China’s harsh repression, markets have ravaged Tibet, causing environmental destruction.

China’s Mandate of Communism imposed on Tibet is also reincarnating disgust by labeling the Dalai Lama a violent separatist. It is a ludicrous assertion since the Nobel Peace laureate denounces all forms of violence, wars and militarism. Additionally, he pursues freedom and self-determination through peaceful means, as all Tibetans do.

Furthermore, the Dalai Lama continues to incarnate true political and spiritual leadership through his acts of love towards Tibetan refugees. Along with helping to provide basic human rights, the Spiritual Leader assists in promoting shelter, education, food, clothing, agricultural settlements and new monasteries to preserve Tibetan Buddhism.

Having fled into exile in India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, the Dalai Lama embodies hope, too, speaking for the downtrodden and oppressed and for universal justice and human dignity with moral authority. He, in fact, gives birth to the idea that the world functions according to the law of cause and effect, or actions have consequences.

Individuals and nations should also take responsibility for their actions by undoing the effects of previous bad works with good works. Indeed, receiving the Nobel Peace prize the Dalai Lama said “truth, courage and determination are Tibetans weapons, and that Tibet will only be liberated through a nonviolent struggle free of hatred.”(5)

Shortly before he died in 1933, Thupten Gyatso, the “Great Thirteenth” Dalai Lama of Tibet, consequently had a vision of the future. He predicted that if the Tibetans did not protect their territory, their spiritual leaders would be exterminated, their property and authority would be taken away and their people would become slaves.

Unfortunately, China’s desire and its insatiable economic appetite is causing enormous sorrow. Unlike Tibet, it is still in search of a national identity, competing with other cruel systems. Will China ever realize that whatever it “breathes,” it comes from the trees, sky, oceans and land, or that what China is comes from somewhere or someone else?

Even China’s original Mandate of Heaven mirrors nationalistic rebirths and a more conscientious awareness and identity. Nations that become abusive and corrupt, followed by floods, famines, peasant revolts and wars of expansion, lose their right to govern and will be overthrown so that new nations can rise and restore peace, order and justice.

China’s future economic growth and expansionism, especially when compared to its shortage of available resources, actually looks bleak. Yet, this is no reason to allow China’s continued exploitation of Tibet, including imposing a despotic and poisonous precedent to rule the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation for generations.

Unless the global community helps liberate Tibet and the Dalai Lama, from the South China Sea to Africa and Latin America there might be more horrific predictions that become awful realities. And since states are never separate but intimately connected to the rest of the universe, dire predictions and awful realities may include all nations.

Dallas Darling ([email protected])

(Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//dallasdarling.)

(1) McKay, John P. A History Of World Societies. New York, New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s Publishers, 2012., p. 1040.

(2) www.reuters.com. “China Sticks to Right to Decide Reincarnation of Dalai Lama” by Jonathan Alcorn. November 30, 2015.

(3) Ibid., p. 1040.

(4) Ibid., p. 1040.

(5) Ibid., p. 1040.

For more on this story go to:  http://article.wn.com/view/2015/12/07/China_s_Mandate_Of_Communism_Poisons_Dalai_Lama_s_Reincarnat/