From MSNBC.com:
In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.”
Reincarnation, literally “to be made flesh again”, is a doctrine or mystical belief that some essential part of a living being (in some variations only human beings) survives death to be reborn in a new body. At the death of one personality, a new one comes into being, much as the flame of a dying candle can serve to light the flame of another.
Tibetan Buddhists believe that a new-born child may be the rebirth of some important departed lama.
But I’ve never heard of the new personality to ask the government for permission PRIOR to coming into existence. What happens if the government says, “no”? Does the new-born child have to jump off a mountain?
China, Buddhist, Tibet, reincarnation
