How we could end up with two Dalai Lamas

Australia Broadcast Center

02-07-2025

The Dalai Lama will address a major three-day gathering of Buddhist religious figures this week ahead of his 90th birthday. His followers have been waiting several months for the Tibetan spiritual leader to share details about his succession — a move that could upset China.
Beijing views the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, as a separatist, and says it will choose his successor. The Dalai Lama has said his successor will be born outside China and urged his followers to reject anyone chosen by Beijing.
'What's very clear is that there will end up being two Dalai Lamas,' said Tibet expert John Powers, a Lecturer in Buddhism Studies at the University of Melbourne.
Butter lamps are offered in front of a portrait of the Dalai Lama. ( Navesh Chitrakar )
'Tibetans are going to want to have a Dalai Lama because the Dalai Lama has been a very important person for Tibetan Buddhists. The other thing is that he's also very important for the Chinese Communist Party.
'So, there'll be one chosen by Tibetan Buddhist masters in exile, and they will follow the traditional methodology [to] choose somebody according to the standards and procedures that have been worked out over the course of centuries.
'And the Chinese Communist Party will probably come up with some sort of ersatz ceremony and they will force lamas to participate and pretend that it's a legitimate exercise.''
How is the Dalai Lama chosen?
Tibetan Buddhists believe that enlightened monks are reborn to carry forward their spiritual legacy. The 14th Dalai Lama will turn 90 on Sunday, July 6, and has said he would consult senior monks and others at this time to share possible clues on where his successor could be found following his death.
'There will be some kind of a framework within which we can talk about the continuation of the institution of the Dalai Lamas," the Dalai Lama told a gathering of his followers this week, without elaborating on the framework.
Robbie Barnett, a senior research fellow on Tibetan, Chinese history and politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University in London, told ABC radio that there's been an 'esoteric' system which has worked for 500 years.
"Lamas look for divination signs ... mystical signs in lakes or in the mountains, messages from mountain deities that tell them where to go and look for a child who they then test and see if that child is the reincarnation of the consciousness of the former Dalai Lama," Professor Barnett said.
"That's a process that takes many years.'
Professor Powers also said it's an extremely rigorous process.
'It's surprising they do manage to find people who pass all the tests because it would be very difficult for somebody to just sort of randomly answer questions and pass,' he said.
The current Dalai Lama is the 14th. He was identified when he was two, nearly four years after the 13th Dalai Lama died. He managed to pass every test offered to him and identify items belonging to his predecessor, reportedly shouting: "It's mine!"
Are there any clues to who the next Dalai Lama will be?
Professor Powers said one of things that the present Dalai Lama has made very clear is that he will definitely not be reborn inside occupied Tibet.
'Because, as he says, the main work of the next incarnation of any reincarnating lama is to carry on the unfinished work of the predecessor. And he says that would be impossible in Chinese occupied Tibet,' he said.
Tibetan Buddhists believe that after death a person's consciousness transmigrates to a new body. For most people, this happens involuntarily, but advanced masters can choose their life situations, said Professor Powers.
These are referred to as "tulkus" ("emanation bodies"). Traditionally, tulkus have exercised ultimate authority over their own successions. Many lamas issue predictions regarding the circumstances of their rebirths, including place and timing.
The Panchen Lama precedent
In 1995, the Dalai Lama issued a proclamation that a Tibetan boy named Gendün Chökyi Nyima was the Panchen Lama, the second-most prominent reincarnate lama in his order, the Geluk. China responded by arresting the boy, then six years old, along with his family. They have not been seen since.
Gyaltsen Norbu, the Chinese government-appointed 11th Panchen Lama, presents a hada to Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing on Friday, June 6, 2025. ( Xinhua via AP: Xie Huanchi )
Beijing found its own Panchen Lama, who is dismissed as an imposter by many Tibetans at home and in exile, according to Professor Powers.
'But he is often quoted in China's state-run media toeing the Communist Party's line and praising its policies in Tibet.''
How Beijing has boxed itself in
The Chinese Communist Party official law says that if a Dalai Lama (or other Buddhist leaders) are not recognised by the Communist Party, then they're not true reincarnations, said Professor Powers.
'They've basically boxed themselves into a cognitive and conceptual corner.
'The thing that's important here is that the Chinese Communist Party is materialist. They don't believe there's such a thing as reincarnation.
'And so they can't claim that the person that is chosen is the reincarnation of Tenzin Gyatso, the present Dalai Lama, because they don't believe that's even possible.
'From the point of view of the Chinese Communist Party, naming somebody Dalai Lama is a prerogative that the government has because it's the government.
"It has no more significance in a religious sense than calling somebody a postmaster.
'They don't believe that this person actually is a reincarnated consciousness of the predecessor. And from the point of view of Tibetan Buddhists, that's the only reason why the Dalai Lama is important, not because of that title.''
Professor Barnett said China is demanding complete control of the process. "Apparently, because they want to have a Dalai Lama in the future who will tell Tibetans that they should be loyal to China and should accept Chinese rule.
'So this is all a political power play, but it's very high stakes.'