Dalai Lama to meet senior Buddhist monks before likely reincarnation statement

Sign up now: Get STs newsletters delivered to your inbox

The Dalai Lama will meet 11 senior Buddhist monks on July 2 morning before delivering a written statement likely on his successor.

PHOTO: AFP

DHARAMSHALA, India - The Dalai Lama will meet 11 senior Buddhist monks on July 2 morning before delivering a written statement that will most probably talk about his eventual succession as the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhists, an official said.

Tibetan Buddhists believe that enlightened monks are reborn to continue their spiritual legacy. The 14th Dalai Lama will turn 90 on July 6 and has long been expected to use the occasion to share possible clues on where his successor, a boy or a girl, could be found following his death.

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 has urged his followers to reject anyone chosen by Beijing.

The northern Indian town of Dharamshala, where the Dalai Lama is based with thousands of other Tibetans, has already seen the arrival of the heads of various sects of Buddhism ahead of a July 2-4 religious conference that precedes the birthday celebrations on the weekend.

All the religious heads are here and they are going to talk to His Holiness, which may relate to reincarnation issues, said Tenzin Lekshay, spokesperson for the exiled government in Dharamshala, as mists and rains cloaked the Himalayan hills.

On the first day of the