'Living Buddha' flees Tibet

(Hong Kong Stardand, 7 January 2000)

By Pamela Pun and Wu Zhong

STORY: THE current spiritual leader of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism - the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, 16-year-old Ugyen Trinley Dorje - has fled Tibet. He arrived in Dharamsala, India, on Wednesday, the Dalai Lama's exiled government and officials from overseas Tibetan community said last night.

Officials contacted by the Hong Kong Standard confirmed the worshipped boy or living Buddha's arrival and his meetings with the Dalai Lama.

Because of his leadership of the Kagyu lineage, the Karmapa in Tolung Tsurphu Monastery is considered to be the third most important spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

``His Holiness Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorje, has arrived safely in Dharamasala, India on 5 January . . . He is currently with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamasal,'' the government in exile said in an Internet statement.

The 17th Karmapa left Tolung Tsurphu Monastery with a handful of attendants and his flight from Tibet took seven days on foot, the statement said.

``He is now in India,'' Tseten Samdup, spokesman of Tibetan Office in London, said but would give no further comment.

Richard Oppenheimer, spokesman of the London-based Tibet Information Network, also confirmed the flight of Dorje. ``I just talking to our person in Dharamsala, there is no doubt he (Dorje) is there. He arrived yesterday morning and he has met the Dalai Lama.

``I think this is clearly a setback to efforts by Beijing to establish a rival authority to Dalai Lama in Tibet. It is very extraordinary that he managed to get out when he was being guarded very carefully with very tight security.''

Mr Oppenheimer added: ``Although he was officially recognised both by the Dalai Lama and by Beijing as the reincarnation of the Karmapa, there are some questions and suggestions that he was being manipulated by Beijing as a means of driving a wedge between his sect and the Dalai Lama's sect.

``Whatever the Chinese government may have said in the past about the 15-year-old reincarnation, it does look like that he continues to be more a Tibetan than the patriot Beijing would like him to be.''

Ugyen Trinley Dorje, born to nomadic parents in the Lhathok region of Tibet, was recognised in 1992 by Beijing and the Dalai Lama as the incarnation of the 16th Karmapa.

The then seven-year-old, was enthroned as the 17th Karmapa at Tsurphu monastery on 27 September, 1992.

This was the first time the government allowed the recognition of any reincarnate lama.

The Karmapa's leadership role of the Kagyu tradition has been generally acknowledged since the 12th century and was most recently recognised in 1954, when the 16th Karmapa, representing all sects of the Kagyu lineage, joined the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama in an official visit to Beijing as Tibetan spiritual leaders.

The 16th Karmapa fled Tibet in 1959 before the People's Liberation Army troops moved into the Himalaya region.