Red China bans Buddhist monks from reincarnating without permission

[2muchcoffeeman]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-08-29-voa5.cfm

On a related note, all dead Chinese government officials will from now one be eternally reincarnated as earthworms. Karma, donchaknow?

By Matthew Philips
Newsweek

Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - 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."

Newthink? Or doublespeak?

But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.

 

[Ace]

I hope a monk comes back as a big turd on the desk of the head of the state administration for religious affairs.

 

[markvid]

I thought it was an Onion headline.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

I thought it was an Onion headline.

That was my first thought as well when I saw it on Slashdot --- that some naive Slashdotter had been taken in by The Onion and was about to get hammered in replies. I was wrong.

Real life --- stranger than The Onion.