The Dance of 17 Lives by Mick Brown

Author:Mick Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9781408819487
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2010-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

The Fox Cries

Throughout the weeks of May and early June, with the Shamarpa in America and the search party already on their way to Lhatok, events at Rumtek had gathered an irresistible momentum. On 17 May, Tai Situ and Gyaltsab gave a talk to the monastic community, stating that since they had been unable to meet Shamar Rinpoche to discuss the matter of the search with him, they had decided to act alone in fulfilling the plan that had been laid in March. Akong and Sherab Tharchin had left Rumtek a week earlier. Tai Situ and Gyaltsab waited. On 3 June, the two Rinpoches left Rumtek for Dharamsala, carrying with them a copy of the prediction letter. Word had now come from Tibet about the discovery of the boy from Lhatok. It was necessary to inform the Dalai Lama of developments.

The Dalai Lama was shortly to leave for Brazil, where he was scheduled to attend the first Earth Summit. On 5 June, Tai Situ and Gyaltsab arrived in Delhi. From there, Tai Situ telephoned Tibet. There was no phone at Tsurphu. A contact in Lhasa was obliged to go back and forth to the monastery to carry messages. Over the telephone, the contact recounted the findings of the search party, how the names of the mother and father matched the letter, and the auspicious signs that were said to have surrounded the young boy’s birth. The welcoming party were with the Karmapa now, Tai Situ was told, ready to bring him back to Tsurphu. ‘We told them, please don’t do anything more,’ said Tai Situ. ‘We will go to the Dalai Lama and talk to him, and if His Holiness approves then we will do the right thing; and if he doesn’t approve, we must look elsewhere. This is what we told them.’ From Delhi, Tai Situ and Gyaltsab drove north to Dharamsala to see the Dalai Lama. But they had miscalculated: the spiritual leader had left for Brazil three days earlier. Tai Situ contacted the Dalai Lama in Brazil by phone from his private office. The prediction letter and a report on the candidate and his family were sent by fax. Later that same day the Dalai Lama called back Tai Situ to tell him that after studying the documents, and bearing in mind his own divinations, he approved the recognition of the boy from Lhatok as the 17th Karmapa.

The next morning Tai Situ and Gyaltsab left Dharamsala with a letter confirming the Dalai Lama’s recognition, signed by his private secretary Tendzin Chonyi Tara. This, it would later be explained, was merely a ‘holding document’, to serve as proof of the recognition until the Dalai Lama returned from Brazil and issued the formal Seal of Approval, the Buktham Rinpoche. The letter summarized the details of the Karmapa’s birth and discovery, before going on to state: ‘The Tulkus, lamas and sangha residing both inside and outside Tibet, from Gangtok’s Rumtek’s place of Dharma, Tsurphu monastery and from all the

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