Other envoys sent to Lhasa

In order to obtain further details I sent yet another person to Tibet. He came back with virtually the same information. During this time I continued my investigations concerning this child.

I sent a third person to Lhasa to seek out the family. The father, a well-known Lama, was frequently asked to assist people with advice in various matters, as he is regarded as a spiritual master. Many Lamas live in the same area of Lhasa in which the family lived. All of them keep their homes open to people. Anyone can just drop in to ask for advice or a blessing. It's not like here where you have to make an appointment. I instructed the person I sent to Lhasa to contact the family casually on the pretext that he was seeking advice. He was to visit the family frequently on this pretext with a view to observing the young child.

When he arrived in the Bakhor district, he circumambulated the temples there. Then he went to the house of the family where, he told me, he met a young child with a very fair complexion, who immediately said: "You've come to look for me." The person in question didn't reply but asked to see the father. The young child led him into the house where he asked for guidance in some business matter.

This person stayed in Lhasa only for a short time. He then returned with information very similar to that which I had previously received. That the young child told this person he knew he had come to look for him indicates that he isn't an ordinary child. Only reincarnates of high spiritual capacity have this kind of ability:
a heightened perception on the basis of which they are able to know about, for example, a person's purpose. The fact that the young child exhibited this quality is an event frequently encountered in the historical records of previous reincarnations. It's an exceptional quality that someone of high spiritual capacity possesses.

Retreat

To be able to arrive at a decision about who the young child was, I decided to do a meditation retreat, to obtain indications through meditation.

This is a method traditionally used by Lamas to verify their choice of a reincarnation. To ascertain the whereabouts of a reincarnation, it is not enough simply to think up some sort of a mission and then just forge ahead. This was thus the appropriate method because the late Karmapa - for reasons unknown to us - had not left instructions behind that could be revealed at the time. The only way reliable indications can be obtained in such circumstances is through meditation, and it was my concern that the authentic reincarnation be found.

In the early morning of the seventh day of the retreat, the late Karmapa appeared to me in a dream. He was sitting on a seat performing a ritual carried out on behalf of deceased persons, to free them from the suffering of the world. This practice is also performed for the gravely ill. In the dream His Holiness told me "I've liberated those I set out to liberate. Now I can come to wherever you want me to be".

The next day I spent praying to my Yidam (a manifestation of the enlightened state). I had now become almost certain that the young child in Lhasa was the authentic reincarnation because of the information and the indications that I had obtained. But I also wanted to obtain evidence that he would serve the Buddha-Dharma to an extent consonant with this status.

The Dream

In answer to my prayers for indications I had another dream on the following day.

I dreamt that a golden Buddha statue of enormous proportions appeared. In front of the statue were rows of offering bowls filled with scented water. In the dream I was in the process of consecrating the statue. As most of you probably know, it is customary during such ceremonies for the Lama to throw grains of rice towards the object that is to be consecrated. The rice grains that I scattered in the dream multiplied and turned into a rain falling on the Buddha statue. Behind the statue there were innumerable other Buddha statues. In their midst there was a very large butter lamp filled to the brim. In the centre of the butter lamp, where the flame should have been, there was a luminous ball from which light radiated. Of course, since this was just a dream nobody can possibly confirm it. However, I felt strongly it was an indication that the young child in Lhasa was the authentic reincarnation. I became very excited and decided to go to Lhasa, travelling incognito.

I had planned to appear as an ordinary businessman, to do the rounds in the vicinity of the temple in the Bakhor district as is customary, and then to enter the family's house on the pretext of requesting advice but actually in order to observe the young child.

Shamar Rinpoche in Lhasa >>>