However, in a strong gesture of support for religious freedoms in Tibet, the US Senate has affirmed the right of the Tibetan people to choose the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama for themselves.The resolution, which passed on April 25, coincides and commemorates “the 59th anniversary of Tibet’s 1959 uprising as ‘Tibetan Rights Day’” on March 10. It also marks “the 10th anniversary of a series of protests in Lhasa, which spread across Tibet, and which were violently suppressed by Chinese forces.
At the center of the bill’s intent is a defense of Tibetan Buddhists’ right to choose tulkus, the reincarnations of spiritual leaders, whose selection process is supposed to proceed on religious, not political, lines. The bill states that the Senate “expresses its sense that the identification and installation of Tibetan Buddhist religious leaders, including a future 15th Dalai Lama, is a matter that should be determined solely within the Tibetan Buddhist faith community, in accordance with the inalienable right to religious freedom.”