China Opens 1st Center to Train Living Buddhas
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BEIJING — China has opened its first Tibetan Buddhism Institute to train “living Buddhas” in religion, politics and monastery management, the New China News Agency reported Wednesday.
The institute, in northeast Beijing, has already enrolled 42 living Buddhas from Tibet and Inner Mongolia for its first one-year course, the agency said.
“The founding of the institute is a milestone in the history of Chinese Buddhism and marks the historical reform of Tibetan Buddhism by organizing living Buddhas to study religion, politics and other related subjects,” the news agency quoted the Panchen Lama as saying.
The Panchen Lama, who ranks as the holiest man in the Tibetan spiritual hierarchy after the Dalai Lama, has said that he is a living Buddha.
Living Buddhas are believed to be a reincarnation of a Buddhist deity. An exacting series of tests and divinations determine the proper youth, who is then carefully trained.
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