Tibetan Buddhism is enjoying growing popularity in the West and in Southeast Asia. But as the religious empire grows, followers are asking more difficult questions of the dharma as well as demanding greater transparency of the administration.
On 27 September 1992, eight-year-old Ugen Thinley was enthroned at Tsurphu monastery, near Lhasa, as the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, an incarnation second only to the Dalai Lama in his importance to Mahayana Buddhists. The ceremony should have occasioned universal joy among followers of the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism, who have waited more than a decade for the reincarnation of the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa to be found. But doubts about the authenticity of this "reincarnation" have struck at the very roots of the Karma Kagyu lineage and have split the faithful into two camps.
The first believes that Thinley is the rightful occupant of the Karmapa's throne, and are accused of being seduced by political manipulators in league with China; the second believes he is the wrong boy and so are discounted as troublemakers. The silent majority of followers see both camps as forsaking the dharma (the spiritual path) for samsara (the cycle of rebirth caused by attachment to worldly affairs).
At stake is the purity of the Buddhist teachings, handed down by the first Gyalwa Karmapa, Dusum Khyenpa, to followers in an unbroken line since he founded the Karma Kagyu school in the early 12th century. But even the unworldly cannot turn a blind eye to the fate of the priceless and fabulous treasures that have accumulated over nearly nine centuries at the core of what is today a religious empire that governs some 500 centres worldwide.