His Famous Belly Laugh - Oct 3 2025

 

His Famous Belly Laugh

Oct 3 2025



What’s the point of reincarnation

if the past is wiped clean?

But sometimes, I wonder.

The hints that come to me in dreams;

brief glimpses 

and gossamer wisps

I feel contain some key,

but slip away

just as I awaken.

The childhood memories that, if I remember correctly

were too precocious for a child.

How we emerge pre-made.

As if our DNA 

wasn’t a blank slate or immaculate page,

but had already been written 

in indelible ink;

unique human beings

containing multitudes

from the moment of birth.

And how, when hypnotized 

one can regress to past lives

that have the ring of truth.

Or are these memories

just imagined or suggested,

confected

from this and that?

The marvellous human mind

creating its own reality.

But the Dalai Lama seems so sure of his succession,

that he will return

in the fullness of time

and the body of his choice;

a precocious child, as has happened before,

or even a woman

which isn't beyond

this impish elder.

Although I have my doubts.

After all, are some born old,

while so many more

of the 8 billion and counting

must be conceived de novo --

pure souls

unburdened by baggage,

first lives

without a past?

And which am I?

Are those dreams of mine true

or mere noise?

What will I bequeath

to my successor?

Or will I, as I believe, die and be done with it;

deceased

extinguished

defunct?

One precious life

with whatever circumstance of birth;

with, like any other

its ups and downs

loss and loves

measure of luck?

We will remember the Dalai Lama,

believers will venerate him.

But he will only persist, like the rest of us

in what he gives to posterity —

his works and progeny,

the people he touched,

the wisdom he leaves behind.

His famous belly laugh

and the twinkle in his eyes

that will never die

for as long as memory serves.

Perhaps "believers" (believers will venerate him) is the wrong word. If Buddhism is more philosophy than religion, would "followers", "adherents", or "acolytes" be better? 

Reincarnation is a belief; that is, more taken on faith than strictly provable. But the Dalai Lama is more admired than divine, and there is no supernatural equivalent to the Judaeo-Christian God. Also, people follow the teachings and rituals (or pick and choose!) without committing to orthodoxy, and without being part of a community or congregation. 

The Dalai Lama's succession has become politicized. China insists on designating him (or her), as part of its suppression of Tibetan nationalism and denigration of Tibetan culture. Naturally, the Dalai Lama insists that the usual vetting of his reincarnated self will be done according  to tradition, and from within the exiled leadership of the faith.