Pope's brain gives way, dies, goes to...?

Dalai Lama on US-born spiritual leader

(WION) March 28, 2023: Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama recently recognized an 8-year-old US-born Mongolian boy as one of the highest [Vajrayana] Buddhist spiritual leaders. He was recognized as the 10th Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa Rinpoche, but his enthronement did not yet happen. #dalailama #spirituality #buddhism

The Dalai Lama is not Buddhism's "pope"

Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY

The Dalai Lama on why reincarnation is not important. If it were, why didn't the Buddha do it?

I might come back as a hot female or not at all

Buddhism does not have "popes," but one might think so. The former Empire of Tibet, which extended from Mongolia to Bangladesh and across the Himalayas, developed a patriarchal "cardinal" and "bishop" system frighteningly like the rimpoches and high lamas (plus tulkus like Jesus the vegan Nazarene) of Roman Catholicism.

(Or is that the other way around? Same difference). Chinese atheist communists put a stop to that by nearly wiping out Lhasa (the Holy See at the center of the empire) and the Potala Palace (Vatican) at the center of that.

Tibetan Buddhism loves its patriarchs

The dalai lama system goes a little further than Roman Catholicism in claiming that "His Holiness" the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso, Lhamo Thondup) is a tulku (unmistaken child), the reincarnation of the God/Goddess (Deva/Devi) of Compassion Avalokitesvara/Chenrezik (Kwan Yin), returning again and again like some kind of Virgin Mary to hear the cries of the world and pour out blessings like cooling water from a Hindu goddesses' vase to heal the suffering of devotees.

The Dalai Lama was reborn 13 times before – but not again

The selection of the next dalai lama is not an election but a search and discovery of where he has gotten to in his next rebirth, which is what a tulku is, a consciously reborn Buddhist master returning on purpose to continue his work in this world. This is unique to Vajrayana Buddhism, and only prominent in the Tibetan cultural practices of this amalgamation of Himalayan Bon shamanism (black magic) and Mahayana Buddhism ("great vehicle") tradition.

If you join, you still can't be powerful like us.

This gives the person of the Dalai Lama great power as pope and king, though China tore away his political power and left him only a spiritual leader and symbol of a nation and countless sympathetic outsiders, most of them in the US and EU with the help of the CIA, PR firms working to benefit dalailama.com (not necessarily hired by the organization), and anti-China forces.

As such, the 14th Dalai Lama's blessing carries immense power and influence, so much so that the current person in office says he may not be reborn at all next time, or that he may come back as a female, a hot one (no joke), outside of the Sinosphere, far from Asia and China's meddling.