Archive for January, 2011

Lives Lived, Lives Imagined

A new book published by Wisdom Publications entitled “Lives Lived, Lives Imagined – Biographies of Awakening” is an impressive collection of cross-traditional accounts of the lives of Buddhist practitioners, with contributions from a range of contemporary authors and scholars. In particular, it contains a fascinating account of the early years of the Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorje (1507-1554).

The section of the book in question is “Narratives of Reincarnation, Politics of Power, and the Emergence of a Scholar – The Very Early Years of Mikyö Dorje”, by Jim Rheingans. In it, Rheingans presents a vast range of biographical and historical material on the early years of the Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorje, whose recognition and enthronement were overshadowed by attempts to install a rival candidate as the new Karmapa. Rheingans makes clear how the method of establishing spiritual lineages through identifying reincarnations was (and is) embedded into the politics of the day. Biographies and autobiographies reflect this religio-political dimension, and some of the stock elements of such narratives, like the self-recognition of an incarnate young lama or the establishment of the prototypical patron-priest relationship in later years, serve to legitimize the position of the Karmapa and establish the political alliances that were necessary for maintaining a religious legacy.

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