Video NEPAL: 4 YR OLD AMERICAN BOY INSTALLED AS HEAD OF TIBETAN MONASTERY

English/Nat


A four year old boy from Seattle, U-S-A, has been installed as the head of a Tibetan monastery in a ceremony in Nepal.


The Buddhist monks believe he is the reincarnation of the previous lama who ran the monastery.


The son of a Tibetan, Sonam Wangdu, or Trulku-la, arrived in Kathmandu with his mother before going to the monastery for an induction ceremony attended by 41 monks.


The long flight from Seattle to Kathmandu appeared to have done nothing to dull four- year-old Sonam Wangdu's excitement about arriving in the Nepalese capital.


Sonam got a ride on the luggage trolley, pushed by his American mother, Carolyn Massey-Lama.


As soon as he stepped onto Nepali soil he was offered silk prayer cloths by monks from the Tharlam monastery -- the Buddhist monastery that is soon to become his new home.


Now he's in Nepal, Sonam will be known as Trulku-la which means reincarnation.


They believe this boy, the son of a Tibetan restaurateur in Seattle, is the reincarnation of Deshung Rinpoche III, the high lama who was head of their monastery before his death in 1987.


This is Trulku-la's third visit since he was identified as the lama's reincarnation.


This time he looks here to stay -- but before he can begin classes at the monastery, he has to learn the language first.


SOUNDBITE:

Very glad to be back.

Question: What are your plans?

Answer: Well we're just going to take it a day at a time but my son needs to start learning Tibet and start his training.

SUPER CAPTION: Carolyn Massey-Lama, Mother of Trulku-la


Carolyn Massey-Lama, who has been a Buddhist for six years, was told by lamas in Seattle even before the boy was born, that he was going to be the reincarnation of Rinpoche III.


Deshung Rinpoche III had moved to Seattle in 1960 because of the Chinese Communists annexation of Tibet a decade earlier.


He founded a Sakya monastery in Seattle and re-established Tharlam monastery in Nepal in the 1980s after the original monastery in east Tibet was destroyed by the Chinese in 1959.


Of the hundreds of lamas who are said to be reincarnations in the Tibetan Buddhist faith, only a handful have come from the West.


But Trulku-la was not over awed by his special status, and chatted with reporters before the ceremony about the sorts of things that any four-year-old American boy would be interested in.


SOUNDBITE:


Mother: What else is in your house back home?

Trulku-la : Guns...

Mother: I don't think so. What else? Books? I'm not going to see you for a long time.

Trulku-la : He could be a long neck tyrannosaurus....

Mother: You think so...

SUPER CAPTION: Carolyn Massey-Lama, Mother of Trulku-la and Trulku-la, Deshung Rinpoche IV


At the ceremony in which he was installed as the head of the monastery, he was offered the khaka -- silk prayer cloths -- by the 41 monks, who revere him as Deshung Rinpoche the Fourth.


But the pressures of the job already seemed to be getting to him.


UPSOT:

Too many monks.

SUPERCAPTION: Trulku-la, Deshung Rinpoche IV


As a symbol of blessing he returned the prayer cloths back to the monks but the two hour ceremony began to tell on the four-year-old.


UPSOT:

Stupid monks.

SUPERCAPTION: Trulku-la, Deshung Rinpoche IV


Although Tibetan Buddhism doesn't have a set hierarchy, Trulku-la will now be ranked somewhere below both the Dalai Lama who is the supreme leader for more than ten million (m) followers and the Sakyan sect leader.


Apart from Sakya, there are three other sects -- ningma, kargyu and geluk in Tibet, but the Sakyas were the most famous among them.


They ruled Tibet for around ten centuries and are still very powerful in central Tibet.





SOUNDBITE:

Question: How do you feel:










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