Directing Rebirth: The Tibetan Tulku System

This evening I was asked to speak about how to direct our rebirths. This is not in the sense of being able to direct it so that we can be reborn in a nice comfortable villa by the sea and be wealthy and have lots of servants, but rather it’s in the context of the system that we find in Tibetan Buddhism of reincarnate lamas. These are called tulkus (sprul-sku) in Tibetan; and they’re known by the title Rinpoche (rin-po-che). Not all rinpoches, however, are reincarnated lamas who have directed their rebirth, because abbots of monasteries also get the title Rinpoche.

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