Mindful Re-birth: Return of a Tulku
Unmistaken Child is the documentary of the search for and identification of the Tulku of an eminent Lama. This documentary follows the entire process and it took twenty years to make! Beginning with the Dalai Lama's assignment of a former student monk of the dead Rinpoche, we witness the meticulous search across Tibet for the elusive child who carries within his consciousness an awareness of his former life as a Lama and great teacher of Buddhism. Some Western viewers of the film were shocked at the separation of the little Tulku from his birth family to be educated in a monastery. In Tibetan Buddhism however, the families of a Tulku are seen as having accepted this difficult Karmic challenge prior to their current incarnations. It is an enormous honour and daunting responsibility to bear such a child and the parent's realisation of the child's identity means that the family are being offered the opportunity to hasten their own liberation by accepting the painful reality of separation. No family likes to see a child leave home at any age but for one so young it is particularly wrenching. The parents can say No, but once the child remembers who he was previously, he realises that his life belongs not only to him but to his people as well and ultimately it is the child who decides if this is the path he will follow. No one ever claimed Buddhism was easy...
The film mentioned in this post are available for purchase or rental HERE.
© Delia O'Riordan 2012
