Educating Tenzin

One of the more compelling questions about His Holiness is this: Just how is a Dalai Lama -- the one who is revered by all Tibetan Buddhists -- chosen?

The short answer is: his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama. But the story is much more complex.

The Dalai Lama is believed to be the reincarnation of those who have been exempted from the circle of life and death.

When the 13th Dalai Lama died at the age of 57 in 1933, a search party was organized by the Tibetan government to find the new incarnation of the Dalai Lama.

As the 13th Dalai Lama was lying in state, his head was discovered to have turned from facing south to northeast. Shortly after that, the regent -- himself a senior lama -- had a vision of a three-story monastery with a turquoise and gold roof with a path running up a hill, along with a small house with strangely shaped gutters.

As a result, the search party was sent to the northeastern province. As they searched the neighboring villages, they saw gnarled branches of juniper on the roof of a house and they were certain the new Dalai Lama would not be far away.

Approaching the house of the parents of the 14th Dalai Lama, the group asked to stay the night but did not reveal their purpose. The leader of the party then pretended to be a servant and spent much of the evening observing and playing with the youngest child in the house. The child seemingly recognized the servant as a lama, and the next day the search party left, only to return a few days later.

This time they brought a number of articles belonging to the 13th Dalai Lama, along with several items that did not. In every case, the toddler correctly identified those items that belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama, saying: "It's mine. It's mine." This convinced the search party that they had found the new incarnation, and it was not long before the boy from Takster was acknowledged as the Dalai Lama.

Eventually, the boy -- along with his parents and a large group consisting of the search party and other pilgrims -- ventured to Lhasa to begin to receive his primary education. In accordance with tradition, His Holiness forfeited his given name -- Lhamo Thondup -- and assumed his new name, Tenzin Gyatso.

The curriculum was the same as that of all monks pursuing a doctorate in Buddhist studies -- logic, Tibetan art and culture, Sanskrit, medicine and Buddhist philosophy. The final and most difficult focus (and hence, most important) includes five categories: the perfection of wisdom; the philosophy of the Middle Way; the canon of monastic discipline; metaphysics; and logic.

Tenzin Gyatso completed his doctorate when he was 25 years old.

During the final examinations, he was queried by 30 scholars on logic, and debated 15 scholars on the subject of the Middle Path. Finally, 35 scholars tested his knowledge of the canon of monastic discipline and the study of metaphysics. Conducted before an audience of monk scholars, His Holiness passed the examinations with honors.