10-Year-Old New Zealand Boy Recognized as Reincarnated Lama

December 11, 2003

Source: The Mercury

http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,8124750%255E401,00.html

On December 11, 2003 The Mercury reported, "Venerable Pong Re Sung Rap Tulku Rinpoche is not your typical 10-year-old. The New Zealand-born 'Kiwi Buddha' was named by the Dalai Lama three years ago as the reincarnation of a revered Tibetan monk. From primary school in the small North Island town of Kaukapakapa - where his biggest concerns were playing with his Pokemon and GameBoy - he moved to a Tibetan monastery in India in 2000. There the boy was enthroned as the incarnation of Eastern Pong Re Tulku Rinpoche, a high lama who died in the 1950s. Rinpoche, as the boy is known, was discovered in 1999 when a high lama of the Karma Kagyu branch of Tibetan Buddhism, searching the world for the dead lama's reincarnation, heard of the auspicious signs surrounding the birth of a boy in New Zealand in 1993...Reincarnated lamas are often found outside Tibet, but Rinpoche was the first in the southern hemisphere. His family, brothers and sisters still live in Kaukapakapa."