Conference hydra::dejavu

874.0. "East meets West: Reincarnate Lama found in USA" by ISTG::DOLLIVER (Bush/Khomeini '88) Wed Sep 28 1988 12:45

 (reprinted w/out permission from The Boston Sunday Globe, September 25, 1988)

		"Maryland Woman is Crowned as a Reincarnate Lama"

 Associated Press,  POOLESVILLE, Md. -

  Catharine Burroughs, a 38-year-old mother of three, yesterday became the
 first Western adult to be crowned as a reincarnate lama and took her throne
 amid incense and Buddhist chants.

  The reincarnate lamas, teachers with an obligation to help rid the world of
 suffering, are venerated by Tibetan Buddhists because they are believed to
 return to this world voluntarily to enlighten others.

  Wib Middleton, spokesman for the Buddhist center in this Wahsington suburb,
 said Burroughs was the first adult reincarnate lama to be named in the Western
 world.

  "There is certainly an adjustment when you find out that Mom is not just Mom",
 said her husband, Michael Burroughs, director of the Buddhist center, "But
 there was no question that she always was extraordinary".

  Catharine Burroughs had been a meditation teacher in Maryland when Penor
 Rinpoche, a "living Buddha" who runs a Buddhist monastery in India visited
 her classes in 1985 and told her that her instinctive knowledge was Tibetan
 Buddhism, and that her wisdom was that of a Tibetan saint, Ahkon Lhamo, who
 who lived more than 300 years ago.

 "I was teaching Buddhism before I ever read a book on it", she said after the
 ceremony.  She said that when she heard the name Ahkon Lhamo for the first
 time, she "knew it and recognized it".

  She was born in Brooklyn to a Roman Catholic Italian father and Jewish mother.
 She attended high school and community college in Miami and moved to Maryland
 in 1982 to establish a place for meditation.

  Buddhism is an Eastern religion which originated in India and spred throughout
 Asia in various forms.

    Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism with an official structure
    and hierarchy, unlike some other forms of Buddhism.  What this
    story never makes clear is exactly who has "crowned" Ms Burroughs
    and whether or not that crowning has the saction of the Tibetan
    Buddhist heirarchy.
    
    The only people mentioned are her immediate associates plus Penor
    Rinpoche, who was only around 3 years ago.  Its not even clear that
    he is recognized by the Tibetan Buddhists.
    
    It rather sounds like a possibly self-proclaimed living Buddha (there
    are apparently a lot of them in India) visited and gave his personal
    views on Ms Burroughs.  Her center mulled this over for a while
    and decided to proclaim her a reincarnate lama.
    
    					Topher