This is an interesting article that I had read.
TODAYonline.com
Chosen one turns back on Buddhist order
Tuesday • June 2, 2009
AS A toddler, he was put on a throne and worshipped by monks who treated him like a god.
But the boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader has caused consternation — and some embarrassment — for Tibetan Buddhists by turning his back on the order that had such high hopes for him.
Instead of leading a monastic life, Osel Hita Torres now sports baggy trousers and long hair, and is more likely to quote Jimi Hendrix than Buddha.
On Saturday, he bemoaned the misery of a youth deprived of television, football and girls. He is now studying film in Madrid and has denounced the Buddhist order that elevated him to guru status.
“They took me away from my family and stuck me in a medieval situation in which I suffered a great deal,” Torres, 24, told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
But despite his rebelliousness, he is still known as Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche and revered by the Buddhist community.
A prayer for his “long life” still adorns the website of the Foundation to Preserve the Mahayana Tradition, which has 130 centres around the world.
When Torres was only five months old, according to the foundation biography, a leader suspected that he was the reincarnation of then recently deceased Lama Yeshe.
In 1986, then 14-month-old Torres was taken by his parents to see the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India.
The toddler was chosen out of nine other candidates and eventually “enthroned”.
At six, he was allowed to socialise only with other reincarnated souls — though for a time he said he lived next to actor Richard Gere’s cabin.
At 18, he had never seen couples kiss. His first disco experience was a shock. “I was amazed to watch everyone dance. What were all those people doing, bouncing, stuck to one another, enclosed in a box full of smoke?” THE GUARDIAN