http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/13/wo...l?pagewanted=1
July 13, 1995
Spanish Woman Battles Buddhists for Her Son, the Lama
BUBION, Spain— In the brilliant sunshine and crisp air of the Alpujarra mountains in southern Spain, Maria Torres gazed over the terraced rooftops of stone houses stacked on the steep slope, the home of a small Buddhist community.
Miss Torres, 41, a travel agent who converted to Buddhism 20 years ago, said she was worrying about her son Osel, who is 10. She is struggling with Tibetan monks, who believe the boy is a reincarnated lama, to gain more control over his upbringing.
"I don't care how much of a lama he is, he still needs his mother," she said. "The monks are spoiling him rotten and he is turning into a little tyrant rather than a little Buddha."
Osel is the fifth of Miss Torres's eight children. When he was 14 months old, the Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibet, proclaimed Osel the reincarnation of Thubten Yeshe, who died in California in 1984.
After Miss Torres and others saw what they thought were mystical signs, Osel was brought before a panel of masters for testing. He passed all the crucial tests, including identifying dozens of objects that had belonged to Lama Yeshe.
"I found myself swept up on the tail of a blazing comet who was my son and my master," Miss Torres said, explaining why she had agreed to allow Osel to be taken to Nepal and India to be reared as a lama. At first his family accompanied him, but she felt that her other children were suffering and returned with them to Spain.
She is now divorced from Osel's father, also a Spaniard. He wants Osel to continue his monastic education in southern India, but she wants him to spend part of the year with her. She thinks he needs her and his brothers and sisters. The monks say that she can visit Osel, but that he is not yet prepared to face the temptations of Western life.
In recent years Buddhism has gained Western followers, but Osel is still one of only a few Western children who have been raised for the priesthood.
"I was attracted to Buddhism because of its tolerance," Miss Torres said. "But I am now learning that these monks are not tolerant. He needs to know his own country and culture and can best teach the West about Buddhism as a Westerner, not as a European-appearing Tibetan."
"Being a lama is not a good situation for a child," she said. "He was surrounded by adults who prostrated themselves before him. He had everything he wanted -- except his family."
The conflict began two years ago, when she became worried by reports from other Western Buddhists who had seen him that Osel cried at night out of loneliness. After the monks decided to shorten a home visit to Spain, Miss Torres flew to India and returned with her little lama.
Once back in Spain, he had problems playing with local children, who did not treat him like a king, she said. He did not know how to share with his brothers and sisters.
"When you're a tyrant, you don't make friends," she said, sighing, "although the monks claim the little lamas get over being brats."
But when she sent Osel to visit his father, who was living in a Buddhist community in England, he whisked the child to Nepal.
A temporary compromise was reached, with Osel's father agreeing to live with the boy in a Tibetan monastery in southern India. Miss Torres visits him for a month a year. The monks also agreed to let him have a teacher from Spain for language, history and culture.
Miss Torres contends that Lama Yeshe had urged his Spanish followers to find their own version of Buddhism. "If Lama Yeshe chose a European boy for his reincarnation, there is a message in that," she said.
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