A US boy is not going back to school - after he was declared the reincarnation of a Buddhist holy man who first died in 1250.
Boston-born Jigme Wangchuk, 11, has now moved to India where he has been made the head of a Buddhist sect in the country's eastern Darjeeling city.
His parents say they discovered their son was not like other children two years ago when he started talking about his "past life". At first, they dismissed it as a childish fantasy, but began taking it seriously during a trip to a monastery in Mysore, southern India.At one point, he went into a trance in which he described a celebrated Buddhist monastery with a 35ft dragon on the roof.
After hearing his description of the temple he had never visited, the monks proclaimed he was the reincarnation of the 'Rinpoche' or high priest Galwa Lorepa, the founder of one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism.Now he will spent the next ten years in virtual seclusion and only be able to communicate with his former school friends by email."It has been a very difficult period for us over the past two years. I have been crying for the past five months, but have, at last, come to terms with it," said his mother Dechen."When we were in New Delhi on our way to Darjeeling, I asked him whether he would like to go back to Boston. He said he has to fulfil his responsibilities to his people."But for 'His Holiness' Jigme, there's no regrets: "I will miss my school days but I am happy in my new role. I like it here," he said.
The drone of gyaling (a Tibetan musical instrument) reverberated across Darjeeling and masked dancers performed the traditional cham as 11-year-old Jigme Wangchuk from Boston was enthroned today as the reincarnation of Gyalwa Lorepa, more than 750 years after the monk of the Drukpa sect died.
For Wangchuk, a fifth grader at St Peter’s School, Boston, the recognition as the incarnate of the monk who passed away in 1250 AD, had come two years ago. From today, however, Wangchuk’s seat will be the Druk-Sa-Ngag Choeling monastery at Dali in Darjeeling. “It is after 700 years that the reincarnation has arrived,” said Karma Rinpoche, who is the boy’s uncle.
Reincarnations are identified through an elaborate procedure. In 2007, when Wangchuk was visiting the Kagyu-Nalanda monastery near Mysore he had spoken of his past life describing his vision of monasteries as they stood then, including one in Bhutan.
“He talked about the monastery (in Bhutan) being situated in a rocky area of the Himalayas with a 35-foot long dragon adorning its rooftop,” recalled Karma Rinpoche. Four hours after Wangchuk recited his vision, the 12th incarnate of Tsangpa Gyare — another Drukpa monk — sent word to the family, recognising the boy as Gyalwa Lorepa.
“It was 1972, and at the Robson family home in Hexham, only ten minutes walk away from where the legendary Wolf of Allendale had roamed the woods, the two young Robson brothers dug up two small, carved stone heads whilst they were tending the garden. Several nights after the discovery of the stone heads, neighbour Ellen Dodd and her daughter were sitting up late one evening when both of them witnessed a “half-man, half beast” entering the bedroom. The pair screamed in terror but, the creature seemed indifferent to them and simply left the room, heard to be “padding down the stairs as if on its hind legs”. Later on, the front door was found open. It has been thought that the creature had been in search of something, and had left the house to continue searching elsewhere”
“The stones, which were called the Hexham-heads, represent two different types. The first was similar to a skull and seemed to bear male traits; it was called “boy”. The stone was of a greenish grey and glittered with quartz crystals. It was very heavy, heavier than cement or concrete. The hair seemed to run in stripes from front to back. The other head, the “girl” was similar to a witch. It had wild pop-eyes and the hair was tied back to some knot. In the hair, traces of yellow and red colour could be found.
“After they have dug up the heads, the boys took them into the house. Thereby, the whole disaster commenced. The heads turned round without reason, objects broke to pieces without evident cause. When the mattress of one of the two daughters of the Robsons was dotted with broken glass, the girls moved out of the room. In the meantime, a mysterious flower bloomed at Christmas exactly on that spot, where the heads were found. Besides, a strange light was glowing there.”
Well just after that the heads were given to Dr Anne Ross, who was a Celtic expert of one type or another. She said the heads were around 2000 years old. Almost as soon as the heads arrived – Ross got a visit from the wolf too. Here’s her account according to a site called GoArticles.com:
“In her own account Anne Ross described how, one night shortly after their arrival, she woke up suddenly at 2 a.m. feeling chilled and extremely frightened. At the instant of awakening she saw a tall, jet black wolf-headed figure standing against the faint white of the open door. It then moved out into the corridor and she felt an irresistible urge to follow it. This she did, seeing and hearing the figure clearly as it made its way down the darkened staircase and along the corridor towards the kitchen. Anne Ross described the figure vividly, reporting not only its blackness and tallness but also its distinct part animal, part human appearance. As the creature neared the kitchen the spell broke and Anne Ross felt fear overwhelm her and so she rushed upstairs to awaken her husband. Together they searched the house for intruders but found no-one and nothing disturbed by any forced entry and eventually concluded that she must have suffered a particularly vivid nightmare…
Amazing CCTV footage has been released showing a dog warning its owner after seemingly sensing an imminent earthquake. The footage has become a hit on Youtube with over 600,000 hits. Some believe it demonstrates a 'sixth sense' in dogs while others are more skeptical, suggesting that the tremors would have been strong enough for a human to feel prior to the main quake.
The animal sprung into action after picking up early tremors of the 6.5 magnitude quake which shook buildings in California last weekend. The dog, Sophie, had been lolling on the floor of the newsroom of the Times-Standard newspaper in the town of Eureka on Saturday afternoon when she detected the first vibrations.
A SYDNEY couple believes their son - "hand-picked by God" - could be Australia's first male saint.
Mike Tannous died three years ago but a mysterious oil that weeps from the walls of his bedroom has been hailed by his parents, George and Lina, as having helped heal dozens of people, The Daily Telegraph reports.
The oil started to appear in the Guildford home just weeks after the 17-year-old died in a car accident in September 2006.
"Mike is a messenger between us and God. He has healed so many people," Mrs Tannous said.
Extensive scientific testing of the oil has failed to identify exactly what it is but that has not stopped hundreds praying at the home.
The Tannous' push for sainthood for their son emerged as Mary MacKillop fever swept the nation.
Sydney Archbishop Cardinal George Pell suggested yesterday crusader for convicts Caroline Chisholm and Sydney's first Archbishop John Bede Polding to be considered as "would-be saints" after Mother MacKillop's canonisation.
But Mr Tannous said the next saint would be his son, and the family was documenting his healing powers.
"Our boy is a saint. This is him talking to us, talking to other people," he said.
Last year a woman who lived near the Tannous' house was told by doctors she could not have the third child she desperately wanted.
"She came here and prayed . . . one month later she came with a box of chocolates and said 'Guess what, I am pregnant'," Mike's aunt Susan Sawan said.
Since Pope Benedict XVI confirmed Mother MacKillop's second miracle, scores of people have flocked to the Tannous' house.
A 13th-century letter from Genghis Khan’s grandson demanding homage from the pope is among a collection of documents from the Vatican’s Secret Archives that has been published for the first time.
The Holy See’s archives contain scrolls, parchments and leather-bound volumes with correspondence dating back more than 1,000 years.
High-quality reproductions of 105 documents, 19 of which have never been seen before in public, have now been published in a book. The Vatican Secret Archives features a papal letter to Hitler, an entreaty to Rome written on birch bark by a tribe of North American Indians, and a plea from Mary Queen of Scots.
The book documents the Roman Catholic Church’s often hostile dealings with the world of science and the arts, including documents from the heresy trial against Galileo and correspondence exchanged with Erasmus, Voltaire and Mozart. It also reveals the Church’s relations with princes and potentates in countries far beyond its dominion.
In a letter dated 1246 from Grand Khan Guyuk to Pope Innocent IV, Genghis Khan’s grandson demands that the pontiff travel to central Asia in person – with all of his “kings” in tow – to “pay service and homage to us” as an act of “submission”, threatening that otherwise “you shall be our enemy”.
Another formal letter in the archive highlights the papacy’s political role. In 1863 Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States, wrote to Pope Pius IX claiming that the civil war raging across America was entirely due to “Northern aggression”.
“We desire no evil to our enemies, nor do we covet any of their possessions; but are only struggling to the end that they shall cease to devastate our land and inflict useless and cruel slaughter upon our people.”
Other letters in the archive are more personal. In a 1550 note, Michelangelo demands payment from the papacy which was three months late, and complains that a papal conclave had interrupted his work on the dome of St Peter’s Basilica.
