A conflicted lama’s Canadian connection

Twenty-three years ago, a young Spanish toddler, born Osel Hita Torres, was recognized by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnated lama. The announcement made headlines around the world. Osel was identified as a Buddhist “golden child,” and was renamed Tenzin Ösel Rinpoche. His destiny was to lead the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayna Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan education organization, and to teach Buddhist principles to the west.

But destiny apparently had other plans. Late last month, following two interviews with Spanish media outlets, the world found out that the lama had rejected his new name. Moreover, if not quite denouncing the Buddhist order (an accusation he has since denied), he was quoted as distancing himself from his divine calling and the FPMT. As the world press seized the story, scores of sensational details emerged: That as a child, at times the only non-monk he was allowed to see was Richard Gere. That he was only allowed to watch the movie The Golden Child. That recently, he had shown up at the new-age music and art festival Burning Man.

To read our Q&A exclusive interview with Osel, click here.

To Buddhists around the world, he is a spiritual figurehead. To the media, he is an irresistible curiosity, an anointed religious leader who has possibly rejected his path. But to those who attended St. Michaels University School (SMUS), a private school in Victoria, he was simply Osel, the foreign transfer student who asked strange questions and said strange things. He may have been one of the most important religious figures in the world, but I heard the news, my first thought was: “That guy? The kid in my creative writing class who didn’t know what a Popsicle was?” Of course, if I had read some of his poetry, published in the annual Creative Writing 12 anthology, I might have had an inkling:

I convince myself existence is a course,
like the ones rivers take, downstream
with one way and no other
[excerpt from "Darkness", written by Osel Hita Torres in 2004]

Osel’s time in Canada happened very much by chance. From an early age, he traveled to monasteries and Buddhist centres around the world, in an effort to reacquaint himself with his reincarnated teacher. By the age of seven, Osel had settled at Sera monastery in India, where he was taught by monks, in relative seclusion, for a decade.

But by 2002, he needed a change. “I had to come out, I had to see what’s going on. I couldn’t know from the TV, or what people said, or from books, I had to experience it first-hand,” he told Maclean’s in an exclusive telephone interview. “I had the philosophy down, but I really didn’t know much about the outside world.”

After a period of time back home in Spain, he was placed under the guidance of Peter Kedge, a board member of the FPMT who had overseen his education. Kedge happened to live in Sooke, a small oceanside town on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and it was there that Kedge went about trying to find a school that would take Osel.