4-year-old Seattle boy
pronounced holy leader
om mani padme hung 
January 25, 1996
Web posted at: 11:45 p.m. EST (0445 GMT)
From Correspondent Rusty Dornin
SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) -- Nawang Kunga Tegchen Chakyl Nyima may be
only 4 years old, but he is already a legend. He is on his way to a
Nepal monastery this week, where he will be treated as a holy leader
because Buddhists say that the Seattle boy is the reincarnation of a
dearly beloved lama.
Before Lama Deschung Rinpochet died in 1987 he told his followers that he would be reincarnated in Seattle. Deschung Rinpochet was one of the highest lamas of Tibetan Buddhism's Sakya tradition and was forced into exile in 1959 by the Chinese. The lama eventually came to the United States, where he helped a higher lama establish a monastery in northern Seattle.
The boy's mother, Carolyn Lama, is also a Buddhist and a widowed daycare worker. Her last name, by marriage, is coincidental. She says that she had dreams that told her of Nawang's fate. "I knew for sure because the highest teachers we have; they also had dreams and signs in meditation," she says.
Buddhists believe that souls come back again and again until they reach complete enlightenment.
Lamas or teachers can choose when and where they will return.
A film called the "Little Buddha" also featured a Seattle boy who was believed to be a reincarnated as a lama, but Buddhists and the film's producers say that there is no connection.
Carolyn Lama took her son two years ago to a Nepalese monastery, where he was recognized by the thousands of Buddhist monks.
"We gave a dedication and we put him on a high throne and many people came to receive blessings from the child. He ordained most of the monks in this last life, so they're very happy he's back to assume his role," says Lama Kunga Rinpochet.
Nawang, who will reside at the monastery for a decade or more, will study to be a spiritual teacher of his faith. Part of those studies will include learning ancient Tibetan scriptures and mediation, as well as playtime.
Playtime will be set aside for His Holiness at the monastery, his instructors say. "There are a lot of children at his age in the monastery so they will be carefully arranged around him," Lama Rinpochet says.
His mother will spend two months in Nepal and is free to return to visit. For Carolyn Lama, her son's destiny is larger than life. "To teach all beings so that he can benefit all beings by becoming a teacher," she says, is why she can so willingly surrender him to monks in the faraway land of Nepal.
| Magic Mike adds:
|
I met
Dezhung Rinpoche in 1980. I had
been studying at
the Seattle center with H.H. Dagchen Rinpoche for a year, and Dezhung
Rinpoche returned to Seattle from the center he started in Harlem. I
had his bags
from the airport and I was in his living room with Dagchen Rinpoche,
Donthok
Rinpoche, and Nyima Rinpoche. When he was told I did magic he wanted to
see.
When I did a wonderful sleight of hand suite of moves with my Wizard
Wands,
he said in Tibetan, "Tell him whenever I am with him, he should do
magic."
I studied with him five years and then he left to rebuild the 
Sonam was born
in the Seattle Monastery and lived
there during the filming of "The Little Buddha". When little Sonam
"Kunga"
was recognized as Dezhung's reincarnation, and his father was killed in
a
bus accident, I was one of his babysitters. I always did magic and made
him
balloon animals. We always went to the park and fed birds, got a Happy
Meal,
and played a space video game at my place. I miss him since he went
back
to Nepal. He is again The Abbot of the Tharlam Monastery in
Khatmandhu." Back to -
Looking For Magic In America
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Echoes
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The
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Visions (Nang Sum of Ngorchen Konchog Lhundrub) - by Deshung
Rinpoche, Sonam's previous incarnation (Most Highly Recommended-Magic
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