Speaking of the New York Times, yesterday they ran a review of a movie I'd like to see (maybe we can screen it some evening during Movie Night at the Zendo).

“Unmistaken Child” documents the four-year search by a gentle, baby-faced, 28-year-old Nepalese monk, Tenzig Zopa, for the reincarnation of his Tibetan master, Geshe Lama Konchog, who died in 2001. The young monk’s journey, on foot, by mule and by helicopter, began at the request of the Dalai Lama, and took him through some of the world’s most spectacular high country as he traveled from village to village, seeking a very young child, 1 to 1 ½, who shows signs of being his reincarnated teacher.

According to film critic Stephen Holden, the beauty of the landscape and the monk’s sweetness, humility and good humor evoke a plane of existence, at once elevated and austere, that is humbling to contemplate.

Which is the reason I want to see it. I have difficulty accepting the idea of reincarnation as transmigrating souls and feel that such a view is a misunderstanding of the buddha-dharma. If there is, in fact, no ego-self and we're all one, what is it that can "come back" as another? If the universe is complete and nothing can be added or taken away, where does one go and from where does one come back? But I want to see this movie, not to smugly assert my own views and biases, but to bear witness to a humble and gentle practioner, so that I can let go of my own prejudices and admire forms of practice that I do not now understand.

That said, “Unmistaken Child” apparently leaves fundamental questions unanswered. Holden asks why, for instance, is the search for the child so limited in scope and not worldwide?

Buddhism itself is formless and takes the shape of whatever culture into which it is poured. Tibetan Buddhism is as steeped in Tibetan culture as Zen is in Japanese. By "Tibetan Buddhism," I refer to the dharma and institutions as practiced in Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India. I understand it is also practiced in Mongolia and parts of Eastern Russia and Northeast China. I do not mean to imply that it is something separate or different from Zen or any other form of Buddhism.

In the wake of the 1959 Tibetan uprising, a Tibetan diaspora has made Tibetan Buddhism more widely accessible to the rest of the world. Tibetan Buddhism has since spread to many Western countries, where the tradition has gained popularity. Tibetan Buddhism, however, incorporates elements of divination and astrology native to Tibetan culture. The direction of the smoke from the pyre at Lama Konchog’s cremation and the sand patterns below it indicate to Tenzin Zopa where he is to search. A Taiwanese astrologer predicts that the child’s father’s name probably begins with the letter A, and that the most likely birthplace has a name beginning with TS. So everywhere the monk goes, he inquires about the existence of special children who might be the appropriate age.

But Holden complains that the film finally doesn’t convey the time and labor spent by the monk. And when the child who may be the reincarnation is located in the Tsum Valley of Nepal, he is obviously older than 1 ½ and can speak well enough to be understood. Once found, he is tested by monks, who ask him to pick out Lama Konchog’s prayer beads, and his hand drum from a selection. To their relief, he chooses correctly. This is not magic, and may very simply be the child's response to the subliminal hints the monks are unconsciously providing.

The film’s most emotional scene features the boy’s head being shaved as he weeps and protests. To me, this is but one example of the many tragedies inherent in a theocratic system like Tibet's. The boy's identity is essentially taken away from him, and his parents must formally agree to give up their child. He is taken to Lama Konchog’s mountain retreat, which has fallen into a state of disrepair. Later, he is dressed in red and golden robes and a headdress, and transported in royal style to the monastery, where he will be trained and where he bids farewell to his parents.

However, as much as it is about the quest for a miraculous being, “Unmistaken Child” is about Mr. Zopa’s painful adjustment to the loss of a master he had served since the age of 7. His search is a crucial initiation ritual that restores meaning and purpose to a life that is suddenly desolate. His tender, playful interactions with the boy reveal him as someone of enormous sensitivity, gentleness and spiritual grace.

“Unmistaken Child” inevitably leads one to consider the material world and to contemplate the balance in one's own life between physical gratification and spirituality. To Holden, the rugged landscape, in which mist filters through craggy cliffs and wild flowers seem to dance in the mountain meadows, suggests that religion and geography are profoundly intertwined. How we perceive the universe, time, death and rebirth has much to do with altitude and latitude.