A year after his selection [as regent], Reting Rinpoche undertook the most important part of his job: the search for the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. He went to Lake Lhamo Latso, the vision lake, and gazed into its depths during meditation. Five hundred years earlier, the guardian spirit of the lake, Palden Lhamo, had promised the first Dalai Lama, in one of his visions, that she would protect the reincarnation lineage of the Dalai Lamas. Traditionally the goddess granted the regent a vision as he meditated and gazed into the lake, to guide him in the search for the new Dalai Lama.
Reting Rinpoche was silent about what he sad in the lake, despite much prodding, until 1936. That year he summond the National Assembly and announced that his vision showed that the Dalai Lama would reincarnate in the eastern province of Amdo. He had seen the Tibetan letter Ah in the lake and a few other details, which pointed toward a specific house in a specific village in Amdo. In the end, three search teams left Lhasa, all heading east, and one of them followed the omens given by Reting Rinpoche.
Following the regent's vision, the search team that later found little Lhamo made its way first to the remote town of Jeykundo. There they met the Panchen Lama, who had fled to China in the 1920s after refusing to pay Lhasa the taxes that the Thirteenth [Dalai Lama] had demanded of him to support the army, and was now unsuccessfully attempting to negotiate his return to Tibet.
During long discussions between the Chinese and Tibetan governments (Lhasa refused to allow Chinese soldiers to accompany him), the Panchen Lama had been stuck in Jyekundo, where he quietly investigated reports of unusual children born in the area after the death of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. As the Fourteenth mentioned, the spiritual link between the two lineages of reincarnate lamas never wavered, despite the political trouble. The Panchen Lama heard about a fearless boy in Taktser, and the name was added to the search team's list. The Panchen Lama died the following year, without ever returning to Tibet.
In May 1937, the search team reached the largest monastery in Amdo- Kumbum, founded on on the birth site of Tsongkhapa- which they recognized from the regent's vision. Takster was not far from Kumbum, but first the team went to pay respects to the local political power, Ma Pu-fang, delaying their arrival in Takster until September.
To evaluate the boy in a natural setting, the head of the search team and also a Tulku called Ketsang Rinpoche traded clothes and position with his servant. The party posed as travelers and asked Lhamo's parents for food and lodging for the night. Ketsang sat quietly in the kitchen with the other servants while Lhamo's parents were busy entertaining the "high lama" in the main room of the house.
The Dalai Lama remembers nothing about the moment that was about to change his life, because he was only two years old. Ever since, however, he has heard reports about it from everyone who was present. He entereted the kitchen and found Ketsang Rinpoche, a reincarnate lama from Sera Monastery, with an old rosary in his hands, sitting casually by the fire. The rosary had belonged to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. The boy went fearlessly over to him and said, "I want that." Ketsang Rinpoche said, "If you know who I am, I will definitely give you this rosary." The child then called out, "Sera Lama, Sera Lama," identifying where Ketsang Rinpoche was from.
"When the search party reached us," The Dalia Lama said, "they said I spoke Lhasa dialect. I don't remember, but my mother told me that I spoke with the search party members in a language she didn't understand. So that means I used the language of my previous life." He chuckled and shook his head; he maintains a certain incredulousness about these stories even now.
Ketsang Rinpoche was impressed at being identified as a lama from Sera and at the way the boy kept holding the rosary. When the party set off the next morning, Lhamo reportedly cried, begging to go with the group. Convinced that Lhamo was probably the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the search team returned to Takster a few days later and notified his parents that they wished to test the boy officially. The parents thought the search party was merely looking for a reincarnate; it did not occur to them they were looking for the next Dalai Lama. Because, oddly enough, two of Lhamo's brothers had already been recognized as reincarnates, the family by now was not surprised.
Multiple items that had belonged to the late Dalai Lama - and similar-looking items that did not belong to him - were put before the boy on a long table. In every case, Lhamo selected the Dalai Lama's objects and discarded the fakes without hesitation: "It's mine." Of the dozen other boys tested, none selected more than one of the real objects, and one shy child refused to even come near the search party.
