Karmapa, The Lion Begins To Roar

This is a fascinating film made just a few months before the Karmapa fled Tibet to join the Dalai Lama in India.

The film is a sort of follow-up to an earlier film about his previous reincarnation as the 16th Karmapa called The Lions’s Roar.

At the time of the film the Karmapa is just 14 years old and is based around his life at the Tsurphu Monastery in 1999.

The film includes the first recorded teaching the Karmapa gave, to a group of devotees from Taiwan who were sponsoring road building works.

It also shows the Karmapa dancing in the traditional dances held every year at the monastery, and giving Dharma transmissions.

A large section of the film focuses on the reincarnated lamas (Tulkus) he has recognised, and shows how their early development is taken care of.

And we also see the unfolding of a massive thangka during an annual festival, which take place on a hillside nearby.

The focus of the film though is certainly the Karmapa himself, who really comes across even at this early period as someone destined for greatness.