What is an Emanation ?
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In a strict sense, tulku is a Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit nirmāṇakāya, which refers to the "transformation" or "emanation body" of a Buddha.
Tulku is therefore the physical "form in which a Buddha appears to ordinary beings.”
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It is probably possible to project a red-green-blue laser “hologram” these days and give a computer generated emanation of a 3d form which might have white light RGB based colouration. Such a thing might be animated to give a 3d-holo “Teams” meeting in due course. Such an idea will probably get misused for profit. These could in time look real.
Laser holo-projections are more likely to use red or green lasers currently.
Your reality depends more than you might like to admit on where you were born, how you were educated and the peers with which you surround yourself. As someone who has dabbled in science a bit, it plays a part in my understanding of physical reality. I know it is easier to get a mattress down stairs and can use gravity to assist in this task.
In Himalayan Buddhism there is the tulku concept in which trained practitioners are reborn in order (usually) to carry on teaching Dharma. This understanding is not shared in other schools of Buddhist thought such as Theravada and Zen.
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Tulku (Tib. སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་, Wyl. sprul sku) — an incarnation. The word literally means nirmanakaya but is used in common speech to refer to any incarnate lama.
The tradition of recognizing reincarnate masters began in Tibet in the early 12th century with the line of Karmapas.
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Such a notion does not gel well with the Standard Model and recognisable transmigration post mortem may seem fanciful to many people. In other circles many people say, “in my past life I must have been….”
The idea has spread into the vernacular. I can say that in my past life I was briefly a university academic. This is more open to proof than prior mortal life job description. I have an old identity card somewhere and maybe some payslips which hint at this prior life, within a life, job. There are various science articles in which my claimed affiliation appears academic. Of course it could be someone else entirely and I have just assumed a fake identity. Your nutter magnet could be strong, high field.
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We are systematically researching and tracking tulku lines (skye brgyud) to build successive multi-generational networks of incarnation relations amongst Person records in the TBRC Library. To date, we have recorded over 110 tulku lines with more than 1700 tulku titles.
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Successive systems of reincarnation or tulku (sprul sku) are fascinating sources for the study of the social history of Tibet. The tulku, predicated on Buddhist metaphysics of rebirth, is a phenomena in which a person is recognized as embodying a previous person, in their own current body. This is technically referred to in Tibetan as one who is "recognized as having returned to existence" ( yang srid ngos 'dzin or sprul sku ngos 'dzin).
There are hundreds of multigenerational tulku lines in Tibet. By looking at when such tulku lines were declared, within which contexts, patterns of interpersonal relations, institutional alliances, and regional practices emerge. We are given new visions of these trans-generational social networks and the weblike worlds in which tulkus function.
Buddhist Digital Resource Centre on line web site
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It seems that although not common or garden, within that context it is not very rare. It is a part of the social fabric. The most famous Tulkus being the Dalai and Panchen Lamas. The Dalai Lama is as recognisable as Einstein.
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The idea of an emanation of a prior incarnation raises some plot line questions.
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If the vehicle into which incarnation happens already has a personality does the reincarnate and birth beingness compete for control? Who gets the steering wheel?
Or does the incarnate take vacant occupancy in the womb?
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In the narration of nirmāṇakāya phenomenon the emanation body may spring out of nowhere, in the middle of a lake, out of a lotus. So the emanation is not limited to normal uterine arrival.
Some emanations are assigned to those of advanced Bodhisattva beings like Avalokiteśvara, Manjushri or Vajrapāṇi. These being a part of Mahayana and Vajrayana thinking. Such a being might incorporate only a small part of their totality into a human form. They are considered largely beyond normal human comprehension.
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None of these claims are susceptible to six sigma scientific proof. There is no biometric passport for a prior incarnation which might carry over post mortem.
What one might be able to say subjectively is that someone reminds me of someone I knew, or that they share the qualities assigned in the hagiography to some prior figure. A candidate may recognise artefacts in an identity parade. In the societal context of a tulku search such candidates are culturally and sometimes politically important. There is currently tension in the tulku system and its longevity is not assured.
What is sure is that not everyone can be Genghis Khan or Cleopatra reborn.
In many ways that which someone does is of more importance than from whence they came. Only these days affiliation and power by association are socio-politically important. You have to have a blurb for your WankedIn page. If you have no track record you are a nobody.
At a less grandiose level each of us might be seen as an emanation. Some being, some Soul, might exist inside us. Which is an emanation of the greater whole, the spirit. Each of us is a particular part of the Soular rainbow of beingness, an emanation of a part of the spectrum of life. An outer corporeal emanation of an essence non tactile and which cannot be proven.
On the other hand we could just be a slab of long pork ready for the pot. When we die the rate equations of life run out of fuel and we succumb to the entropic parts of the laws of thermodynamics. There is not enough energy to resist the drive to increase entropy. We cease being counter-entropic beings.
