NEPAL. Bodnath. Shechen Monastery. Tulku DORJE GYALTSEN (5 years old) with a monk, Ugyen CHOPEL.
Two or three years after their death, important lamas are reincarnated in the body of a child. The search for this child is based on the information left by the lama himself: dreams, visions and the intuition of other lamas. The Tulkus are discovered at 3 or 4 years of age, declared at about 4 or 5 and then enter the monastery at the age of 6.
According to the rules of the monastery, each Tulku is instructed by a tutor and is either prevented or restricted from seeing other young monks from its age group. All the Tulkus are called Rinpoche which means "the precious one".