A co-worker showed me this article earlier today.

I later pulled up this background information on wikipedia.

First off, let me please reiterate: Buddha was not a god. He was a man.
Second: Many branches of Buddhism, adhering to the principle of anatman, do not believe in transmigration of the soul and thus do not believe in "reincarnation" in any intelligible sense.
Third: Even those branches of Buddhism that DO believe in reincarnation do not believe a Buddha reincarnates. After all a buddha is a person who has escaped from Samsara!

With that in mind I am rather skeptical of those who would claim that this boy IS Gautama Siddhartha.

I am rather relieved to see that he (in one of the rare times he spoke) has denied BEING a Buddha and has made no suggestion that he believes himself to be a god.

Still... the boy is making news in north america... I only hope that people fascinated in this story actually speak to people within the sangha and attempt to learn something of the true dharma rather than just spreading around the same tired new-age buddhist/hindu/taoist hybrid metaphysics and pinning it on a little nepalese ascetic.

Is he a buddha? Who knows. Right now he's proven he can sit and meditate quite a lot... let's see if he reaches the point of realizing that the world needs somebody to get out there and do something to make it a better place; buddha did more than sit on his bum under a tree.