Tibetan culture
February 25, 2009
August 22, 2008
Sixth Dalai Lama: Poem No. 18
As I have filled my mind with her
I would become a buddha
In this very body
In this very life
Sixth Dalai Lama: Poem No. 1
Yes, I know I've been posting very little lately. Sorry.
Thought I'd go for something completely different.
Which is this, a translation of the first in a series of love poems by the Sixth Dalai Lama.
Some of you may not know that there was a Dalai Lama who wrote love poems and indeed who had lovers. He wore blue silk, not monk's robes. He did not shave his head, but wore his hair long. He refused to ride on horseback but walked around Lhasa, freely, carousing, relaxed and open. He built the Lukhang, a chapel behind the Potala featuring unusual paintings of meditation practices, which I was lucky enough once to see.
Many many different translators have worked on these. Thought I'd add my versions, translating not from word to word, but from meaning to meaning. All errors are, of course, mine.
clear white moon
rising over
east ridge horizon
arising in mind
again
and again
instant presence:
her face
.
May 19, 2007
Women Poets of Tibet: "A Small Stone Casts Its Ripple" from Poetrymind
Read this beautifully-written, insightful piece on women poets of Tibet at poetrymind (originally published as part of the catalog of the Tibetan Literary Exhibit at Smith College).
Excerpt:
"Machig Lapdron’s (1055-1143) lineage of Chod exemplifies the highly sophisticated understanding of the cornerstone of the Mahayana teachings on emptiness and the illusory belief in an ego.
In Buddhist philosophy, the ‘conceit’ of ego is perceived as the ultimate demonic force and obstruction to liberation.
Fully comprehending this view releases the practitioner into a field of compassion whereas the psychical/physical becomes a means to feed the illusory demons of the mind’s projections thus embracing rather than rejecting negative forces through repression.
Eighth century, Yeshe Tsogyal, an earlier incarnation of Machig Lapdron, in her parting advice incants these words, “I have yet to find any ‘thing’ that truly exists.”
On the other hand, Nangsa Obum, a contemporary of Machig Labdron and famous “delog” draws on the metaphor of weaving, a traditional women’s occupation, to illustrate the stages of the path to realization in a famous folk drama widely known throughout Tibet.
Her song in many ways closely parallels the tradition of Terighati (songs of the nuns from the time of the Buddha) drawing on the immediacy of her domestic life. However slender, these representations are but ciphers in a larger cultural context. . ."
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