SONGS OF THE SIXTH DALAI LAMA

Songs of The Sixth Dalai Lama

White crane !

Lend me your wings

I will not fly far

From Lithang, I shall return.

So wrote a desolate and lonely Tsangyang Gyatso, The Sixth Dalai Lama, to a lady-friend og his in Shol town in 1706, when he was being forcibly taken away to China by the mongol soldiers of the Qosot Lhazang Khan - away from his people and the Potala Palace. No one at that time understood the message contained in the song.




Over the eastern hill rises
The smiling face of the moon;
In my minds forms
The smiling face of my beloved

Yesterday's young sprouting shoots
Are withered straws today.
Like the ageing body of a youth
Stiff bend as a southern bow.

If only I could wed
The one whom I love,
Joys of gaining the choicest gem
From the ocean's deepest bed would be mine


She smells sweet of body
My sweetheart, the highway queen;
Like the worthless white turquoise
She was found, to be thrown away.


Longing for the landlord's daughter
Blossoming in youthful beauty
Is like pining for peaches
Ripening on the high peach trees.


Sleepless I am
Because I am in love;
Fatique and frustration overhwelm
When day brings not my beloved to me.


Spring flowers fade in the fall;
It is not for the turqouise bee to mourn.
I and my sweetheart are fated to part;
It is not for us to cry.


Frost gathers on the glistering flowers
And then the cold north wind blows.
The frost and the wind must have come
To drive the bees away from the flowers.


In love with the lake,
The swan longs to stay longer,
But the ice covers the lake
And the swan flies
With no regrets.


The wooden horse,though devoid of feeling,
Glances back from the ferry;
But my beloved, devoid of gratitude,
Does not even glance at me.

I have hoisted prayer-flags
For the good luck of my beloved.
Forest keeper, Ajo Shelngo,
Do not trample her good luck flags.


The legal seal to seal documents
Cannot utter a word in witness;
Better it is to seal one's heart
With the seal of thruth and justice.

If the blossoming hollyhock is leaving
As an offering to the altar,
Leave not the young turquoise bee behind:
'Take me with you,
To the altar.'

If my beloved who stole my heeart
Renounces the world for the holy dharma.
My youth too shall seek
Retreat in a hermitage.

I incline myself
To the teachings of my lama
But my heart secretly escapes
To the thoughts of my sweetheart.

Even if meditated upon,
The face of my lama comes not to me,
But again and again comes to me
The smiling face of my beloved.

If I could meditate upon the dharma
as intensely as I muse on my beloved
I would certainly attain enlightenment
Surely, in this one lifetime.


The snow pure water of the Holy Dagpa Shelrill
The dew drops of the rare Naga-Vajra grass
Essence of the ambrosia
Fermented into wine by Yeshe Khandro
Incarnated as a wine-maiden
Saves the drinkers from rebirth in the lower realms,
If the ambrosia wine is drunk with the right mental attitude.

When my luck was good
I hoisted auspicious prayer-flags
And the young lady of noble birth
Hosted me at her home

She sparkled her smile
To the crowd in the tavern,
But from the corner of her eyes
She spoke of her love to me.

So enchanted by her
I enquired if she would be mine
'Only death can part us'
She said;
'In this life, nothing can
Separate us.'

 

It snowed at dusk
When I searched for my sweetheart
Now the secret cannot be kept;
In the snow my footprints remain

When I dwell in The Potala
I am Rigdzin Tsangyang Gyatso,
When I roam in Lhasa and Shol
I am the libertine, Dangzang Wangpo

TIBETAN DANCE.