Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama

Tsangyang Gyatso (1 March 1683 – 15 November 1706) was the sixth Dalai Lama. He was a Monpa by ethnicity and was born at Urgelling Monastery, 5km from Tawang Town, India and not far from the large Tawang Monestary in the northwestern part of present-day Arunachal Pradesh.

He had grown up a youth of high intelligence, liberal to a fault, fond of pleasure, alcohol and women, and later led a playboy lifestyle. He disappeared near Qinghai, probably murdered, on his way to Beijing in 1706. The 6th Dalai Lama composed poems and songs that are not only still immensely popular in modern-day Tibet but have also gained significant popularity all across China.

Poems of Sadness: The Erotic Verse of the Sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso tr. Paul Williams 2004

 * Even the stars can be measured,
 * Their arrangements and influences.
 * Her body can be lovingly touched,
 * but not her deep longings.
 * Those cannot be understood
 * by science.
 * p 12


 * Lassoes can catch the wild horses
 * that flee over the hills.
 * But nothing, not even incantations
 * can hold a wild beloved
 * who has stopped loving
 * her lover.
 * p.13


 * The ink of lovesongs
 * washes off in the rain,
 * but the love itself,
 * that which cannot be
 * written down, stays
 * inside *here*
 * p.16


 * I listen intently
 * to what my teacher says
 * but beneath that concentration
 * my loving slips
 * out of the room
 * to be with you.
 * p.20


 * In meditation, the face of my teacher
 * does not come to me very clearly,
 * but your face does, smiling one way,
 * then smiling another.
 * p.21


 * If I could meditate as deeply
 * on the sacred texts as I do
 * on you, I would clearly be
 * enlightened in this lifetime.
 * p.22


 * It was snowing at nightfall
 * when i went out to look for my lover.
 * Now the secret of where my feet went
 * is openly visible to everyone.
 * p.26


 * Lover waiting in my bed
 * to give me your soft, sweet body,
 * do you mean me well?
 * What will you take off me,
 * Besides my clothes?
 * p.27


 * Wanting this landlord's daughter
 * is wanting the topmost
 * peach.
 * p.37


 * Back when I was lucky,
 * I could hoist a prayerflag,
 * and some well-bred young woman
 * would invite me home.
 * p.44


 * I often see my lost lover in dreams.
 * I will ask a shaman to search in there
 * and bring her back to me.
 * p.52


 * Oracle of the Tenth Stage,
 * Dorje Chokyang, if you have power,
 * destroy those who hate the natural law.
 * p.58


 * My lover and I, we meet in complete
 * privacy, in the southern valley forest.
 * Then I hear some parrot in the market
 * jabbering our secrets.
 * p.61


 * We've had our short walk together,
 * this joy. Let's hope we meet early
 * in the next life, as young lovers.
 * p.62


 * While I live in the monastery palace,
 * I am Ridzin Tsangyang Gyatso,
 * honored in this lineage.
 * When I roam the streets in Lhasa,
 * and down in the valley to Shol,
 * I am the wildman, Dangyang Wangpo,
 * who has many lovers.
 * p.64


 * Pure snow-water from the holy mountain,
 * Dew off the rare Naga Vajra grass.
 * These essences make a nectar
 * which is fermented by one
 * who is incarnated as a maiden.
 * Her cup's contents can protect you
 * from rebirth in a lower form,
 * if it is tasted in the state
 * of awareness it deserves.
 * p.70


 * I know her body's softness
 * but not her love.
 * I draw figures in sand
 * to measure great distances
 * through the sky.
 * p.72