Some poems I enjoyed reading this afternoon, as
translated by Coleman Barks. There is information
about the author after the poems themselves.
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Even the stars can be measured,
their arrangments and influences.
Her body can be lovingly touched,
but not her deep longings.
Those cannot be understood
by science.
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The ink of lovesongs
washes off in the rain,
but the love itself,
that which cannot be
written down, stays
inside *here*
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I listen intently
to what my teacher says
but beneath that concentration
my loving slips
out of the room
to be with you.
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In meditation, the face of my teacher
does not come to me very clearly,
but your face does, smiling one way,
then smiling another.
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If I could meditate as deeply
on the sacred texts as I do
on you, I would clearly be
enlightened in this lifetime.
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Your stallion trots on the sllppery ice,
over deep-frozen and nearly-frozen water.
When you move toward the beauty of a new lover,
be careful that your secret legs
don't scatter and fall!
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The old dog at the gate
has a more subtle soul
than most human beings.
Please don't tell them
how I left at dusk
and came back in at dawn!
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Lover waiting in my bed
to give me your soft, sweet body,
do you mean well?
What will you take off me,
besides my clothes?
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At night, I'm so in love
I can't sleep, and each day
fills with the fatigue
of not having you again.
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Wanting this landlord's daughter
is wanting the topmost
peach.
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The moon lifts
over the hill edge.
Inside, I see
you smiling.
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Back when I was lucky,
I could hoist a prayerflag,
and some well-bred young woman
would invite me home.
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She shone her whole smiling face
at the crowd in the tavern.
Then, from the delicate corners
of her eyes, she spoke
love-secrets to me.
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I'm young, so
with a slight smile
you have me.
But what I want
is a word from the stream
of your being.
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I often see my lost lover in dreams.
I will ask a shaman to search in there
and bring her back to me.
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We've had our short walk together,
this joy. Let's hope we meet early
in the next life, as young lovers.
**************************************************
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.
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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.
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I know her body's softness
but not her love.
I draw figures in sand
to measure great distances
through the sky.
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These poems are actually songs, written spontaneously
by a 17th-century poet who called himself the Turquoise
Bee. His real name was Ridzin ("treasure") Tsangyang
("having a voice like God's") Gyatso (the lineage),
also known as the Sixth Dalai Lama.
The Great Fifth died suddenly, without fully predicting
where his next incarnation would be born, so he was not
enthroned as the Dalai Lama until he was 14. And although
he passed all of the 30-day tests to indicate that he
was the true tulku of the Great Fifth, he never quite
"worked out" as Dalai Lama the way the monks expected
him to.
He spent his days in the Potala palace, writing scholarly
works about Buddhism and presiding over the spiritual and
mundane affairs of Tibet, but he spent his night in Shol-
town (Lhasa's red light district) drinking and carousing
with the gals. And writing spontaneous poem-songs like
these. The songs were still sung on the streets in Tibet
until the 1950s, when the Chinese outlawed street singing.
I like his poetry because it has the majesty of the best
writers of koans and haiku, but I like *him* because I
identify with his lifestyle. Like him, I paid my dues
learning the ins and outs of spiritual thought and the
arts of meditation. Like him I make my living during the
day writing esoteric treatises -- his on Buddhism, me on
the equally arcane subject of artificial intelligence.
But we both spend our evenings in cafes and taverns, and
we both have an eye for the ladies. And we both see in
the ladies JUST as much inspiration as we see in any
scripture or sitting meditation.
That's probably why I stole his nom de plume for my own.
I hope that I haven't accrued any bad karma for that.
