“A ‘cool’ youth of Tibet
With extended wings of ‘intelligence’
Soaring in the skies of the world,
This man, Karmapa.”
–verse from 11th Pawo Rinpoche’s Praise ‘This man, Karmapa’
A few days ago I noticed that a Tibetan song for the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, using words of praise composed by the 11th Nenang Pawo Rinpoche himself, was posted on social media in Tibetan, with Chinese translation (the Youtube video is above). The Pawo Rinpoche lineage is considered to be one of the ‘six heart-sons’ of the Karmapa, as recently taught by the 17th Karmapa this year, see here. I wrote about the Pawo lineage, in particular, the 2nd Pawo Rinpoche, who was the “moon-like” disciple of Mikyö Dorje, 8th Karmapa, and his well-known text’ A Scholar’s Feast’, in this article here. The second Pawo, Pawo Tsuglag Threngwa, as well as a famous author of historical, philosophical and astrological texts. In 1673, during the reign of the 5th Dalai Lama, the seat of the lineage was moved from Sekhar Guthog to Nenang Monastery, which is located near Tsurphu Monastery, the main monastery of the Karmapas. For this post, I offer an English translation of Pawo’s simple, yet poetic words.
For anyone familiar with the history of the Karmapa in Tibet, the 3rd Pawo Rinpoche, Tsuglag Gyatso (1567-1730) was one of the closest teachers/friends of the 10th Karmapa, Choying Dorje (1604-1674). After the 10th Karmapa was forced to leave his main seat in Tibet, Tsurphu Monastery, by the Mongolian invading army with the assistance of the Gelugpas and the 5th Dalai Lama, in 1642, to escape the fighting he went south to Lhodrak, where he took the opportunity to recognize the 4th Pawo, Tsuklak Kuntu Zangpo (dpa’ bo 04 gtsug lag kun tu bzang po, 1633-1649), who was then about eight years old. The 10th Karmapa had to live in a cave, and was not able to return to Tsurphu for many years by the 5th Dalai Lama/Gelugpa governing forces, who were also said to have executed the Tibetan King of Tsang after he had been imprisoned by them.
The previous 10th Pawo Rinpoche, Tsuglag Mawe Wangchuk (gtsug lag smra ba’i dbang phyug) was born in Tibet in 1912. He was recognized and enthroned by the 15th Karmapa Khakyab Dorje (1871-1922). Like all previous Pawo Rinpoches, he was a close disciple of the Karmapa and the Tai Situpa. The Karmapa bestowed the transmissions of the entire Kagyu lineage upon him. Pawo Rinpoche fled Tibet during the uprising against Chinese Communist rule in 1959, travelling to Bhutan and then on the Kalimpong in India. Pawo Rinpoche served as an instructor at the Sanskrit University in Varanasi from 1962 until 1966. In 1975, he travelled in Western countries, establishing his Western seat in France where he lived permanently (1978–1986). In 1986 he established a new Nenang, Nénang Püntsok Monastery (gnas nang phun tshogs chos gling), near Boudhanath in Nepal, where he resided for the remainder of his life.
In 1994, the 11th Nenang Pawo, while still an infant, was recognised by the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje and enthroned at Nenang Monastery near Lhasa in 1995 and given the name Tsuglag Tenzin Künsang Chökyi Nyima or Tsuglag Mawey Drayang. After the 17th Karmapa escaped to India in 2000, which was aided by a monk from Nenang, reports surfaced that, in reprisal, the child Pawo had been removed for a while from his monastery and that his religious education had been restricted. However, he was allowed later to continue his spiritual education.
The song recorded by Yangchug Tso, and my English translation of the lyrics/11th Pawo Rinpoche’s Praise, is here below with the original Tibetan (and phonetics).
May it be of benefit and may the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa be reunited again with his heart-son Pawo Rinpoche!
Written and translated by Adele Tomlin, 16th March 2024.
‘Soaring in the Skies of the World: This man, Karmapa’
by 11th Pawo Rinpoche
ཀརྨ་པ། གཞས་མ་གཡང་ཕྱུག་མཚོ།
སྐྱབས་རྗེ་དཔའ་བོ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ནས་བསྟོད་ཚིག་ཕུལ།
གངས་དཀར་གྱི་སེང་གེ་ཞིག།
རྔམ་བརྗིད་དང་མཆེ་སྡེར་རྒྱས༎
སུའང་མི་འཇིགས་པར༎
སྤོབས་སེམས་ཀྱི་གཡུ་རལ་རྒྱས།
gang kar gyi seng gé zhik
ngam ji dang ché der gyé
suang mi jik par
pob sem kyi yu rel gyé
A white snow-mountain[1] lion
Magnificently wrathful with extended teeth and claws
Fearless of no-one,
Turquoise mane of confident pride.
བསིལ་ལྗོངས་ཀྱི་གཞོན་ནུ་ཞིག།་
བློ་གྲོས་ཀྱི་གཤོག་ཟུང་བརྐྱངས།
འཛམ་གླིང་གི་མཁའ་ལ་འཕུར༎
མི་བུ་འདི་ཀརྨ་པ༎
sil jong kyi zhönnu zhik
lodrö kyi shok zung kyang
dzamling gi kha la phur
mi bu di karmapa
A ‘cool’[2] youth of Tibet
With extended wings of ‘intelligence’
Soaring in the skies of the world,
This man, Karmapa.
རྩལ་ལྡན་གྱི་སྟག་མོ་ཞིག།
འཛུམ་དྲུག་གི་རི་མོ་མཛེས༎
དཔའ་རྩལ་དང་ངར་ཁ་བཙན༎
ཞུམ་མེད་ཀྱི་སྙིང་སྟོབས་རྒྱས༎
tselden gyi takmo zhik
dzum druk gi rimo dzé
pa tsel dang ngar kha tsen
zhum mé kyi nying top gyé
A vitally strong tigress
With beautiful ‘painted’ stripes,
Heroic courage and silent roar, and
Expansive, undiminishing will.
བསིལ་ལྗོངས་ཀྱི་གཞོན་ནུ་ཞིག།་
བློ་གྲོས་ཀྱི་གཤོག་ཟུང་བརྐྱངས།
འཛམ་གླིང་གི་མཁའ་ལ་འཕུར༎
མི་བུ་འདི་ཀརྨ་པ༎
sil jong kyi zhön nu zhik
lo drö kyi shok zung kyang
dzam ling gi kha la pur
mi bu di karmapa
A ‘cool’ youth of Tibet
With extended wings of ‘intelligence’
Soaring in the skies of the world,
This man, Karmapa.
བསིལ་ལྗོངས་ཀྱི་གཞོན་ནུ་ཞིག།་
བློ་གྲོས་ཀྱི་གཤོག་ཟུང་བརྐྱངས།
འཛམ་གླིང་གི་མཁའ་ལ་འཕུར༎
མི་བུ་འདི་ཀརྨ་པ༎
sil jong kyi zhön nu zhik
lo drö kyi shok zung kyang
dzam ling gi kha la pur
mi bu di karmapa
A ‘cool’ youth of Tibet
With extended wings of ‘intelligence’
Soaring in the skies of the world,
This man, Karmapa.
འཛམ་གླིང་གི་མཁའ་ལ་འཕུར༎
dzam ling gi kha la pur
Soaring in the skies of the world.
Composer: Gabe
Singer: Yangchuk Tso
Arranger: Joshua Carpenter
Guitar: Pubu Dorje
Mixdown: Billdisc
https://web.facebook.com/100027292577188/videos/pcb.3781945008733363/368345622831149
Endnotes
[1] The Tibetan words ‘snow mountain’ also mean Tibet.
[2] Here the Tibetan word, བསིལ་ལྗོངས is a meaTibet but literally has the meaning of being ‘cool’.
Dakini Translations and Publications མཁའ་འགྲོ་མའི་ལོ་ཙཱ་བའི་འགྱུར་དང་འགྲེམས་སྤེལ། 