CP in Mongolia

Here is an interesting free-verse spoken meditation by the Mongolian scholar-poet Zava Damdin (b. 1976).

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THE WORLD IS NOT SMALL

(English Translation)

Wherever one goes
Whomever one meets
Almost all people talk
About being fat or thin
About gaining weight or losing it
Looking young, though the years have increased
And growing old, though still young
Astonished
At how quickly time has passed
Over the food before them
Arguing animatedly over whether it is tasty or tasteless
About how politicians
Are bleeding their countries dry
About future profit, promised but yet to come
Always thinking
Their eyes glazed over
As if simply passing the time
Saying all sorts of things
About who has become so very rich
And how that poor someone lost their money
About the wrongdoings of others
Babbling on, as though they had seen all this in Erleg’s mirror*
Their own faults however
Not mentioning even as much as a speck of dust
They even speak knowingly about “enlightenment”
Teaching others, as though they had attained it themselves
When speaking about having met someone
They exclaim, “How small the world is!”
You know what?
The world is not small
Rather, because your mind is small
The subjects you speak about
And the sphere in which you live are limited to this
Why is your mind small, you ask?
It is your self-centred view
And the great pride fixated on “I”
Like a frog boasting
That its own tiny well is a great big ocean
Imagining its own little brain
To be Mount Sumeru, it has become like this*
And if you glare in anger, and say, “So what?”
Then yes, please settle down and listen!
There truly is such a thing as Dharma*
So before you become dazed, muddled, and senile
May you at least catch a glimpse of even its outline!
So I say,
In general, this thing called “I” should keep its mouth firmly shut
And instead practice meditation more often.

The Wandering Boy of Dragon Mountain wrote this as a whip for himself
8.05.2026

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Translated by C.Pleteshner
English interpretation 28.05.2026 from the original Mongolian 8.05.2026

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ДЭЛХИЙ ЖИЖИГХЭН БУС

(Original Mongolian)

Хаа ч очсон
Хэнтэй ч уулзсан
Бараг л бүх хүмүүс
Тарган, туранхай
Жин нэмэж, хасч байгаа тухай
Нас нэмсэн ч залуу харагдаж
Залуу авч хөгширч байгаа тухай
Цаг хугацаа
Ямар хурдан өнгөрснийг гайхаж
Урдах хоолоо
Амттай, амтгүйг ам булаалдаж
Улс төрчид
Улс орноо хэрхэн цуслаж байгаа тухай
Ирээдүйн орох олзны тухай
Үргэлж бодож
Нүд нь гөлийж
Зүгээр л цаг нөгчөөх мэт
Элдвийг хүүрнэлдэж
Хэн ямар их баяжсан ба
Хөөрхий тэр нэгэн мөнгөө алдсан тухай
Бусдын нүглийг
Эрлэгийн толинд харсан юм шиг бурж
Өөрийн гэмийг
Тоосны төдий ч үл дурдаж
Тэд бүр гэгээрлийг хүртэл мэдэмхийрч
Оносон юм шиг бусдад сургаж
Хэн нэгэнтэй уулзсан тухайгаа ярихдаа
Дэлхий ямар жижигхэн юм бэ?
Хэмээн уулга алдах аж.
Юу гээч?
Дэлхий жижигхэн бус
Харин чиний сэтгэл жижигхэн учир
Ярих сэдэв болоод
Амьдарч буй орчил чинь ердөө л энэ
Яагаад сэтгэл чинь жижигхэн байгаа вэ? гээч!
Аминчхан үзэл
Би-д баримталсан их омог чинь
Өөрийнхөө өчүүхэн худгийг
Сүн далай хэмээн эрэмших мэлхий мэт
Өөрийнхөө бяцхан тархийг
Сүмбэр уул мэт төсөөлснөөс ийм болжухуй
Тэгээд юу гэж! хэмээн уурсан харваас
Тэгээд үү, тогтож хайрла!
Үнэхээр ном хэмээх зүйл байдаг юм шүү!
Алмай балай зөнтөөгүй дээрээ
Алив түүнийг барааг нь ч болов олж үзээсэй!
Хэмээн хэлмүй зээ!
Ер нь би хэмээх бээр амаа илүүхэн хамхиж
Дияаныг илүүтэй үйлдэх хэрэгтэй аж

Үүнийг Луут уулын бадарчин хөвгүүн өөрөө өөртөө ташуур болгон бичив
08.05.2026

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NOTES

Unlike many of Zava Damdin’s dohas, which unfold through symbolic imagery, contemplative insight, and poetic paradox, this piece takes the form of a direct spiritual admonition. Combining social satire with Buddhist self-reflection, it reads less as a song of realisation than as a verse addressed first to others and ultimately to the author himself. Bagsh-aa’s dohas are also rarely this wry; in translating this one, I have stayed close to the Mongolian lineation, trying to keep its satirical bite and lively turns of address before arriving at its self-admonishing final gesture.

Is there any one of us who cannot find at least a small, uncomfortable likeness of ourselves somewhere in this spoken meditation? I could not help smiling after I first read it, not because its point is light, but because it landed so neatly, leaving little room to hide. I should add that I recognise myself far more among the ordinary people described here than in Rinpoche’s clear-sighted voice; this note, like the poem itself, is offered less as a judgement of others than as a reminder to myself!

* * *

For this poem, I feel that “Dharma” is best understood simply as a path of teaching and learning that turns one’s mind away from self-importance, distraction, and empty talk, and toward clearer seeing, humility, compassion, and one’s own work of study and contemplation.

* * *

Erleg (Эрлэг), more fully Erleg Nomun Khan (Эрлэг Номун хаан), is the Mongolian form of the lord of death and judge of the dead, closely associated in Mongolian Buddhism with Yama / Dharmarāja. In Mongolian Buddhist vocabulary, Choijil (Чойжил) is explained as the lord of the hell realm, Erleg Nomun Khan, who holds a mirror in one hand and scales in the other, seeing and weighing the sins of beings who have arrived in one of the hell realms.

The phrase “as though they had seen them in Erleg’s mirror” therefore can be read, “as though they possessed final, otherworldly knowledge of another person’s unwholesome actions.” In this poem, the image seems sharply satirical: people gossip about others’ faults as if they were cosmic judges looking into Erleg’s mirror, while failing to mention even a speck of their own wrongdoing.

* * *

Sumeru — Mongolian Sümber uul (Сүмбэр уул) — is the great world-mountain of Buddhist cosmology, imagined as the centre or axis of the ordered universe. Mongolian lexical sources define Сүмбэр as the mythic mountain regarded as the centre of the world, surrounded by the seven golden mountains and the great and small continents.

In wider Buddhist cosmology, Mount Sumeru / Meru functions as the cosmic centre around which worlds, heavens, and realms are arranged; Satomi Hiyama describes it as the axis mundi of Indian Buddhist cosmology as transmitted through Central Asian Buddhist visual culture, while Ian Mabbett’s classic study treats Mount Meru as a symbolic structure of cosmic order, hierarchy, and centrality. In this doha, the image is deliberately comic and cutting: the orator mocks the ego that imagines its own “little brain” to be Сүмбэр уул, the cosmic mountain itself. The contrast sharpens the poem’s critique of self-importance: the mind becomes “small” precisely because it mistakes its own narrow view for the centre of the universe.

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Translation is always an interpretation into another culture.

Any errors in this regard are entirely my own, and for these I humbly apologise.

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