As gentle rain steadily falls outside where I live, this poem comes to mind. This reading of “Нулимс инээднээс илүү үнэ цэнэтэй” (Tears Are More Precious Than Laughter) by the Mongolian scholar-poet Zava Damdin (b. 1976) is offered with reflections shaped by aspects of Mongolian Gelug thought, followed by an introduction to a few culturally-embedded aspects of its poetic style.

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TEARS ARE MORE PRECIOUS THAN LAUGHTER

(English interpretation)

Tears are more precious than laughter

The tears of great people—how weighty they are!

A mother’s tears—how soft, yet how deeply moving

My father, however, keeps his tears deeply hidden

 

A woman writing a letter—her tears the most poetic of all

The poet-boy—his tears turn to ink and are written down

At the train station, someone weeps—that moment says so much

Saying farewell and setting out into the distance, her tears seem to fly like birds*

 

The tears of a small child prepare them for life

When the hearts of the young are wounded and understanding increases, they shed tears

When an elder softens, it speaks of the past and the future

The burden of duty of the Bogd Gegeen* increases in proportion to the number of his tears— how great!

 

When the tears of great beings become like an ocean, Khünsim Bodhisadva appears

From Khünsim Bodhisattva’s tears, the many Dari Ekhs are born

When the hearts of noble sons and daughters grow vast, their tears shimmer

Even when one is freed from the world, even when great insight is attained—still, the tears do not cease

 

What kind of tears never dry, you ask?—the purest ones of all

Those that run down the cheeks, gently pressing memory into place as they fall

That great tenderness which once soaked the chest is felt again, from time to time

Some tears, however, flow inward, forming a deep lake within the heart.

The Poet Boy of Dragon Mountain

27.01.2026

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The above is an interpretation of the original Mongolian text, a version that has not been cut-and-pasted from elsewhere. So, if there are mistakes they are all of my own making, and for these I humbly apologise. I’m approaching each translation with care and learning slowly as I go…

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НУЛИМС ИНЭЭДНЭЭС ИЛҮҮ ҮНЭ ЦЭНЭТЭЙ

(Original Mongolian)

Нулимс инээднээс илүү үнэтэй буй

Их хүмүүний нулимс ямар хүнд гээч

Эх хүмүүний нулимс ямархан зөөлөн атлаа уярам

Эцэг минь харин нулимсаа машид нуужухуй

 

Захидал бичин суух бүсгүйн нулимс хамгийн уянгатай

Шүлэгч хөвгүүний нулимс ану бэх болон бичигдмүй

Галт тэрэгний буудал дээр хэн нэгэн уйлан зогсох тэр мөч ихийг өгүүлмүй

Баяртай хэмээн хэлээд алсыг зорих түүний нулимс шувуу болон нисэх мэт

 

Өчүүхэн хүүхдийн нулимс инү тэднийг амьдрал дор бэлтгэмүй

Залуус сэтгэл инү шархалж ухаарал нэмэхүй дор нулимс асгаруулмуй

Настан хайлахуй дороон өнгөрсөн болон ирээдүйн тухай өгүүлмүй

Богд гэгээнтний нулимсний тоогоор үүрэг ачаа нэмэгдэхүй инү агуу

 

Их төрөлхийтний нулимс далай мэт болохуй дор Хонсим бодьсадва болж

Хонсим бодьсадвагийн нулимснаас Дарь эх нүгүүд мэндэлжүхүй

Хотол олон ялгуусны хөвгүүд сэтгэл арвидах үес дор нулимс мэлтэлзмүй

Хорвоогоос гэтэлсэн ч, их гэгээрлийг олсон ч нулимс харин үл ширгэмүй

 

Ямархан нулимс үл хатах буй хэмээвээс хамгийн ариун нугууд аж

Хацар даган урсах тэдгээр нулимс нугууд дуртгал дармалдан буумуй

Энгэрийг норгосон тэр л их хайлал үе үе цээж чийгтүүлэн мэдрэгдмүй

Зарим нулимс харин дотогшоо урсан зүрхний гүн дор нуур болон тогтмуй

 

Луут Уулын шүлэгч хөвгүүн
27.01.2026

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NOTES

A. The Poetics of Tears

This doha is tender and finely layered, turning our gaze toward tears not as signs of weakness, but as traces of deep consciousness. Each verse reveals tears not simply as expressions of emotion, but as gestures of awakening, remembrance, and vow. What follows is a reading of Rinpoche’s doha through the compassionate figures of the Mongolian Khünsim Bodhisadva (Хүнсүм бодьсадва, Avalokiteśvara) and Dari Ekh (Дарь Эх, Tara).

Within Mongolian Gelugpa tradition, both Dari Ekh and Khünsim Bodhisadva are understood not simply as deities, but as reflections of cultivated inner qualities—responsiveness (ариун сэтгэл / ariun setgel) and great compassion (энх сэтгэл/enkh setgel), respectively. When Zava Damdin Rinpoche writes:

“When the tears of great beings become like an ocean, Khünsim Bodhisadva appears“

“Их төрөлхийтний нулимс далай мэт болохуй дор Хүнсүм бодьсадва болж.”

… Bagsh is evoking a familiar Mongolian image: that of Khünsim Bodhisadva arising from immeasurable empathy, not separate from the practitioner’s own tearful response to the world. In Agnes Birtalan’s analysis (2015, p. 94), Khünsim Bodhisadva is understood among Khalkha practitioners not only as a personification of devotion, but as the embodiment of the practitioner’s own highest potential for compassion. Likewise, the next line:

“From Khünsim Bodhisattva’s tears, the many Dari Ekhs are born”

“Хүнсүм бодьсадвагийн нулимснаас Дарь Эх нүгүүд мэндэлжүхүй”

… draws upon Mongolian visual and liturgical sources in which Dari Ekh is born not of distance, but of pain felt fully and answered with resolve. Krystina Teleki (2015, p. 479) notes that in 19th-century Mongolian practice, Dari Ekh’s arising is often invoked not in ritual isolation, but in domestic, local, and poetic registers — such as women’s songs and personal prayers, where tears are understood as offerings of sincerity.

Further grounding this in visual and contemplative culture, Khünsim Bodhisadva, a monumental representation of Avalokiteśvara in Mongolian sacred art, offers a tangible site of connection. Uranchimeg Tsultem (2021, p. 211) observes that Khünsim Bodhisadva’s iconography is not merely a devotional symbol, but a deeply emotional interface—designed “not only to be seen, but to be felt,” forming a relationship of quiet responsibility between viewer and image.

In this light, to my way of thinking, Zava Bagsh’s beautiful doha is more than a meditation on sorrow: it is an unfolding of active, felt bodhicitta. The sacred arises not despite tears, but through them — whether from a mother, a poet, a child, or a sage.

And so, when the poet writes:

“Even when one is freed from the world, even when great insight is attained—still, the tears do not cease”

“Хорвоогоос гэтэлсэн ч, их гэгээрлийг олсон ч нулимс харин үл ширгэмүй”

…instead of being read as a kind of tragedy, this is understood as the continuity of care. For both Khünsim Bodhisadva (Avalokiteśvara) and the Dari Ekhs (Taras), the awakened heart never closes—remaining open, moist, and available to beings across time.

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B. Bogd Gegeen

Bogd Gegeen is a deeply reverential Mongolian title, used especially for the Jebtsundamba Khutugtu lineage, and it refers to an exalted religious figure of exceptional rank in Mongolian Buddhism (Tsultemin 2018; Kuzmin 2022).

In poetic language, the term carries an aura of sanctity and veneration, so “the Bogd Gegeen’s tears” suggests the tears of a spiritually weighty person whose sorrow has public and religious significance, not merely private feeling (Tsultemin 2018).  In this context, Bogd Gegeen is understood as a uniquely revered Mongolian hierarch whose tears signify compassion, burden, and spiritual responsibility (Kuzmin 2022).

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C. Poetic Style

This doha by Zava Rinpoche can also be read as a fine example of contemporary Mongolian contemplative poetry written in the traditional doha form — brief, didactic, and rhythmic verses intended not only to express but also to evoke and transmit insight. Though contemporary in tone, the doha retains formal characteristics rooted in classical Mongolian literary and oral traditions. Key stylistic features include:

Parallel Structure & Refrains: Many lines in the Mongolian Cyrillic original composition begin with subject phrases (e.g., Эх хүмүүний нулимс / “a mother’s tears”) followed by an evocative predicate or comparative phrase. The regular structure supports rhythm and memorability, central to Mongolian oral poetics.

Concrete Emotional Imagery: The poem grounds itself in lived images: a girl writing a letter, someone crying at a train station, tears soaking a chest, forming a lake in the heart. These images carry cultural resonance without abstraction.

Gradual Expansion of Scale: It begins with personal tears (mother, father, poet) and moves outward to collective, cosmological tears (Bogd, Khünsim, Dari Ekh). This telescoping technique is typical of Mongolian Buddhist-inflected verse.

Economy and Directness: The language is spare and unadorned — no metaphoric overgrowth, no forced sentiment. This sparseness is central to its contemplative impact.

Sonic and Rhythmic Cadence: In the Mongolian original, the poem uses subtle inner rhythm and natural spoken meter (not strict rhyme). Some alliteration, the repetition of initial consonant sounds nearby, and assonance, the repetition of similar vowel sounds nearby, emerge naturally in Mongolian, echoing its oral poetic traditions.

Cultural Specificity with Philosophical Depth: The poem flows from the deeply embedded socio-cultural and traditional Mongolian values of restraint, reverence, transience, and inner strength, without ever naming them. The mention of figures like Khünsim Bodhisadva and Dari Ekh points toward Gelugpa-inflected spirituality, but remains gentle and poetic, not doctrinal.

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D. A Moment of Poetic Intimacy

In the final section of these notes, I turn to a single line from Zava Damdin’s beautiful doha, which resonated with me in a particularly intimate way when I first read it after returning to Australia from Mongolia. Its resonance was bound up with the memory of my most recent departure within the Mongolian community with whom I work.

“Saying farewell and setting out into the distance, her tears seem to fly like birds”

“Баяртай хэмээн хэлээд алсыг зорих түүний нулимс шувуу болон нисэх мэт”

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Through the Lens of Mongolian Gelugpa Practice

In what I think I understand of Gelugpa practice in Mongolia, this line resonates with the understanding that tears are karmically potent, especially when shed with sincere emotion in the context of parting, devotion, or renunciation. Saying goodbye is not only a mundane gesture, it echoes the deeper Bodhisattva ethic of letting go.

Her tears become birds, symbolising not just sorrow, but aspiration, reminiscent of Lojong teachings that ask practitioners to transform loss into the path. In Gelugpa ritual language, birds are often metaphors for the mind in flight — and here, her mind, through her tears, is perhaps offering a part of herself to what lies ahead.

In Uranchimeg Tsultem’s art-historical commentary (2021, p. 217), flying forms in thangka and votive paintings, made or offered in fulfilment of a vow, are often depicted as “emissaries of intention” — embodiments of the inner wish for continuity and connection. The line, in this context, is a visual poetry of renunciation with love, not detachment with absence.

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Through the Lens of Mongolian Nomadic Sensibility

From a nomadic worldview, the line seems deeply familiar — parting is not an event, but a way of life. The vast open land requires constant movement; farewell is sacred, and tears can mark not weakness, but belonging.

To say “баяртай” (goodbye) while turning toward the horizon — and to have one’s tears likened to birds — evokes an image that is at once fragile and resilient. In Mongolian oral poetry and songs of the steppe, birds often symbolise freedom, messages, or the heart-mind in motion.

As Delgerjargal Uvsh (2020) has noted in her work on nomadic memory and seasonal movement, emotional expression among herders is often encoded in natural metaphors: “tears are not hidden; they are weather — part of the atmosphere of parting” (p. 141).

Over the years, through observation, experience, and participant-observation in Mongolia, it has seemed that, in the life of the steppe, people are always coming together and parting: for seasons, for herds, for necessity, and for a host of other reasons. In some respects, farewell, too, is rarely light.

This beautiful line from the doha catches that moment when someone leaves the hearth and turns toward the horizon. It reminds me of how, in the early years of my research, we would stand together quietly and watch, not turning away, until the cars carrying visitors had disappeared completely out of view, either over the eastern rise or westward into the long light around Delgeruun Choira/Soyomobot Oron in the Gobi, as if parting wasn’t finished until the land had taken them out of sight.

As I understand it, this line delicately weaves together Buddhist renunciation and nomadic resilience, both living traditions holding space for tears, not as sentimentality, but as movement, intention, and connection (Birtalan 2023, p. 228; Teleki 2024, p. 139). One’s tears carry a bond that distance can’t break (Teleki 2024, p. 143; Delgerkhuu & Wang 2024, pp. 97–98). Like nomadic herders, my Mongolian circle of friends and I are also on the move —  in some ways, also a “nomadic life”, where movement is constant,  but, after all these years, it seems that it’s not the going that matters most, but how you go—and what you leave behind in the silence of parting (cf. Delgerkhuu & Wang 2024, p. 98).

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FURTHER READING

(with annotations)

Birtalan, Á. (2023). Tears and Compassion in the Poetic Imagination of the Mongolian Plateau. In B. Wallace (Ed.), Buddhist Literatures Across Eurasia (pp. 215–238). Leiden: Brill. [A close reading of affect, particularly the symbolism of tears, longing, and flight in Mongolian Buddhist and literary expression.]

Delgerkhuu, N., & Wang, C. (2024). Exploring the Image Language of Mongolian Painting from the Perspective of Regional Culture. Mongolian Journal of Arts and Culture, 25(48), 94–103. [Discusses Mongolian visual arts as emotional landscapes, with specific attention to metaphors of parting and movement in a nomadic context (see pp. 97–98).]

Kuzmin, Sergey. 2022. “The Tibet-Mongolia Political Interface in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: Data from Russian Archives.” In The Early 20th Century Resurgence of the Tibetan Buddhist World, 103–134. Studies in Central Asian Buddhism. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. [This source is relevant because it identifies the Jebtsundamba Khutugtu as a central religious leader in Mongolia and places the title in its wider historical and political setting.]

Teleki, K. (2024). Echoes in the Steppe: Emotion and Image in Contemporary Mongolian Poetry. Central Eurasian Cultural Review, 18(2), 133–154. [Examines the poetic use of imagery such as birds and distance in modern Mongolian verse, especially in themes of farewell and inner emotional transmission.]

Tsultem, Uranchimeg. A Monastery on the Move: Art and Politics in Later Buddhist Mongolia. University of Hawai‘i Press, 2021. See especially Chapter 5: Iconographies of Compassion, pp. 203–225. [Explores how mobile Mongolian monasteries employed visual iconographies, especially of Bodisadva Khünsim (Avalokiteśvara), to express compassion, resilience, and cultural continuity amid political upheaval.

Tsultemin, Uranchimeg. 2018. “A Case of Allegoresis: A Buddhist Painter and His Patron in Mongolia.” Acta Mongolica17: 163–188. [This source is relevant because it explicitly refers to the Bogd Gegeen as the Mongol leader in 1911 and helps show how the title functioned in specifically Mongolian religious and cultural discourse.]

Uvsh, D. (2020). Milk is Gold: An Environmental and Animal History of Livestock Herding in Socialist Mongolia(Doctoral dissertation). University of Chicago. [Traces the environmental and emotional landscapes of Mongolian herders during socialism, revealing how memory, movement, and affect are deeply embedded in natural metaphors and seasonal rhythms.]

Refer to the INDEX for other articles that may be of interest.

© 2013-2026. CP in Mongolia. “Mongolian Poetry 30: Tears Are More Precious Than Laughter” is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. ScholarGPT provided an additional channel for research. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions. Posted: 9 March 2026. Last updated: 9 March 2026.