I continue to find myself drawn to studying Zava Damdin’s dohas, each of which seems to offer, with quiet insistence, its own puzzle of intercultural and interpretive encounter: a challenge, certainly, but also an attractive way of coming closer not only to Mongolian culture but to a living tradition of the Dharma that remains very much alive. For my own part, I have long counted it a blessing to have embarked on this path of study.

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YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO REMEMBER ME…

My eyes always glow like the eyes of a wolf

My gaze shines clear and bright, meeting you

If I were to speak, I would carry your heart away like the flow of water

If I were to open my heart, you would never be able to leave me

If you were to see me but once, you would not forget me

Even after many years, if somewhere we were to meet, you might still recognise me

For there is nothing dull or lifeless in me

There is nothing mean or false in me at all

Because my tender heart is always burning like fire

Because my melodious words keep tuning you like music

Because my soft gaze looks straight at you

You have no choice but to remember me

 

The Young Pilgrim of Grassy Mountain

17.04.2026

– Zava Damdin Rinpoche (b.1976)

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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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ЧИ НАМАЙГ САНАХААС ӨӨР АРГА ҮГҮЙ

(Original Mongolian)

Миний нүд чонын нүд мэт үргэлж цогшино

Миний харц тунгалаг гэрэлтэж чамтай мэндэлнэ 

Хэрэв би үг өгүүлвээс усны урсгал мэт чиний сэтгэлийг авч одмуй

Хэрэв би сэтгэлээ нээвээс чи намайг хэзээ ч орхиж чадах үгүй

Чи намайг нэг л харсан төдий бөгөөс үл мартмуй

Олон жил болж хаа нэгтээ чи над лугаа тааралдваас таних ану магад

Яагаад гээ ч үхээнц мулгуй зүйл над үгүй

Ядмаг хуурамч зан над огтоос үгүй 

Ялдамхан зүрх мину үргэлж гал мэт асаж л байдаг учир

Яруухан өгүүлэл мину хөгжим мэт чамайг хөглөж байдаг учир

Яруусал төгөлдөр харц мину чамайг цоо ширтэх учир

Чи намайг санахаас өөр арга үгүй 

 

Зүлэгт уулын бадарчин хөвгүүн

17.04.2026

– Зава Дамдин Ринбүчи

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NOTES

This doha is unusually open in the range of meanings it seems able to hold. It may be approached from several different perspectives, each bringing a different aspect of its force into view; the brief notes below suggest a few of those possible readings.

* * *

If these words were imagined as being whispered by a bird into someone’s ear, they might be heard less as self-praise than as a message of recognition: remember the being whose gaze is clear and luminous, whose heart burns like fire, and in whom there is no falsity.

In Mongolian symbolic worlds, birds can appear not only as creatures of the open sky but also as messengers or intermediaries. As Caroline Humphrey (1995) has noted, there is a Mongolian symbolic motif in which birds on the shoulders serve as messengers, suggesting mediation, conveyed meaning, or communication from beyond the ordinary human sphere.

Heard in that way, the doha’s refrain, “you have no choice but to remember me”, begins to sound almost like a whispered reminder not to forget the one whose eyes glow like a wolf’s, whose gaze shines clear and bright, whose heart burns like fire, and whose nature is free of falsity. The bird’s whisper would then be less about attachment than about recognising or remembering someone in whom these qualities are unmistakably present. Such a being would not easily pass out of mind.

* * *

Extending this line of thought, this doha may also be heard as if the bird were bearing the voice of one’s own heart guru or other mentor. Read in that way, the repeated line, “you have no choice but to remember me”, no longer sounds like self-assertion at all, but like a whispered recollection of that being’s living presence within the disciple or student’s heart.

The wolf-like eyes, the clear and shining gaze, the heart burning like fire, and the speech that carries one away like water and tunes one like music then become not merely personal attributes, but the remembered marks of the guru or mentor as inwardly received and preserved. The poem would therefore be speaking out of devotion, memory, and transmission. What cannot be forgotten is not simply a person, but that being’s unmistakable qualities as they continue to live, speak, and resound within the disciple and student.

* * *

In my reading of Mongolian nomadic perspectives, the opening comparison, “My eyes always glow like the eyes of a wolf”, feels especially charged. In a steppe world, the wolf is never only a figure of danger. It can also suggest sharp alertness, long sight, fierceness, endurance, independence, and a kind of undomesticated vitality.

Work on Mongolian pastureland values and herder well-being has shown that the wolf still carries strong associations with spirit and force, and not merely with threat or predation (Tugjamba, Walkerden, and Miller 2021). Read in this light, “eyes of a wolf” suggests a gaze that is bright, unwavering, alive, and difficult to ignore.

The other images in the doha are also deeply legible in nomadic terms. Water, fire, and music are not abstract ornaments here. Water suggests movement, inevitability, and carrying force; fire suggests living heat, hearth-centred vitality, and inner intensity; music suggests attunement, mood, and relational tuning rather than mere entertainment. The line about speech tuning the other “like music” is especially striking in a culture where voice, recitation, and song have long carried social, ethical, and aesthetic weight. What becomes memorable about the speaker, then, is not appearance alone, but presence as something felt almost atmospherically — something one experiences as much as sees (Humphrey 2019; Pegg 2024).

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FURTHER READING

Humphrey, Caroline. 1995. “Chiefly and Shamanist Landscapes in Mongolia.” In The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space, edited by Eric Hirsch and Michael O’Hanlon. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Humphrey, Caroline. 2019. “Some Modes of Relating Hospitality, Mastery, and Mobility in Early 20th Century Mongolia.” L’Homme 231–232.

Pegg, Carole. 2024. Drones, Tones, and Timbres: Sounding Place among Nomads of the Inner Asian Mountain-Steppes.

Tugjamba, Nominchimeg, George Walkerden, and Fiona Miller. 2021. “Under the Guidance of the Eternal Blue Sky: Cultural Ecosystem Services that Support Well-Being in Mongolian Pastureland.” Landscape Research.