A poem by Mongolian scholar-poet Zava Damdin (b.1976-). Please refer to the Index of Mongolian Poetry and Articles for other works that may be of interest.
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RARE HEART
(English Translation)
A heart as rare as a precious jewel, rarer still than gold or silver,
Existing beyond all form, untouched by time or change.
If one were to ask how it moves within the cycle of becoming,
I would string together beautiful jewels of words to describe its radiant grace.
It shines like a luminous pearl beneath the depths of the ocean
It soars like a brave white falcon flying through boundless space
It swims upstream like a great river fish, rising against the current,
It runs free as a gazelle across the shimmering steppe.
Like an eagle wheeling over cliffs, it gazes far with open vision,
Like a flower of the meadow, fragrant and calm, it blooms in quiet beauty.
Like a lion that does not eat its own flesh, Chinua is steadfast in patience.
As wondrous and beautiful as a Vansambarü flower blooming beneath the snow mountain.
Ah, to meet such a heart is a blessing beyond all measure.
Led by the call of a pure and genuine heart,
One moves through the vast cycle of life without ever losing the way.
The Hermit of Dragon Mountain
31.10.2025
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Translation is always an interpretation into another culture.
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ХОВОР ЗҮРХЭН
(Original Mongolian)
Ховор эрдэнэ мэт зүрхэн алт мөнгөнөөс ховор буюу
Ямар ч цаг үе дор хэлбэрэл үгүй орших агаад
Орчил хөдөлгөөн дор алин мэт буй хэмээвээс
Ийн хэмээн үгсийн үзэсгэлэнт сондор хэлхэмү
Далайн гүн дорх гэрэлт сувд мэт туяаран баймуй
Огторгуй дор нисэх цагаан шонхор мэт зоримог буй
Их мөрний загас мэт урсгал сөрөн өөд өгсөн явмуй
Уужим талын зэрэглээ мэт давхих гөрөөсөн лугаа чөлөөтэй амуй
Цармын бүргэд мэт алсыг дэлгэр тольдон халих буй
Зүлэгт нугын анхилам цэцэг мэт үзэсгэлэнтэй бөгөөд намуун
Чинуа бээр өөрийн миханаан үл идэх мэт тэвчээртэй амуй
Цаст уулан дор ургах вансэмбэрүү адил гайхам сайхан буй
Ай, тийн зүрхэн лүгээ учирсан ану ялгуун сайн учрал аму
Ариун чин зүрхний дуудлагаар аху их орчил дор үл төөрөн зорчмуй
Луут Уулын өчүүхэн егүзэр
31.10.2025
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NOTES
“Rare Heart” and the Mahāyāna Vision of the Awakened Heart
This is an eloquent contemplation of the awakened heart, resonant with the Mahāyāna ideal of bodhicitta, the aspiration to awakening for the benefit of beings. The poem describes this heart as “rarer than gold or silver” and “beyond all form”, language that invites comparison with Mahāyāna reflections on wisdom, emptiness, and compassionate awareness (Conze 1975, p. 93). Rather than presenting the heart simply as emotion, the poem treats it as an orientation that guides perception and conduct.
Its natural images, a pearl beneath the sea, a white falcon crossing the sky, a fish swimming upstream, and a gazelle moving across the steppe, give this inner orientation sensory form. Together they suggest clarity, courage, freedom, and perseverance. The jewel imagery also recalls Śāntideva’s praise of bodhicitta as something precious capable of transforming suffering (Crosby and Skilton 1996, p. 16). The movement between depth, open sky, current, and steppe creates a spacious imaginative field rather than a single fixed allegory.
The closing lines sharpen this ethical dimension: “Led by the call of a pure and genuine heart, one moves through the vast cycle of life without ever losing the way.” Read through a Buddhist lens, the line evokes movement through saṃsāra guided by clarity of intention. The phrase “Үл төөрөн зорчмуй”, “journeys without losing the way”, may also be read alongside the bodhisattva path, where wisdom and compassion orient conduct amid changing circumstances (Wallace and Wallace 1997).
The poem’s imagery therefore does more than decorate its argument. Natural forms become vehicles for reflecting on qualities of mind and conduct. Scholarship on Mahāyāna literary and contemplative traditions has similarly noted the importance of metaphor and simile in making difficult ethical and philosophical ideas perceptible through concrete images.
This relationship between Buddhist thought, literary expression, and Mongolian cultural forms also has a longer history. Lhagvademchig Jadamba’s work on nineteenth century үг literature, for example, considers the relationship between didactic verse, moral cultivation, and Buddhist practice. Caroline Humphrey and Hürelbaatar Ujeed have likewise examined how Mongolian Buddhist traditions sustained religious teaching through Mongolian language, local institutions, and cultural practice (Humphrey and Ujeed 2013; Ujeed 2015).
In this sense, “Rare Heart” can be read both spiritually and culturally. Its Buddhist resonances are expressed through a distinctly Mongolian imaginative landscape of falcons, rivers, steppe animals, mountains, and flowers. Awakening appears not as an abstract state removed from ordinary existence, but as a guiding disposition expressed through clarity, patience, courage, and compassionate orientation.
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FURTHER READING
For a material perspective on buddhist practice and the objects that accompany it, see Artscape 15: Хор Мандал.
Readers interested in attention and reflection may also enjoy Mongolian Poetry 33: Listen! Consider!
For another poetic reflection on discernment and careful thought, see Mongolian Poetry 62: “Think Well” in Five Stanzas
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REFERENCES
Bat-Ireedui, J. Mongolian Buddhism: Tradition and Transformation. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 2015.
Болдбаатар Д. [Boldbaatar D.]. Монголын уран зохиол дах Бурханы шашны ухаан [Buddhist Thought in Mongolian Literature]. Улаанбаатар [Ulaanbaatar]: Соёмбо хэвлэл, 2020.
Conze, Edward, trans. The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines and Its Verse Summary. San Francisco: Four Seasons Foundation, 1975.
Crosby, Kate, and Andrew Skilton, trans. Śāntideva: The Bodhicaryāvatāra. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Grunwald, Sabine. “Elusive Notions of Bodhisattvas: Personified, Idealised, Mystified, Naturalized, and Integral.” Religions 16, no. 6 (2025): 764.
Humphrey, Caroline, and Hürelbaatar Ujeed. A Monastery in Time: The Making of Mongolian Buddhism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Лхагвадемчиг Жадамба [Lhagvademchig Jadamba]. “Пандита нохой ба ламын маргаан [‘The Debate of a Paṇḍita Dog with a Monk’].” Religions 12, no. 12 (2021): 1104.
Lin, J. “Knowing Our True Self and Transforming Suffering Toward Awakening in Mahāyāna Buddhism.” Religions 13, no. 5 (2022): 403.
Oyun, Ts. “Cosmic Journeys and Human Meetings in Mongolian Poetic Thought.” Inner Asian Cultural Studies 18, no. 2 (2013): 45–62.
Шагдарсүрэн Г. [Shagdarsüren G.]. Монголын Бурханы шашны сэтгэлгээний уламжлал [The Philosophical Tradition of Mongolian Buddhism]. Улаанбаатар [Ulaanbaatar]: Монгол шуудан хэвлэлийн газар, 2018.
Suzuki, D. T. Studies in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1932.
Tenzin, Gayleg, and Phramaha Anon Ānando. “The Concept of Bodhicitta in Mahāyāna Sūtras.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Universities 12, no. 1 (2019): 55–66.
Thubten Trinley. Prajnaparamita and the Path to Enlightenment: Teachings from the Great Mother. Le Mont-Pèlerin, Switzerland: Rabten Choeling Publications, 2011.
Thubten Trinley. The Heart of Wisdom: Commentary on the Essence of the Prajnaparamita Sutras. Le Mont-Pèlerin, Switzerland: Rabten Choeling Publications, 2003. Lharampa Geshe (Lobsang Dayang) Thubten Trinley (also spelled Trinlé) is one of Mongolian Zava Damdin Rinpoche’s two heart-lineage masters, the other being Mongolia’s Guru Deva Rinpoche. He is a highly-respected Tibetan Buddhist scholar and Teacher within the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism and is recognised in Tibetan scholastic circles especially for the transmission of Gelugpa Madhyamaka and Pramāṇa thought. Geshe-la was a disciple of Geshe Rabten (1920–1986), one of the earliest Tibetan scholars to teach Western students in India and Europe after the 1959 diaspora. Active and teaching well into the 21st Century, his main works (the above two considerable volumes) were published in 2011 and 2003.
Ujeed, U. B. “The Establishment of the Mergen Tradition of Mongolian Buddhism.” PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 2015.
Wallace, B. Alan, and Vesna A. Wallace. A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1997.
End of transcript.
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