A poem in three stanzas on discernment by the Mongolian Buddhist scholar Zava Damdin Rinpoche (b. 1976).
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LET NOTHING BE CARRIED BEYOND ITS MEASURE
(English Translation)
Love too much, and you may become the one resented
Honour too much, and you may become the one looked down upon
Trust too much, and the heart’s own jewel may be put at risk
Hope too much, and an undertaking may not come to fruition
When thinking too far ahead, keep love protected within the awakening heart
Whatever happens, carry respect: precious, balanced and upright
Only in a sincere heart is there complete trust, able to accomplish what is needed and beneficial
If hope is needed, take the distant future into account
To overdo is to overflow the vessel and exceed the bounds of sense
To go too far is the failing of beings who do not know their own measure
Recognise excessive afflictions as the harm of a long-unsettled mind, and lessen them
In spoken words, in delicious food, in all things, live free of excess.
Zava Damdin Rinpoche
26.01.2025
Khan Uul
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Translated by C.Pleteshner
English interpretation 8.10.2025 from the original Mongolian 26.01.2025
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БҮҮ ХЭТРҮҮЛ!
(Original Mongolian)
Хэтэрхий хайрлавал чи өөрөө үзэн ядагдана!
Хэтэрхий хүндлэвэл чи өөрөө дорд үзэгдэнэ!
Хэтэрхий итгэвэл зүрхний эрдэнэ алдагдах аюултай!
Хэтэрхий найдвал ямарч үйлс үл бүтэх буй!
Хэт хойчийг бодвоос хайр хэмээхүйг бодь сэтгэл дор гамна!
Хэрхэвч хүндлэл хэмээхүйг төв чигч авч явах чухаг!
Хэрэг тусыг бүтээх төгөлдөр итгэл гагц чин зүрхэн дор буй!
Хэрэв зээ найдвар хэрэгтэй бөгөөс алс ирээдүйг тооцоол!
Хэтийдүүлэх хэмээх инү савнаасаа болон утгаасаа халихуйг хэлмүй!
Хэтрэх хэмээх инү өөрийнхөө хэмжээг үл мэдэх төрөлхийтний гэм!
Хэтэрсэн нисваанис ану ужиг сэтгэлийн урхаг хэмээн таньж багасага!
Хэлэх үг амтат зоог бүгдийг хэтрүүлэх үгүй яв!
Зава Дамдин ринбүчи
26.01.2025
Хан Уул
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NOTES
On Translation and “Voice”
Whilst the first obligation is always to stay close to Zava Rinpoche’s words and meaning, the final translation of this poem did not emerge through a simple carrying-over of those words and meanings, but through a gradual process of listening, testing, returning again and again, and softening.
At the same time, the translation had to become speakable in English. Why? Because a line that is grammatically close but tonally stiff cannot, I feel, carry the doha’s wise counsel with the same ease. Line by line, fidelity becomes less a matter of literal sameness than of careful relation.
“Interpretation” is not something added after “translation”; from the outset, it is already present in choices of rhythm, measure, tone, restraint, and address. The above version, then, carries both Rinpoche’s Mongolian poem and my own manner of speech: not as self-display on my part, but as the human voice through which one version of this beautiful poem becomes audible again in another language.
I also chose not to retain the exclamation marks (!) of the original. In Mongolian poetic writing, these marks seem not to carry the same sharpness they often suggest in English; they may signal emphasis, urgency, or heightened address without turning the line into a harsh command. Suffice to say, they do not belong naturally to my own manner of speech, which carries no particular authority on the subject at hand.
As a student of Zava Damdin Rinpoche and the Dharma, I hear this doha less as command than as counsel: a gentle instruction in how to live with greater ease.
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Translation of Buddhist poetry (doha) 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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FURTHER READING
Letter from Mongolia 18: a deliberately interdisciplinary practice
Clifford Geertz’s account of interpretation as the reading of layered meanings helps frame this kind of slow attention to cultural and tonal texture; Walter Benjamin’s “afterlife” of a work suggests that translation allows the original to continue differently; Hans-Georg Gadamer reminds us that understanding takes place through a meeting of horizons; and Antoine Berman’s ethics of receiving the foreign cautions against smoothing the source so completely that its difference disappears (cf. Geertz 1973; Benjamin 1923/2012; Gadamer 1960/2013; Berman 1985/2000).
Benjamin, Walter. (1923/2012). The Translator’s Task. In Lawrence Venuti (Ed.), The Translation Studies Reader (3rd ed., pp. 75–83). Routledge. Original essay: Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers.
Berman, Antoine. (1985/2000). Translation and the trials of the foreign. In Lawrence Venuti (Ed.), The Translation Studies Reader (pp. 284–297). Routledge.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. (1960/2013). Truth and Method (Joel Weinsheimer & Donald G. Marshall, Trans.). Bloomsbury Academic.
Geertz, Clifford. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In The Interpretation of Cultures (pp. 3–30). Basic Books.
End of transcript.
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© 2013-2026. CP in Mongolia. “Mongolian Poetry 58: Let Nothing Be Carried Beyond Its Measure” is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions. Posted: 6 July 2026. Last updated: 6 July 2026.