Been Serving Leniently, Have You?

Fixing the Peacock Pedestal at Swayambhu Nath
('Phags-pa Shing-kun, Spring 2011)

I spent some time in Nepal at the IBA this Spring reading through a Sakya commentary on the famous 12th-century work, the Mind Training in Seven Topics (Blo-sbyong Don-bdun-ma) by Chekhawa (Mchad-kha-ba). Of course, being that old, the root text is full of those outdated ‘old vocabulary’ items that Tibetans call da-nying (brda’-rnying), which may at times make the reading a little difficult, even if it was quite simple language for people living then. But one line in particular has often been translated so badly it is hard to even begin...  “Do not serve the central object leniently.”

Here’s the line in Wylie:

gzhung bzang po ma bsten /




Now the same in real Tibetan letters:


གཞུང་བཟང་པོ་མ་བསྟེན།

The main sticking point here is the expression gzhung bzang-po, not found in many dictionaries.* You might want to understand the gzhung to mean a governing center, a capital city, a main textbook for a particular subject, or the like. But when you say that a person has a good gzhung you are referring to her or his long-term character in conjunction with behavior, I think something very like what we mean by integrity in English. In modern Tibetan gzhung bzang seems to be a near-equivalent to gzhung drang, which might mean an ‘honest core,’ which again suggests the English word integrity. Some more recent translators of the Seven Topics have opted for loyalty, which might also work. Others translate as consistency or sense of duty (I’ll have to look more into this and think about it some more; I’m not pretending to cover the whole range of possible translation choices). These other translations aren’t necessarily less right, let alone wrong. I’m not sure enough to pass judgment on them. But yes, choosing one over the other does make a difference in the meaning. 

(*Try the Dag yig gsar bsgrigs [reprinted at least eleven times since 1989], part 5 of the entry for gzhung on pp. 680-681, where gzhung is defined as mi'i rang gshis dang kun spyod kyi ming ste : mi gzhung bzang / khrel gzhung can / mi gzhung drang zhes pa lta bu.)

What I am sure of is that not serving the central object leniently is very, very misleading. To then go on and make a commentary on the English as if it made any sense at all, is wrong on an even deeper level. It simply compounds the error. But then for later translators to simply copy it, or pretend to improve on it by shifting the wording toward a meaning they prefer, is mind-bendingly deceptive for both the translator and the translation consumer. Both we the translators and they the consumers deserve better. 

To translate the commentary passage written by the famous Khampa scholar Ngagga (or Ngogga):

gzhung bzang po ma bsten / zhes pa ni / pha rol pos rang la gnod par byas pa 'khon du bzung nas 'khon 'dzin de las nam yang mi ldog pa / dper na 'jig rten pa'i mi gzhung bzang po can des dus tshod ji tsam song yang rang la ltos pa mi brjed pa dang 'dra bas 'khon 'dzin spangs la ma bsten pa / gnod pa'i lan du slar yang phan 'dogs pa'i bsam sbyor dang ldan par bya'o //

“When the opposing party has done something to injure you that resulted in your holding a grudge against them there is no way you will ever get out of the feuding that will result from it. To give an example, a worldly person who is regarded as one with integrity, no matter how much time has gone by, will never forget his obligations. Therefore give up feuding and don’t make use of it. Rather, in response to injury you must time and again react with good plans about how you can help the other person.”

I imagine that most persons who have sadly found themselves seriously under-exposed to the logic of Lojong won't understand the more subtle point of this commentary, but rather imagine they see a contradiction in it, ‘How can the person of integrity who repays good deeds be used as an example that applies to a person who holds a grudge?’

It’s saying that the person who has harmed you has done you a great favor that needs to be repaid if you are (in fact) a person of good character, and not just what this-world-lings regard as a person of good character. (If you didn’t follow the reasoning here, try reading the commentary again more slowly, or explore its context.)


Lojong is sustained, and even made to thrive, under negative circumstances (rkyen ngan). Its serious practitioners (not those who proudly proclaim themselves practitioners) are beholden to the people who contribute to their attempts to realize non-self, since the bad things done to them serve as expedients on the Path to Enlightenment (lam 'khyer).*

(*One response often heard from the incredulous this-world-ling who first hears about Lojong is, ‘Impossible! This is just inviting people to walk on you!’ While in a sense true, bear in mind that Lojong practitioners are not supposed to let other people know they are practicing it, so it isn't as if they are tempting fate and saying, ‘Go ahead. Come and get me. Give it your best shot!’  Also, they aren’t masochists who seek ego gratification from provoking their own suffering. Everyday life presents ample opportunities. I doubt the truth of this requires much reflection.)

Now when we look back at the root verse and read, perhaps in a new way, the line “Don't make use of a good character,” we are forced to rethink it.


It’s actually telling you not to hold grudges, isn’t it?

There is no contradiction. Still, your understanding heads in one direction, then the other, and back again...  Perhaps the theory that translation is impossible is attempting to prove itself true. Perhaps its very falsehood proves its truth?

Sun setting above Nagarjun Hill
(Glang-ru Lung-bstan-pa)

Here is one of the coolest and most fun Tibetan Buddhism websites ever. No joke! One student told me about it, but it was too difficult for me to access in Nepal. It allows you to instantly compare seven different translations of the Seven Point Mind Training. Go here and try it for yourself. If you want to go directly to this particular line, try pressing here once or twice. Once there, wave your mouse over the seven boxed letters next to the following words "Do not serve the central object leniently." By doing this you will quickly see seven different translations for the line flash in front of your eyes one right after the other. Now try it with some of the other lines and see how consistent (or not) the translations are with each other. One thing you might discover to your amazement is that often people seem to have worked on the English translations that have already been done in the past rather than approaching the Tibetan freshly. This is a shame. But I suppose we are all guilty of it in some degree since our ‘readings’ of the Tibetan texts may be consciously or unconsciously affected by our past readings of translations. I know it has happened to me.


Khenpo Appey (Mkhan-po A-pad Rin-po-che), Blo syong don bdun ma'i bka' khrid, a pamphlet published in Nepal in 45 pages, distributed free of charge, with the date given in the Tibetan Royal era year of 2137, which would correspond to 2010 CE.  On p. 25, you may read what he has to say about our line:

gzhung bzang po ma bsten / ces dper na mi gshis ka bzang po zhig yin na rang la phan btags pa de ga dus yin kyang mi brjed pa sems la nyar sdod kyi red / de bzhin du gnod pa byas pa de 'khon du bzung nas ga dus yang ma brjed par sems kyi nang du nyar sdod kyi red / de lta bu gzhung yun ring du ma bzung zhes pa'i don red //

Khenpo Ngagga (Mkhan-po Ngag-dga’ — the colophon names him as Mkhyen-rab-blo-ldan), Blo sbyong don bdun ma'i rtsa ba'i 'bru 'grel skal bzang rkang drug rol ba'i pad tshal, an unpublished pamphlet based on a computer printout (this might have appeared in a Manduwala 1985 publication that I haven’t seen yet). The author and the late Ven. Khenpo Appey were contemporaries, well known to each other, both being disciples of Ajam Rinpoche.

Chekhawa’s work is certainly to be counted in the handful of Tibetan texts that might be described as most translated, together with the Love Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama. Practically every last Tibetan Buddhologist has tried their hand at it, although not quite every attempt resulted in a major Snow Lion or Wisdom publication. I think the interest could be explained in several ways. One is that it is a very popular teaching text employed by Tibetan Buddhist teachers wherever they might be and regardless of their tradition. Another is just the high level of psychological insight it displays, something you appreciate more and more each time you go back to it. How can a text so simply (in its times) and abruptly stated contain such sophisticated understandings of the ways the human mind works? By being so old it defies evolution and makes us consider the possibility that here, at least, intelligent design has been at work.

Note: I used this font converter page to make the unicode Tibetan script out of Wylie input. You can use it, too, especially if Wylie creates obstacles for your reading comprehension.




One alternative text that I located in the Blo sbyong brgya rtsa has the different reading gzhung bzang mi bsten, which I'm tempted to translate — ‘Not all that literally!’ you may object — as ‘Good character (or integrity) isn’t going to cut it.’




Of late Tibetan Buddhists have begun to catch the fever of Translation Studies, which has long been playing in various academic realms. This goes along with huge plans, recently evolving onto a grandiose scale, to translate the entirety of the Tibetan-language Kanjur and Tanjur collections into English, on which we’ll talk some other time, OK?