Wednesday, March 26, 2014

'May Good Fortune Increase' by Gönpo Tenzin and Lhündrub Drakpa

གཞས། བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ། 


Song: May Good Fortune Increase!



གླུ་པ། མགོན་པོ་བསྟན་འཛིན་དང། ལྷུན་གྲུབ་གྲགས་པ༎ 


Singers: Gönpo Tenzin and Lhündrub Drakpa





ཁ་བ་ཅན་གྱི་ཡུལ་ལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Kha wa chen gyi yül la ta shi yar dro la
གཤིས་བྱེས་ལྷན་འཛོམས་ཡོང་བའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Shi chey lhen dzom yong way ta shi yar dro la
ཁ་བ་ཅན་གྱི་ཡུལ་ལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Kha wa chen gyi yül la ta shi yar dro la
གཤིས་བྱེས་ལྷན་འཛོམས་ཡོང་བའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Shi chey lhen dzom yong way ta shi yar dro la

May good fortune increase in the land of snow!
May the good fortune of meeting with those at home and abroad increase!
May good fortune increase in the land of snow!
May the good fortune of meeting with those at home and abroad increase!

ཁྱེད་སྐུ་ཚེ་བརྟན་པའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག།
Khye ku tshey ten pay ta shi shok
ཁྱེད་བསམ་དོན་འགྲུབ་པའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག།
Khye sam dön drub pay ta shi shok
ང་ཡི་བླ་མ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Nga yi la ma ta shi yar dro la

May there be the good fortune of your life remaining firm!
May there be the good fortune of your wishes being fulfilled!
O my lama, may good fortune increase!

ང་ཚོ་བོད་པ་ཚང་ལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Nga tso phö pa tshang la ta shi yar dro la
གོང་ས་སྐྱབས་མགོན་བླ་མ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Kong sa kyab gön la ma ta shi yar dro la
ང་ཚོ་བོད་པ་ཚང་ལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Nga tso phö pa tsang la ta shi yar dro la
གོང་ས་སྐྱབས་མགོན་བླ་མ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Kong sa kyab gön la ma ta shi yar dro la

May good fortune for all of us Tibetans increase!
May good fortune for the supreme refuge, [H.H. the Dalai Lama] increase.
May good fortune for all of us Tibetans increase!
May good fortune for the supreme refuge, [H.H. the Dalai Lama] increase.

ཁྱེད་སྐུ་ཚེ་བརྟན་པའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག།
Khye ku tshey ten pay ta shi shok
ཁྱེད་བསམ་དོན་འགྲུབ་པའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག།
Khey sam dön drub pay ta shi shok
ཁ་བ་ཅན་ལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Kha wa chen la ta shi yar dro la

May there be the good fortune of your life remaining firm!
May there be the good fortune of your wishes being fulfilled!
May good fortune for the land of snows increase!

ཕ་ཡུལ་ནགས་ཤོད་ལུང་པ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Pha yül nak shö lung pa ta shi yar dro la
རི་རྒྱལ་ནགས་ལྷ་ཛམ་བྷ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Ri gyel nak lha dzam bha ta shi yar dro la
ཕ་ཡུལ་ནགས་ཤོད་ལུང་པ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Pha yül nak shö lung pa ta shi yar dro la
རི་རྒྱལ་ནགས་ལྷ་ཛམ་བྷ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Ri gyel nak lha dzam bha ta shi yar dro la

May good fortune for my fatherland, the country of the lowland forests increase!
May the good fortune of lord Dzambhala on Mt. Meru increase!
May good fortune for my fatherland, the country of the lowland forests increase!
May the good fortune of lord Dzambhala on Mt. Meru increase!

ཁྱེད་ཡུན་དུ་གནས་པའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག།
Khye yün tu ney pay ta shi shok
ཁྱེད་གུད་ཆག་མེད་པའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག།
Khye gü chag mey pay ta shi shok
ང་ཡི་རྒྱབ་རི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Nga yi gyab ri ta shi yar dro la

May there be the good fortune of you remaining for a long time!
May there be the good fortune that you suffer no decline!
O my mountain, may good fortune increase!

ཕ་ཡུལ་འབྲི་ལྗོངས་ཕྱུག་མོ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Pha yül dri jong chug mo ta shi yar dro la
གནས་ཆེན་ཤེལ་དཀར་འབུམ་པ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Ney chen shel kar bum pa ta shi yar dro la
ཕ་ཡུལ་འབྲི་ལྗོངས་ཕྱུག་མོ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Pha yül dri jong chug mo ta shi yar dro la
གནས་ཆེན་ཤེལ་དཀར་འབུམ་པ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Ney chen shel kar bum pa ta shi yar dro la

May the good fortune of abundance for my fatherland, the yak country increase!
May good fortune for the great abode, the white crystal stupa increase!
May the good fortune of abundance for my fatherland, the yak country increase!
May good fortune for the great abode, the white crystal stupa increase!

ཆོས་བསྟན་པ་དར་བའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག།
Chö ten pa dar way ta shi shok
ལས་སྡིག་སྒྲིབ་དག་པའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག།
Ley dig drib dak pay ta shi shok
ཕ་ཡུལ་འབྲི་ལྗོངས་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Pha yül dri jong ta shi yar dro la

May there be the good fortune that the teachings of the dharma spread!
May there be the good fortune that obscuring karma and evil deeds are purified!
May the good fortune of abundance for my fatherland, the yak country increase!

ཕ་ཡུལ་གངས་ལྗོངས་ལུང་པ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Pha yül kang jong lung pa ta shi yar dro la
ཆོལ་གསུམ་གྱི་སྤུན་ཟླ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Chöl sum gi pün da ta shi yar dro la
ཕ་ཡུལ་གངས་ལྗོངས་ལུང་པ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Pha yül kang jong lung pa ta shi yar dro la
ཆོལ་གསུམ་གྱི་སྤུན་ཟླ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Chöl sum gi pün da ta shi yar dro la

May the good fortune of my fatherland the snowland increase!
May the good fortune of the family of the three provinces increase!
May the good fortune of my fatherland the snowland increase!
May the good fortune of the family of the three provinces increase!


དུས་གཅིག་ཏུ་འཛོམས་པའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག།
Tü chig tu dzom pay ta shi shok
ལས་རླུང་རྟ་དར་བའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག།
Ley lung ta dar way ta shi shok
ང་ཡི་སྤུན་ཟླ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཡར་འགྲོ་ལ༎
Nga yi pün da ta shi yar dro la
གྲོགས་པོ་ལགས།
Trok po la

May there be the good fortune that we meet all at once!
May there be the good fortune that positive circumstances abound!
My family, may good fortune increase!
O friends!

Note: Just a couple of things to mention here for this tune. The main theme of this song is obviously
བཀྲ་ཤིས་ "tashi", which some of you may recognize from the Tibetan greeting བཀྲ་ཤིས་ "Tashi delek"; I have here translated it as "good fortune", but it is usually translated as "auspiciousness". The only issue this created was with the line ལས་རླུང་རྟ་དར་བའི་བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཤོག། where the phrase རླུང་རྟ་ "lung ta" (lit. "Wind horse") refers to "good fortune" or "good luck". So I decided to translate it as "positive circumstances" since the phrase was also accompanied by the term ལས་ "ley" for karma (probably positive karma in this sense); I felt this avoided the reduncancy that translating it otherwise would have probably created. Another interesting thing to note is the term འབྲི་ "dri" which is a female yak, but I have translated here as just plain old "yak", which of course refers to a male yak in Tibetan; since a yak is a yak in English I have no choice but to translate it as such--translating it as "female yak" would also sound too awkward in the translation. So just don't ever tell a Tibetan that you want to milk a yak! One more very interesting and important phrase is གོང་ས་སྐྱབས་མགོན་བླ་མ་ "kongsa kyab gön lama", which is an epithet for H.H. the Dalai Lama, kongsa refers to the fact that he resides on the higher (kong) bodhisattva bhumis (sa); kyabgön means refuge (kyab) and protector (gön); and of course we all know that lama refers to a spiritual master, the equivalent of the sanskrit term guru. Of course it would be an amazing feat to work that into the actual translation, but at least knowing that that is what they are saying is sufficient (the Tibetan names for His Holiness are, in my opinion, very beautiful and profound and I wish we would adopt/adapt some of them for us Western Buddhists). It's also important to note that as this song/video seems to have been produced in Tibet/China, the Chinese government knows what this term refers too and so these too are likely in prison or at a re-education camp for mentioning it. I've even read that the simple term ཆོལ་གསུམ "chöl sum" ("Three provinces"; referring to Utsang, Kham, and Amdo and also used in this song) is a politically sensitive word and the Chinese government does not appreciate its use. This is why I have such great admiration for Tibetan singers, because they risk so much just to express their loyalty and love for their own country, people, and faith, and even so much as wishing good fortune for these things could place them in detention for who knows how long.

May good fortune increase!


-Sherab

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