A Battle between Time and Beauty

None on this earth owns what one has 

But time takes rightful ownership over it

Time lends it's beauty, they just borrow it

No one is willing to give it back though 

But time claims its beauty back from them

Lot they struggle still to defend from it

Yet it robs them of beauty little by little

A battle takes whole length of the life

Time is a well-sharpened ploughshare 

It ploughs up your beauty field bit by bit 

It then leaves behind many uneven tracks

Though nothing grows new to glow again 

It now turns into barren land of unwelcoming 

Now time wins the long battle over them

No more can one be hold out from it

But it wrecks them to shatter completely

The Unfaithful Mind

Where the unfaithful mind exists, shall faithfulness dwells?

Tarred by stained thoughts, rusted by ill intention

The unfaithfulness pays no rent in the house of tainted mind

What falsehood is wrapped in the beautiful superficial cover?

Neither can shady mind speak truth to oneself nor to others

It offers no place for honesty and integrity to occupy

Shall unfaithfulness thrives, the nation suffers to survive

And jeopardizes the society and cripples the family

Shall it takes roots, stem of selfishness grows wildly

And bears bitter fruits which poisons the consumers

Let it go extinct from those who bear this disloyal mind

And let the faithfulness resides in the devoted mind

The Four Seasons

   The Four Seasons

The motherly earth is the table of birthday

Where the pristine nature has framed within it

The juvenile halcyon spring starts embroidering it

And the sheet of cloud as the ship of sky sailed

Across the sea of sky and sheds its tears down

To quench the long thirst with greater hopes

Through azure sky blazes an eyne of heaven

Where the creatures hide under cool canopy

And lie on the wave of carpeted green grass

From an inviting home of wild thyme

The flying creatures played their own flute and

Breathe an aromatic spray from  its pouncet-box

When the last reap of contentment is over

The crunchy leaves crashed on the crispy ground

Now turns into pale yellow and fallen sick

Though brief length the death of autumn is

Its beauty never dies but it’s the temporary sleep

For it has enveloped in the seeds of autumn.

Too short a day is when one wishes the sun back

Its ebony body undresses the cloths, and shiver

When the snow crowned the high peaks

Everyone hide in hide, high and low, heat is need

This change of nature’s beauty engrave the best picture

And it remains in this museum of immortal words

༆འབྲུག་གི་གཙུག་ནོར་དམ་པ་དཔལ་མི་དབང་འཇིགས་མེད་སཻངྒ་རྒྱལ་དབང་ཕྱུག་མཆོག་ལུ་བསྔགས་པར་བརྫོད་པའི་གླུ་དབྱངས།

གདུང་རབས་གཏེར་ཆེན་པད་གླིང་རུས་ཀྱི་བརྒྱུད།།

མཁས་གྲུབ་ཀུན་དགའ་དབང་པོའི་རིགས་བཟང་ལས།།

རིམ་གྱི་བྱུང་བའི་དབང་ཕྱུག་རྒྱལ་བརྒྱུད་རྣམས།།

བསྐལ་བཟང་ཉི་མ་མུན་པའི་ས་གཞི་བཅོམ།།

ཕྱོགས་སོའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་རྒྱལ་ཁྲིར་ཧབ་ཐོབ་བརྐྱབ།།

བདུད་རྒྱལ་ཆོས་རྒྱལ་དཔའ་བོའི་ཟིལ་གྱི་གནོན།།

མཐའ་མེད་སྙིང་རྗེ་སྐྱོང་བའི་ཁ་བཞིའི་མགོན།།

བཀའ་ཁྲིམས་བཙན་པོས་ཐུགས་ཀྱི་དགོངས་ལས་འཁྲུངས།།

མཛད་འཕྲིན་ལྷག་པར་དར་ཞིང་རྒྱས་པའི་དུས།།

འབངས་དོན་ཉིན་མཚན་སྐུ་སྲོག་གཏོང་ནུས་པའི།།

རིན་ཆེན་ནོར་བུ་མངའ་བདག་བླ་ན་མེད།།

བདེ་བར་བཀོད་མཛད་མིའི་རྗེས་སུ་འདྲེན།།

འགྲོ་རྣམས་ཁ་རྗེ་བསོད་ནམས་དཔག་མེད་པའི།།

འཁྲུངས་པའི་སྟོབས་ཅན་རྒྱལ་པོ་མཁས་འཛངས་ཅན།།

སྐུ་གསུངས་ཐུགས་ལ་འཇིག་མེད་ཞབས་པས་བརྟན།།

མཆོག་གསུམ་བདག་གི་སྨོན་ལམ་གུས་ཕྱག་འཚལ།།

Tribute to His Majesty the 4^th King of Bhutan

From the great blood of Peling’s nobility, the revealer of treasures,

And in line of the lineage of great learned Kuenga Wangpo,

Entailed the power of Wangchuck Dynasty in periodic succession

Then the sun of the heydays eclipsed those sphere of dark land

While the chiefs of regions raced to the throne in pandemonium

The gallant power of true dharma king had quelled the despotic rulers

The lord of the land emerge to rule with compassion in no bound

Grew from his heart is the law of steadfastness

From which all works of hopes and vision leaps in greater satisfaction

And for the sake of citizens sacrifices his breath in ageless day and night

None other else is tantamount to this precious gem, the king of the people

To whom the subjects reminisce over the peace brought to them

So, to the inexhaustible merits of the beings

Born an insightful polymath, the great king

With no impairments in body, speech and mind; may He live long

So, to the Triple Gem, I bow to pay my profound prayer 

Why must a child go to school?

Much to my amazement, one of my students wrote to me; “Sir, why are we going to school?” I smiled reading her weighty question. Her question of wanting to know about her purpose of going to school really fascinated me. It was so sensing that it indeed absorbed me deeply. To her response, I instantly wrote her back in a simple sentence; “the purpose of you going to school is not to prepare you for job but to mould you to become a better human being”. If every young learner has such kind of thinking, we would never fail in building them as the productive citizen. So, I am sharing my thoughts on what it is to me the purpose of children going to school.

School is the learning temple. The classroom is the learning temple. As soon as you enter into the school gate, you have entered into the soul of learning temple which is full of enlightening experiences. School is the place where you discover the treasures of knowledge. School is the source of knowledge where you seek to attain self-realization and self-actualization. All in all, it is the finding of purpose of life.

Every moment in school is full of discovery and full of learning new things. School is so learning in nature, so exploring, so transforming, so building, so entertaining and so rewarding. Such are the elemental qualities which makes school a great place. That is the wonder of school, so is the life of young enthusiastic learners. 

The wonder of the human life is made by the wonder of human mind. One of the wonders of human mind is that it keeps on transforming. However, mind can either destroy or build your personalities. If your mind is not taking care of itself, it is so devastating that it can even destroy the whole world. Your mind is an architect of your own self. It can either build you higher up or collapse you down. Here, education is the answer. Education transforms your mind positively.

Education metamorphoses our mind positively to become a better human being with high moral qualities. In school, we bring you from the periphery to the center of learning. Putting you to the center of learning helps in laying your cornerstone or foundation upon which you build your life. To lay bedrocks, school constantly nourishes your brain. And the sources of nourishments are teachers, books, friends and environment. That would construct a mind which ultimately translate productive mind into productive citizen. 

 

Crafted in the golden ink and sanctified in the sacred album is my humble prayer to the Crown Prince

The People’s Prince

The breaking of dawn is what we yearned long for

Upon the ripening of fiery merits of the beings

Descends the heavenly Prince on the land of Drukyul

And promised unending existence of Wangchuck Dynasty

Waiting for you is the longing golden throne

Craving for you is the majestic raven crown

For the welcoming salutation of the Prince

I joined all beings heartily for the grand reception

I call on all Gods from up in the heaven

I call on all Nagas from down in the earth

I call on all Guardian deities of Pelden Drukpa

I call on all Drukpas on this hallowed birth of Prince

This peerless birth of divine Royal Crown Prince

Is of supreme being, paramount age and place

Manifested in him is his charismatic cakravartin

From which stems the truth of superlative facets

Outwardly, He is inimitable conquering kingly lion

Inwardly, He is of supreme matchless thoughts

Secretly, He is an unequaled visionary deviser

For the continuous existence of sovereignty and dharma

May He turn the wheel of the two traditions

May He reign the land out of His boundless compassion

May He bring peace out of His fearless heart

May He bring prosperity out of His enormous wisdom

May we be the victors of all adversaries of all time

May the illness of war, diseases, famine and catastrophe appease

May He not suffer from impairment of Body, Speech and Mind

With great prayers, I bow with profound reverence to the Triple Gem.

Re-posting what I penned down during the 10th convocation, 2015

Translation of His Majesty’s address at the 10^th convocation of Royal University of Bhutan, Royal Thimphu College, Feb 25^th, 2015

 

His Majesty the King unfolded his speech by telling a wisecrack joke on how to make a good kewa datshi (the popular Bhutanese dish). It has inner meaning metaphorically touched on how to build oneself the best to build one’s nation. Making a good kewa datshi, HM said, is not of such an easy thing if its taste is to be very delicious. To be it of tasty, one has to know what ingredients have to add and of how much quantity one must add. HM said that only with the right proportion of salt, water and other ingredients, and  knowing of how long to keep it in heat make a good kewa datshi, while too little of salt or too much of water or shortage of any one of the ingredients would make your taste of kewa datshi unpleasant. The ultimate message that His Majesty wants to convey us was not of how to make a good kewa datshi but to make oneself the best for the best of the nation. So, any shortcoming or being stay missed out in doing of one’s work would have serious repercussion in quality of the output.

His Majesty said that there are three points to be kept in mind: we are the custodians of our rich cultural heritage, we are the guardians of peace and stability, and our capability is must which can invariably mould the future of the nation. His Majesty said that the nation’s rich cultural heritage is indispensable in identifying who we are. Our forefathers in the past had safeguarded our cultural ethos and proudly handed over us with no any homogenization in it. “So, something which is build over the decades is easy to let it wear off in no time if there is no constant care for it. Therefore, it is our duty to constantly cherish, preserve and pass it down successfully to the future generations,” His Majesty said.

His Majesty said that unity is the strength of our country. “There must not be any social polarization or fragmentation of this little country which is wrapped from the north by the giant China and India in south. So, stabilization of unity is critical for our survival which must come through common goal and purposes catalyzed by non-separation and non-differentiation of thoughts between the people by region, race, political parties etc”.

 His Majesty said that we are always talking about the future. What we expect it to be like, it depends on our capability. “Your capability would invariably mould the future of the country,” His Majesty said. “Our capability at the present tells us how our future would be like. There is no future as such; the quality of what we are doing now is the quality of the future. If the quality of what we are doing now is the best, so is the future. If the quality of what we are doing now is just satisfactory, the future is going to be no different than this”.

His Majesty had also addressed on how to take advantage of smallness of our country and smallness of the population. His Majesty said that the big countries in the world are relatively wealthier than us in terms of economic strength but their problems are also equivalent to that amount which is challenged by the oversized population. So, they took longer time in making decision delayed by what is so-called deadlock because of divergent views voiced with different ideology and ideas. That’s how they couldn’t reach to common decision and agreement early at the cusp of one thought. “But unlike them, not Bhutan though. What others can do in a year is a work of a month for us and when others can achieve in a month we can achieve in a week”, His Majesty said. “Our smallness of the nation has given us an edge with greater momentum in gearing up for finding solutions in overcoming the various problems, steering the changes of the surrounding and be more expeditious in what is to be executed. That’s the advantage of our smallness of the nation”.

“Some of the large nations in the world are difficult to govern which are challenged by demographic explosion and unmanageable geographic patterns and boundary”, His Majesty said. “So, bad planning, inefficiency and failure of timely implementations of the plans are the problems associated with the bigger countries that we cannot afford to have in our little country because we do not have prompt answers and urgent solutions due to limited resources. We cannot simply disregard those problems blatantly because this would cost our country far dearer in the future if we don’t prepare to counteract the likelihood of the unforeseen problems”. 

His Majesty said that the present moment of our time changes overnight; what is remained for lifetime in the past is changing instantly in no moment today. “However, what is to be kept in mind is that this brings us various opportunities and associated problems too. So, we cannot afford to stay complacent but have to extraordinarily work hard to shoulder the greater responsibilities”. “I think the route we are heading would likely be an uphill climb,” His Majesty said. “However, no problem seems insurmountable if we find for solution and work with our collective effort. There is nothing we cannot achieve”.

His Majesty said that the greatest resource for us is our people. “We do not have gold or oil but what we have is our people. Our people are our wealth. If we invest well in building human resource however much it costs we would never find ourselves mislead into something”. “Even if we are in shortage of numbers, we must make up in ability and talents,” His Majesty said.

“When I became King, I made a strong promise to work determinedly in the service of the country and my people. And I take that vow seriously,” His Majesty said.

“So, seeing you all here I am proud of you all and it is the result of your great achievement of the years of education that brought you here today. We will begin our work together and end it together successfully to write a successful story of the nation,” His Majesty said.

Apology for my loose translation.  

Thanks for reading

 

There is a bloom of summer in the midst of crispy winter

There is a bloom of summer in the midst of crispy winter.

Throughout the four seasons, flamboyantly you stand out.

Too harsh is the winter though, indissoluble are you for it.

Never can spring’s windstorm do shake you drop you down,

Nor you would fall on the ground in the fall of the year.

The fairest of you outshines the bright petals of the summer.

So the darling bees, butterflies and birds become oversight,

And towards you they flew in thrilling moment of ecstasy,

Suddenly they perch on you and think it was not you.

Hovering over you by tuning their own woodwinds

To suck the nectar and, do breathe the sweet odour.

This ceaseless brightest part of year is there in all days,

And you change the season of all places you are therein.

For lasting existence of this summer in aeon of life,

These lines take on as the custodians of fairness you own.

Never can anybody or time steal your possession of beauty.

Fear not of death, old age and sickness, for it consumes you not

Because you shall remain forever unharmed young in these lines.