On this very auspicious day of turning the first wheel of Dharma by Lord Buddha (Chokor Duchen), I decide to release this special and profound doha (song of realization) written by His Holiness the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa describing his yearning to meet his Guru Tai Situpa again and again by the blessing of Mother White Tara. It is sung by Guru Vajradhara when he returned back to the residence after the recent surgery.
May everyone be liberated from the suffering of samsara and attain the ultimate happiness and joy by hearing this profound and blessed melody. This is the sincere aspiration of Tenam.
The English translation of the lyrics is taken from the book “Dharma King – The Life of the 16th Gyalwang Karmapa in Images”
The song is ala thala thala.
Ala is the way it arose:
Thala is the way it is expressed in words.In a pure land, rich with turquoise leaves.
On a throne of brilliant, white shell,
Is the deity of long life, the mother Lady Tara.
I pray to her from the depths of my heart.
May there be no obstacles to long lifeIf you do not recognize this place,
It is the Retreat House of Palpung.
If you do not recognize a person like me,
Recall the upper valley of delightful Shukra
And the lower valley of delightful Shukra.In the place between the two Shukras
Is a child who descends from Tshazhang Denma.
lf you call him by name, it is Thubten Gelek.
Not now, but on a distant tomorrow, it will be decided.
Both the vulture and I know where to go.The vulture soars into the depths of space:
We people do not stay but go to India.
In the springtime. a cuckoo comes as a guest.
In the fall when the harvest ripens, it knows where to go:
Its only thought is travel to the east of India.In the lofty land of Tibet, the inhabitants, high and low.
And in particular, you, Tai Situ, the Lord and Protector Maitreya.
Who remains above the crown of our head.
May your activities, like the sun and moon set in space.
Be continuous, stable, and without hindrance.I pray that we meet again and again.
May the three roots — the lamas, yidams, and dakinis —
Protect him from negative conditions and obstacles.
Keep the precise meaning recorded here in the depth of your heart.
༄། །༧རྒྱལ་དབང་ཀརྨ་བཅུ་དྲུག་པས།
། འབྱུང་འགྱུར་ལུང་བསྟན་བྱིན་ཅན་འདི།
།ཆོས་འཁོར་དུས་ཆེན་ཁྱད་པར་ཅན།
།བསྟུན་ཏེ་དཔལ་ལྡན་བླ་མའི་གསུང་།
།མགུར་མའི་ཚུལ་དུ་གནང་བ་འདི།
། ལས་ཅན་ཀུན་གྱི་རྣ་བ་རུ།
། ཐོས་མ་ཐག་ཏུ་རྣམ་མཁྱེན་གྱི།
།གོ་འཕང་ཐོབ་པའི་རྒྱུ་རུ་བསྔོ།
Delighted to read the profound Doha. How great it is for the whole humanity to get an opportunity to come in contact with inspiring Doha . Such compassionate acts of masters will help filling the lives of many who are lucky enough or make efforts to rectify their ways of life towards understanding the Truth of Life.
Thank you very much Lama Tenam for this priceless offering to all beings.Am forever grateful for the Blessings and Teachings received during my stay in a wooden Aframe near Sherab Ling monastery and the years before.
Wishing for the Health and Long Life of H.E. the Tai Situpa Rinpoche with all my heart.
My mother was singing this Doha a few weeks back. She explained that she learned it in Tsurphu while she was visiting HH 16th Gyalwang Karmapa . It must have been 60+ years back !