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The Lion's Roar of a Yogi-Poet: The Great Song of Experience of Jetsun Dragpa Gyaltsen
An exultant song of realization by one of Tibet’s greatest yogis, explained and elaborated upon by a beloved contemporary Tibetan teacher.
Jetsun Rinpoche Dragpa Gyaltsen (1147–1216)—revered as one of Tibet’s greatest yogis and one of the founding figures of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism—composed his Great Song of Experience as a way to distill and communicate the essence of the Buddhist path to enlightenment. Shimmering with double meanings, seeming tautologies, and ribald references, Dragpa Gyalsten’s verses resound with insights thrown out like bolts of “When mind itself is comprehended, that is Buddha; do not seek elsewhere for the Buddha!”
Beloved teacher Lama Migmar Tseten’s newly updated translation of Dragpa Gyeltsen’s Great Song brings these verses to life with a clarity and immediacy that belies the underlying challenge that these verses pose to our ordinary ways of thinking and being.
In his extensive verse-by-verse commentary, Lama Migmar unravels Dragpa Gyaltsen’s terse, enigmatic verses with clarity and humor, bringing Rinpoche’s ecstatic realization and pointed insights into conversation with twenty-first-century concerns, showing how the experiential teachings of a twelfth-century Tibetan yogi can help us understand and counteract the modern pressures of wanton consumerism, greed and inequality, isolation and loneliness, and environmental degradation. Lama Migmar’s insightful commentary opens the door to the radical vision presented by Dragpa Gyalsten’s poetic teachings, showing us a view of the mind without center or limits, as bright as the sun, and clear and open as space.
In addition to Lama Migmar’s extensive verse-by-verse commentary, the book includes facing-page English and Tibetan editions of the root text of Great Song of Experience , and the laudatory poem Praise to Jetsun Rinpoche Dragpa Gyaltsen by Dragpa Gyaltsen’s nephew and student, the great Sakya Pandita (1182–1251).
Jetsun Rinpoche Dragpa Gyaltsen (1147–1216)—revered as one of Tibet’s greatest yogis and one of the founding figures of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism—composed his Great Song of Experience as a way to distill and communicate the essence of the Buddhist path to enlightenment. Shimmering with double meanings, seeming tautologies, and ribald references, Dragpa Gyalsten’s verses resound with insights thrown out like bolts of “When mind itself is comprehended, that is Buddha; do not seek elsewhere for the Buddha!”
Beloved teacher Lama Migmar Tseten’s newly updated translation of Dragpa Gyeltsen’s Great Song brings these verses to life with a clarity and immediacy that belies the underlying challenge that these verses pose to our ordinary ways of thinking and being.
In his extensive verse-by-verse commentary, Lama Migmar unravels Dragpa Gyaltsen’s terse, enigmatic verses with clarity and humor, bringing Rinpoche’s ecstatic realization and pointed insights into conversation with twenty-first-century concerns, showing how the experiential teachings of a twelfth-century Tibetan yogi can help us understand and counteract the modern pressures of wanton consumerism, greed and inequality, isolation and loneliness, and environmental degradation. Lama Migmar’s insightful commentary opens the door to the radical vision presented by Dragpa Gyalsten’s poetic teachings, showing us a view of the mind without center or limits, as bright as the sun, and clear and open as space.
In addition to Lama Migmar’s extensive verse-by-verse commentary, the book includes facing-page English and Tibetan editions of the root text of Great Song of Experience , and the laudatory poem Praise to Jetsun Rinpoche Dragpa Gyaltsen by Dragpa Gyaltsen’s nephew and student, the great Sakya Pandita (1182–1251).
- GenresBuddhism
408 pages, Paperback
Published August 27, 2024
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 7, 2026
The root text of this work is a song of realization by the twelfth-century Sakya master Jetsun Rinpoche Dragpa Gyaltsen, an accomplished yogi and one of the teachers of Sakya Pandita. Sometimes referred to as a doha, this beautiful collection of verses brings across the taste of nondual awareness from the standpoint of high realization. In that, it is exceedingly effective. In one collection of verses, for example, Rinpoche describes a variety of phenomena that only appear in terms of one another, asking of each pair, which arises first:
In the non-arising nature,
if there is no creation by conditions,
which is first, cause or result?
In the original purity of mind itself,
if both conceptuality and wisdom do not exist,
which is first: the Buddha or sentient beings?
These verses bring the mind back to the point of bifurcation of dichotomous concepts, illuminating the degree to which, for example, not only our concepts of cause and effect, but causes and effects themselves, can only be posited in mutual dependence. This suggestively pulls the reader into the nondual state, or at least leaves a trail of breadcrumbs to help us to find our way into the clear field from which the author is speaking.
Unfortunately - and this is my chief criticism of the book - readers have to deduce some of this for themselves, because, although the text speaks from a very high level of realization, the extensive commentary provided by Khenpo Migmar Tseten engages with the work at a somewhat superficial level. In the case we're disccusing here, he explains these statements merely as expressions of the conventional and ultimate levels of truth, reassuring the reader that although it may appear paradoxical, they can be understood in harmony. That may be true, but where the reader needs more help is understanding the deeper purpose that is at work here, the way in which this text is edifying, not merely reflective of some particular doctrine.
It's baffling to me why Khenpo Tseten wrote his commentary for an entry-level audience - if his purpose was to provide an overview of the path for beginners, he chose a strange text to use as a framework. This is not a work for beginners, and trying to explain the pinnacle of the view in terms that newcomers will find congenial at times occludes the clearly-intended meaning of the author, sanding down the thorny, difficult, and paradoxical statements into easily-comprehensible terms. But this is to de-fang the serpent, as it were, and I think he should have had a little more confidence that the right people in the audience would respond to this material in its own terms. If Dragpa Gyaltsen had wished to express himself in the manner of the commentary, he would have done so.
I think the commentary is not very good, and the translation is sometimes over-literal in a way that makes it a bit difficult to grasp the meaning. But the root text is so extremely wonderful that I still highly recommend this work.
In the non-arising nature,
if there is no creation by conditions,
which is first, cause or result?
In the original purity of mind itself,
if both conceptuality and wisdom do not exist,
which is first: the Buddha or sentient beings?
These verses bring the mind back to the point of bifurcation of dichotomous concepts, illuminating the degree to which, for example, not only our concepts of cause and effect, but causes and effects themselves, can only be posited in mutual dependence. This suggestively pulls the reader into the nondual state, or at least leaves a trail of breadcrumbs to help us to find our way into the clear field from which the author is speaking.
Unfortunately - and this is my chief criticism of the book - readers have to deduce some of this for themselves, because, although the text speaks from a very high level of realization, the extensive commentary provided by Khenpo Migmar Tseten engages with the work at a somewhat superficial level. In the case we're disccusing here, he explains these statements merely as expressions of the conventional and ultimate levels of truth, reassuring the reader that although it may appear paradoxical, they can be understood in harmony. That may be true, but where the reader needs more help is understanding the deeper purpose that is at work here, the way in which this text is edifying, not merely reflective of some particular doctrine.
It's baffling to me why Khenpo Tseten wrote his commentary for an entry-level audience - if his purpose was to provide an overview of the path for beginners, he chose a strange text to use as a framework. This is not a work for beginners, and trying to explain the pinnacle of the view in terms that newcomers will find congenial at times occludes the clearly-intended meaning of the author, sanding down the thorny, difficult, and paradoxical statements into easily-comprehensible terms. But this is to de-fang the serpent, as it were, and I think he should have had a little more confidence that the right people in the audience would respond to this material in its own terms. If Dragpa Gyaltsen had wished to express himself in the manner of the commentary, he would have done so.
I think the commentary is not very good, and the translation is sometimes over-literal in a way that makes it a bit difficult to grasp the meaning. But the root text is so extremely wonderful that I still highly recommend this work.
Displaying 1 of 1 review