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· Poems Gendun Choephel – am

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Angry Monk

Poems of Gendun Choephel

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On British colonialism
Calcutta 1941

Sponsored by kings and ministers
the colonialists sent out
a great army of bandits,
calling them traders.

They introduced
new forms of living,
but their laws
were only good
for the educated and wealthy.

As for the poor,
their small livelihoods
are sucked like blood
from all their orifices.

It is in this way
that the so-called wonders
of the world were built,
such as railroads and high buildings.

I am an astute beggar,
who spent his life listening.
I know what I’m talking about.

From his Notebook
Tibet 1946

In Tibet
Everything that is old
Is a work of Buddha
And everything that is new
Is a work of the Devil
This is the sad tradition of our country

The World is flat
Tibet Mirror Press, 1938

In olden days,
even in Europe,
the world was thought to be flat.

And when some intelligent people
claimed the opposite,
they were exposed to various difficulties,
such as being burnt alive.

Today, even in Buddhist countries
everybody knows,
that the world is round.

However in Tibet,
we still stubbornly state
that the world is flat.

Foreword of his Kamasutra translation
Calcutta 1939

As for me
I have little shame
I love women.

Every man has a woman
Every woman has a man
Both in their mind
Desire sexual union

What chance is the for clean behaviour?
If natural passions are openly banned
Unnatural passions will grow in secrecy

No law of religion
No law of morality
Can suppress the natural passion of mankind

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Gendun Choephel’s Poems
translated by Donald Lopez Jr.
(University of Chicago Press)

Gendun Choephel, 1940’s

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