Reading the Eight Verses in Tibetan

A word-by-word guide to བློ་སྦྱོང་ཚིག་བརྒྱད་མ། — the Eight Verses of Training the Mind by Geshe Langri Tangpa. Learn the vocabulary, and learn how to take a Tibetan sentence apart.

This site assumes you know nothing about Tibetan grammar and nothing about grammar terminology. Every technical word — ablative, nominalizer, case — gets defined in plain English the first time it appears, with an everyday analogy. You do not need to read the Tibetan script to follow along; every word is given in transliteration and pronunciation too.

Where to start

1 · Start hereWhat parsing is and why Tibetan needs it. Read this first — everything else assumes it. 2 · The VersesAll eight, interactive. Click any syllable for its meaning and grammatical job. 3 · Grammar ToolkitEvery term defined simply: particle, case, ablative, genitive, optative and the rest. 4 · VocabularyEvery word in the text, searchable and sortable. 5 · FlashcardsDrill the vocabulary both directions. 6 · QuizTest whether the grammar actually stuck.

The text

༄༅། །བློ་སྦྱོང་ཚིག་བརྒྱད་མ་བཞུགས་སོ། །

How the verses work

Each verse is four lines of exactly seven syllables. That is the standard meter of Tibetan devotional verse, and it constrains everything — word choices, word order, even which spelling of a particle gets used.

Almost every verse is also a single sentence, and the main verb waits until the final line. Three lines of build-up, then the verb that makes sense of them. That is the single biggest difference from English, and the reason a word-by-word reading in Tibetan order produces gibberish.

Seven of the eight verses end in ཤོག — shok, "may it be so." They are not descriptions of how things are. They are wishes.