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.

Two tracks

This site teaches two different skills. They're independent — start with either, or run them in parallel.

Track A · Learn to read the script

The 30 letters, the 4 vowels, and the rules for turning a written syllable into a sound. Start here if སེམས currently looks like decoration rather than a word.

1 · The AlphabetThirty consonants in eight families, plus the four vowel marks. Every letter with an English-sound comparison. 2 · Reading TibetanFind the root letter, ignore the silent ones, and learn why spelling and sound differ. 3 · Script DrillFour exercises, from naming a letter to sounding out a full syllable.

Track B · Understand the verses

Vocabulary and grammar for the Eight Verses themselves. You don't need the script for this — everything is given in transliteration too.

4 · ParsingWhat parsing is and why Tibetan needs it. Read this before the verses. 5 · The VersesAll eight, interactive. Click any syllable for its meaning and grammatical job. 6 · Grammar ToolkitEvery term defined simply: particle, case, ablative, genitive, optative and the rest. 7 · VocabularyEvery word in the text, searchable and sortable. 8 · FlashcardsDrill the vocabulary both directions. 9 · QuizTest whether the grammar actually stuck.

Who wrote this

Geshe Langri Tangpa (1054–1123) was a Kadampa master who is said to have laughed only three times in his life. He wrote these eight verses to be short enough to carry in your head.

Read about him →

Detail of a Tibetan thangka showing Shakyamuni Buddha seated on a lotus, touching the earth — Shakyamuni Buddha, touching the earth to witness his awakening — the gesture these verses ultimately point back toward. Detail, *Thangka with Buddha*, Tibet, 19th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access (CC0).

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.