Tsangyang Gyatso (1683 - 1706), the sixth Dali Lama had a temperament and personality formed outside the monastic tradition. Because of his belated ordination, he grew up more a wastrel than a monk, more a minstrel than a king. He is unique in the lineage of the Dali Lama and the bulk of his poems are love songs: laments for lost affection, advice to lovers, and descriptions of his lovers. Other of the poems are direct and simple philisophical verses.

The late Geoffrey Waters received a PhD in Classic Chinese from Indiana University. His other books of translation include Broken Willow: The Complete Poems of Yu Xuanji and Three Elegies of Ch�u.