Learning Letters - PA

Another letter that has a high frequency is the letter པ PA. The reason is that this letter is used to build new words from other verbs and nouns. This means that there's a good chance you see the end of the word if you encounter པ. 

Here's an example, based on earlier letters we have gone through. སེམས་ sems means mind. Note that in the modern Tibetan dialect the last letter in such combinations is not pronounced, so it sounds like SEM. However, if you listen to the Ladakh dialect, or some of the Mongolian dialects, you could still hear the ending SA pronounced so the word sounds like SEMS, as in ancient Tibetan.

If there's a word you see a lot in Tibetan Buddhist scriptures, it is སེམས་

If you add པ to the end of སེམས་ we will get སེམས་པ་ This means 'movement of the mind', the way the mind operates, from movement to movement, arising, sustaining and then giving rise to the next moment of mind.

Check out the Tibetan below to see more uses of the letter པ, especially with vowels such as པེ, པི, པོ and པུ.

གཞིས་བཟང་པོ་ལྟ་བུ་ནི་ཚུལོ་བཞིན་སེམས་པ་དང་ལྡན་པའོ།

།དིག་པ་ལྟ་བུ་ནི་ག༷ཧན་གྱི་ཉེས་པ་དང་འཁྲུལ་པ་མི་བརྗོད་པ་དང་།

རང་གི་ཡོན་ཏན་མི་བརྗོད་པ་དང།

གཞན་ལ་མི་སྨོད་པའོ།