Whispered Wisdom

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These pith instructions are known in Tibet as men-ngak and in Sanskrit as upadesha. These essence words are the highest direct words, the pithy pointers, what we call in Tibetan mar-tri, or red guidance, naked words. Or, let us say, naked truth. These pith instructions are not just the information that we have read in books or the Buddhist scriptures, but are the essence of lessons actually learned from life, the most naked instructions boiled down to their essence or pith. They are, in a sense, concentrated wisdom--the way a vitamin C pill contains 1000 milligrams of ascorbic acid so that we do not have to eat dozens of oranges to get enough of the active ingredient.

In this way, pith instructions are the boiled-down elixir of all of the wisdom teachings of enlightenment that have been passed down and preserved orally until modern times. Their essence is not something written down but lived as the oral living flame of enlightenment. Pith instructions are like a flame of truth being passed from one candle to another, from my teacher to me to you--the same flame but different wax and bodies. This is how we pay back our spiritual benefactors and masters--those to whom we are so grateful--by realizing this innate wisdom and cherishing it, and then practicing it and passing it on intact to those who are capable of upholding it.

One of my favorite pith instructions comes from the gentle and wise Lama Jamgon Kongtrol Lodro Thaye, the "infinite brilliant intellect." He said there were four deviations from the view: "It is too close so that we overlook it; it seems too good to be true so we cannot believe it; it is too profound, so we cannot fathom it; it is not outside ourselves, so we cannot attain it anew." Whatever you want to call "it," whatever we seek-God, our true nature, buddha nature-it is not outside ourselves, so we overlook it.

These pith instructions often address fundamental human questions about the true nature of our heart-mind, who we are, and what is real. They also attempt to answer other questions about the nature of God, the soul, the afterlife, birth and death, and the purpose and meaning of life. They also speak of our true relation with the ultimate, the relationship between the impermanent and the eternal, the relationship between God and humanity, and what we are all doing here.

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