This commentary on Mahamudra Upadesha contains the Mahamudra pointing-out instructions given on the banks of the Ganges River by the Indian Mahasiddha Tilopa to his foremost disciple, the great Pandit and Mahasiddha Naropa, sometime in the eleventh century of the common era. Tilopa is regarded as preeminent among Indian siddhas. According to tradition, it was based on these instructions that Naropa attained enlightenment.
Now for nearly a thousand years these instructions have been transmitted through an unbroken lineage of realized teachers, beginning with Marpa the Translator, the first of the Tibetan holders of the lineage, all the way down to the Sixteenth Karmapa and the present generation of enlightened Tibetan and Himalayan teachers. This particular transmission of the commentary was given to Dr. Fred Cooper by HE Tai Situ Rinpoche, an incarnation of Marpa the translator, at his seat in India, Sherab Ling, in March of 2006. He has been transmitting these teachings to students in Lorien, NM in June 2020 during the COVID-19 virus pandemic over ZOOM.