"heart advice" - jarring or beautiful?
I'm translating a Tibetan text written in verse into English. The style is
one of direct advice rather than learned philosophy. My aim is for the
translation to have the same down-to-earth quality as the original, and as
much as possible to be accessible to anyone with a reasonable grasp of
literary English.
In some (Tibetan) Buddhist literature in English, "heart advice" (or
"heart-advice") has become somewhat common as a term for teachings that
focus on the core practises of Buddhism, with little embellishment.
My question is whether this expression is jarring or distracting or even
seems outright erroneous to a native English speaker who happens not to
have been exposed to modern Buddhist literature. (I am not a native
speaker myself.)
There is a recurring phrase in the text: "...this is my heart advice." To
anyone who knows the meaning of "direct, unembellished, rare, crucial
teaching", this sounds quite beautiful, but I'm wondering if, for an
average reader, "my heart's advice" would actually sound better?
The Tibetan word is snying gtam, snying meaning "heart" and gtam meaning
"advice, talk, discourse" etc.
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