ShantiDeva is the Man

I was thinking that if you're going to deepen your insights into Buddhist philosophy, you might need more than me. So I took a book, which is special and singular and crucial for me in my path towards Buddhist wisdom. It's got a title with a lot of syllables and authored by a person with a strange name for the Western ear. Nonetheless, this is like a figure similar to Saint Augustine or Thomas Aquinas though his thought is more concise and he uses less pages to compose his thoughts. Shanti-deva is the man in question and the name of the book is The

Bodhicaryavatara, or in English, A guide to the bodhisattva way of life.

You can get it on kindle, or amazon or in hardback online. I think it's a key text in Tibetan Buddhism. I think it's something you can dip into occasionally for many years with great benefit.

And so we must look at this notion of the bodhisattva; what is that. Well it's a person who is dedicated to developing Bodhichitta. That's about the simplest way to say it. And what is Bodhichitta; it's a very simple matter, which I have really enjoyed reflecting on in this episode.

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