The Bodhisattva Ideal

The power and promise of enlightened altruism, a life lived for the benefit of all beings, is on full display in this collection of Buddhist works on the heroic way of the bodhisattva.

One of the most revolutionary aspects of Mahayana Buddhism is what many contemporary writers on Buddhism call the “bodhisattva ideal.” This refers to a spiritual outlook and way of life rooted in a resolute vow and dedicated to the welfare of all sentient beings. This volume features authoritative Tibetan presentations of the ideal based on key Indian Buddhist treatises, especially Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland, Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva Way and Compendium of Training, Maitreya’s Ornament of Mahayana Sutras, and Asanga’s Bodhisattva Ground. Together, the nine Tibetan texts translated here embrace the complete spectrum of the bodhisattva ideal as understood, taught, and practiced in Tibetan Buddhism. From first generating the faith of admiration toward the compassionate teacher, the Buddha, by recollecting his altruistic deeds in former births (jatakas) to generating the awakening mind (bodhicitta) followed by the solemn act of taking the bodhisattva vow, from cultivating oneself through everyday mindfulness rooted in an altruistic outlook to the specifics of living life according to the bodhisattva’s moral precepts, and from the initial stages of training in the six perfections to the full flowering of the union of awakening mind with the wisdom seeing things as they are, this volume offers a comprehensive roadmap to making the bodhisattva ideal an animating reality in the practitioner’s own life.

The volume includes celebrated commentaries, including Thokmé Sangpo on Guide to the Bodhisattva Way, Tsongkhapa on the Compendium of Training, Gyaltsab on the Precious Garland (fully translated here), and Chankgya Rolpai Dorje on the bodhisattva precepts. It also contains a lucid structural comparison of Ornament of Mahayana Sutras and the Bodhisattva Ground, along with inspiring verses on the Buddha’s past births, mind training, and the altruistic aspiration. Finally, it contains a fresh translation of Thokme Sangpo’s famous Thirty-Seven Practices of the Bodhisattva and Dza Paltrul’s verse distillation of the bodhisattva vows.