Readings of Santideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice

by Jonathan C. Gold (Editor), Douglas S. Duckworth (Editor)

Overview

Śāntideva’s eighth-century work, the Guide to Bodhisattva Practice (Bodhicaryāvatāra), is known for its eminently practical instructions and its psychologically vivid articulations of the Mahāyāna path. It is a powerful, succinct poem into which are woven diverse Buddhist traditions of moral transformation, meditative cultivation, and philosophical insight. Since its composition, it has seen continuous use as a ritual, contemplative, and philosophical manual, making it one of the crucial texts of the Buddhist ethical and philosophical tradition.

This book serves as a companion to this Indian Buddhist classic. The fifteen essays contained here illuminate the Guide’s many philosophical, literary, ritual, and ethical dimensions. Distinguished scholars discuss the historical significance of the text as an innovative piece of Indian literature, illuminate the important roles it played in shaping Buddhism in Tibet, and bring to light its contemporary significance for philosophy and psychology. Whether experienced or first-time students of Buddhist literature, readers will find compelling new approaches to this resonant masterpiece.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231192675
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	08/06/2019
Series:	Columbia Readings of Buddhist Literature
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Jonathan C. Gold is associate professor in the Department of Religion at Princeton University. He is the author of The Dharma’s Gatekeepers: Sakya Paṇḍita on Buddhist Scholarship in Tibet (2007) and Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu’s Unifying Buddhist Philosophy (Columbia, 2015).

Douglas Duckworth is associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Religion at Temple University. His latest works include Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy of Mind and Nature (2019) and a translation of an overview of the Wisdom Chapter of the Guide to Bodhisattva Practice by Künzang Sönam, entitled The Profound Reality of Interdependence (2019).

Table of Contents

A Note to the Reader
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Participatory Authorship and Communal Interpretation: The Bodhicaryāvatāra as a “World Classic,” by Jonathan C. Gold
1. Śāntideva: The Author and His Project, by Paul Harrison
2. Reason and Knowledge on the Path: A Protreptic Reading of the Guide, by Amber Carpenter
3. On Learning to Overhear the “Vanishing Poet,” by Sonam Kachru
4. An Intoxication of Mouse Venom: Reading the Guide, Chapter 9, by Matthew T. Kapstein
5. Seeing from All Sides, by Janet Gyatso
6. Bodies and Embodiment in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, by Reiko Ohnuma
7. Ritual Structure and Material Culture in the Guide to Bodhisattva Practice, by Eric Huntington
8. Bodhicaryāvatāra and Tibetan Mind Training (Lojong), by Thupten Jinpa
9. Taming Śāntideva: Tsongkhapa’s Use of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, by Roger Jackson
10. The Middle Way of the Bodhisattva, by Douglas S. Duckworth
11. Seeing Sentient Beings: Śāntideva’s Moral Phenomenology, by Jay L. Garfield
12. Śāntideva’s Ethics of Impartial Compassion, by Charles Goodman
13. Śāntideva and the Moral Psychology of Fear, by Bronwyn Finnigan
14. Innate Human Connectivity and Śāntideva’s Cultivation of Compassion, by John Dunne
Appendix 1: A Guide to Guide Translations: Advice for Students and Instructors
Appendix 2: Index of Guide Verses Cited
Bibliography
Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

This is an exceptional collection which not only provides a useful teaching tool for the classroom, but also makes significant conceptual advances to our understanding of the Guide. I warmly recommend it for any serious student of Śāntideva’s thought.

Journal of Buddhist Ethics - Stephen Harris

For more than a thousand years Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice has been a profound source of inspiration for Tibetan Buddhists. It was one of the six basic texts of Atiśa’s Kadam tradition. When teaching it to me, Khunu Lama Rinpoché told me that no other book explains the awakening mind of bodhicitta, the essence of the Buddha’s teachings, as effectively as this. Śāntideva describes how a self-centered attitude gives rise to disturbing emotions like anger and fear, but also how they can be countered by altruism and warm-heartedness. He shows how we can tackle our mental afflictions and achieve peace of mind, something that can be of benefit to everyone. The Guide is a book I read, I teach, and keep with me. The readings presented in this volume make clear how much of Śāntideva's advice can be of interest and benefit to readers today.

Dalai Lama

This book is an inspirational introduction to be read along with the text itself.

Religious Studies Review

Anyone familiar with Western ethical thinking, but not with the Indian Buddhist tradition or with Śāntideva’s remarkable text, will have much to learn from the connections made in this volume between these distinct ways of thinking about ethics.

Peter Singer

Highly recommended.

Choice

This volume offers its readers valuable insights into the multifaceted literary gem that is the Guide by bringing to bear the expertise of some of the most prominent scholars in Buddhist Studies. Overall, the results serve as an excellent introduction to the multidimensional textual history of the Guide, argue convincingly for the continued importance of the text in the world today, and demonstrate the value of higher literary criticism for Buddhist Studies.

Religions of South Asia

Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice has inspired Buddhist scholars and practitioners for more than a millennium. Dozens of commentaries have been written—and continue to be written—on this great work. In the last two decades European and American scholars have seriously engaged Śāntideva's work and its commentaries from many different perspectives, exploring its philological, ethical, metaphysical, and ritual dimensions, and analyzing the role it has played in Buddhist self-cultivation. This marvelous collection of essays, written by the very best Śāntideva scholars in the world, provides readers with a much-needed overview of state-of-the-art scholarship on the Guide. Sophisticated yet concise and accessible, this book is an indispensable resource for those of us who have pondered—or lost ourselves in—Śāntideva's beautiful poem.

José Ignacio Cabezón

The essays contain the richness of classical Buddhist writing and showcase the latest trends in Buddhist studies. This is an excellent volume, and a rare one at that.

Jacob P. Dalton

Śāntideva's Guide is a poem, a liturgy, a meditation manual, a phenomenology of mind, a moral psychology, an explication of the distinctive Buddhist virtues, and an invitation to the Mahāyāna way of life. Gold and Duckworth’s volume is a set of essays by brilliant contemporary philosophers and religious studies scholars that provides deep and sensitive readings of this great text. Śāntideva comes alive for the twenty-first century in these pages.

Owen Flanagan

Śāntideva's Guide to Bodhisattva Practice has inspired Buddhist scholars and practitioners for more than a millennium. Dozens of commentaries have been written—and continue to be written—on this great work. In the last two decades European and American scholars have seriously engaged Śāntideva's work and its commentaries from many different perspectives, exploring its philological, ethical, metaphysical, and ritual dimensions, and analyzing the role it has played in Buddhist self-cultivation. This marvelous collection of essays, written by the very best Śāntideva scholars in the world, provides readers with a much-needed overview of state-of-the-art scholarship on the Guide. Sophisticated yet concise and accessible, this book is an indispensable resource for those of us who have pondered—or lost ourselves in—Śāntideva's beautiful poem.

José Ignacio Cabezón

[A] rich volume.

Reading Religion - Amy Paris Langenberg