The Bodhisattva Ideal: Selected Key Texts: 11 (Library of Tibetan Classics)

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.

Thupten Jinpa Langri was educated in the classical Tibetan monastic academia and received the highest academic degree of Geshe Lharam (equivalent to a doctorate in divinity). Jinpa also holds a BA in philosophy and a PhD in religious studies, both from the University of Cambridge, England. Since 1985, he has been the principal English-language translator to the Dalai Lama. He has translated and edited many books by the Dalai Lama, including The World of Tibetan Buddhism, Essence of the Heart Sutra, and Ethics for the New Millennium. Jinpa has published scholarly articles on various aspects of Tibetan culture, Buddhism, and philosophy, and books such as Songs of Spiritual Experience (co-authored) and Self, Reality and Reason in Tibetan Thought. He serves on the advisory board of numerous educational and cultural organizations in North America, Europe, and India. He is currently the president and the editor-in-chief of the Institute of Tibetan Classics, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to translating key Tibetan classics into contemporary languages. He also currently chairs the Mind and Life Institute.

Julia Stenzel is an assistant professor at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Centre for Buddhist Studies of Kathmandu University, Nepal. She received her PhD from McGill University, Montreal. Her research focuses on cross-cultural transformation processes of Buddhist contemplative traditions and their relevance in today’s world. Julia examined compassion meditations in Indian and Tibetan contexts and their secular application in contemporary secular settings. Her publications include The Sciencization of Compassion (Springer, 2020) and Buddhist Monasteries of the Thai Forest Tradition in Ontario (Wilfried Laurier Press, 2015).