Becoming Bodhisattvas


Book Description

Best-selling American Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön presents a friendly and encouraging guide to spiritual practice for all those who want to take up the path of the bodhisattva--one who aspires to live life with courage, generosity, patience, fearlessness, and compassion. The Way of the Bodhisattva has long been treasured as an indispensable guide to enlightened living, offering a window into the greatest potential within us all. Written in the eighth century by the scholar and saint Shantideva, it presents a comprehensive view of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition’s highest ideal—to commit oneself to the life of a bodhisattva warrior, a person who is wholeheartedly dedicated to the freedom and common good of all beings. And it has inspired many of the tradition’s greatest teachers, providing a remarkable source of insight on the means by which we may heal ourselves and our troubled world. These essential teachings present the core of the Buddhist path, from cultivating deep-seated confidence to infusing one’s life with selflessness, joyfulness, kindness, and compassion. Pema Chödrön here invites you to journey more deeply into this liberating way of life, presenting Shantideva’s text verse-by-verse and offering both illuminating stories and practical exercises to enrich the text and bring its timeless teachings to life in our world today. Previously published under the title No Time to Lose.




No Time to Lose


Book Description

The beloved Buddhist nun and bestselling author of When Things Fall Apart examines Shantideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva, sharing “her ever-approachable and pithy instructions for daily life” for readers of all backgrounds (Parabola) Over the years, Pema Chödrön's books have offered readers an exciting new way of living: developing fearlessness, generosity, and compassion in all aspects of their lives. In this new book, she invites readers to venture further along the path of the “bodhisattva warrior,” explaining in depth how we can awaken the softness of our hearts and develop true confidence amid the challenges of daily living. In No Time to Lose Chödrön reveals the traditional Buddhist teachings that guide her own life: those of The Way of the Bodhisattva ( Bodhicharyavatara), a text written by the eighth-century sage Shantideva. This treasured Buddhist work is remarkably relevant for our times, describing the steps we can take to cultivate courage, caring, and joy—the key to healing ourselves and our troubled world. Chödrön offers us a highly practical and engaging commentary on this essential text, explaining how its profound teachings can be applied to our daily lives. Full of illuminating stories and practical exercises, this fresh and accessible guide shows us that the path of the bodhisattva is open to each and every one of us. Pema Chödrön urges us to embark on this transformative path today, writing, “There is no time to lose—but not to worry, we can do it.”




A Guide to the Bodhisattava's Way of Life


Book Description

Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara (A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life) holds a unique place in Mahayana Buddhism akin to that of the Dhammapada in Hinayana Buddhism and the Bhagavadgita in Hinduism. In combining those rare qualities of scholastic precision, spiritual depth and poetical beauty, its appeal extends to a wide audience of Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. Composed in India during the 8th century of the Christian era, it has since been an inspiration to millions of people throughout the world. This present translation by Stephen Batchelor is based upon a 12th century Tibetan commentary as orally explained by Ven. Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey. The ninth chapter on wisdom has been expanded for this edition with relevant commentarial passages.




Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life


Book Description

Reading the verses slowly, while contemplating their meaning, has a profoundly liberating effect on the mind. The poem invokes special positive states of mind, moving us from suffering and conflict to happiness and peace, and gradually introduces us to the entire path to attaining the supreme inner peace of enlightenment, the real meaning of our human life.




Bodhisattva of Compassion


Book Description

She is the embodiment of selfless love, the supreme symbol of radical compassion, and, for more than a millennium throughout Asia, she has been revered as “The One Who Hearkens to the Cries of the World.” Kuan Yin is both a Buddhist symbol and a beloved deity of Chinese folk religion. John Blofeld’s classic study traces the history of this most famous of all the bodhisattvas from her origins in India (as the male figure Avalokiteshvara) to Tibet, China, and beyond, along the way highlighting her close connection to other figures such as Tara and Amitabha. The account is full of charming stories of Blofeld’s encounters with Kuan Yin’s devotees during his journeys in China. The book also contains meditation and visualization techniques associated with the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and translations of poems and yogic texts devoted to her.




Becoming Guanyin


Book Description

Winner, 2024 Geiss-Hsu Book Prize for Best First Book, Society for Ming Studies The goddess Guanyin began in India as the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, originally a male deity. He gradually became indigenized as a female deity in China over the span of nearly a millennium. By the Ming (1358–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) periods, Guanyin had become the most popular female deity in China. In Becoming Guanyin, Yuhang Li examines how lay Buddhist women in late imperial China forged a connection with the subject of their devotion, arguing that women used their own bodies to echo that of Guanyin. Li focuses on the power of material things to enable women to access religious experience and transcendence. In particular, she examines how secular Buddhist women expressed mimetic devotion and pursued religious salvation through creative depictions of Guanyin in different media such as painting and embroidery and through bodily portrayals of the deity using jewelry and dance. These material displays expressed a worldview that differed from yet fit within the Confucian patriarchal system. Attending to the fabrication and use of “women’s things” by secular women, Li offers new insight into the relationships between worshipped and worshipper in Buddhist practice. Combining empirical research with theoretical insights from both art history and Buddhist studies, Becoming Guanyin is a field-changing analysis that reveals the interplay between material culture, religion, and their gendered transformations.




Meaningful to Behold


Book Description

A Bodhisattva is someone who has resolved to liberate all living beings from suffering by fulfilling his or her full spiritual potential. Many people have the compassionate wish to benefit others, but few understand how to make this wish effective in their daily life. In this highly acclaimed explanation of the great Buddhist classic, Guide to the Bodhisattva`a Way of Life, Geshe Kelsang shows how we can develop and maintain the supremely compassionate motivation of a Bodhisattva, and how we can then engage in the actual practices that provide the greatest benefit to others and lead to the attainment of full enlightenment.




Record of the Transmission of Illumination


Book Description

The first book of this two-volume set consists largely of an annotated translation of the Record of the Transmission of Illumination (Denkōroku 傳光録) by Zen Master Keizan Jōkin 瑩山紹瑾 (1264–1325), presented together with the original Japanese text on which the English translation is based. That text is the recension of the Denkōroku published in Shūten Hensan Iinkai 宗典編纂委員会, ed., Taiso Keizan Zenji senjutsu Denkōroku 太祖瑩山禅師撰述伝光録 (Tokyo: Sōtōshū Shūmuchō 曹洞宗宗務庁, 2005). The Shūmuchō edition of the Denkōroku includes some items of Front Matter from earlier published editions, which are included in the English translations. Volume 1 also contains an Introduction that addresses such matters as the life of Keizan, the contents of the Denkōroku, the provenance of that work, and the textual history of its various recensions. In addition, Volume 1 includes a Bibliography that lists many works of modern Japanese- and English-language scholarship that are relevant to the academic study of the Denkōroku. The second volume contains a Glossary in two parts. Part One explains all of the Buddhist technical terms and Zen sayings that appear in the annotated translation of the Shūmuchō edition of the Denkōroku, found in Volume 1. Part Two treats all of the people, places, and texts that are named in that annotated translation. The Glossary also contains a wealth of material pertaining to the study of Chinese Chan, Japanese Zen, and East Asian Buddhist traditions at large, providing a broader historical context for understanding Keizan’s Denkōroku. Published in association with Sōtōshū Shūmuchō, Tokyo.




SHANTIDEVA'S A GUIDE TO THE BODHISATTVA'S WAY OF LIFE


Book Description

The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life is one of the most dearly beloved Buddhist texts, which has been taught and often quoted by the Dalai Lama as well as many other great Tibetan masters. Because of its relevance to modern times, his text has been translated into a dozen languages. The Bodhisattva's Way of Life was written by the eighth century Indian Bodhisattva, Shantideva, and is a comprehensive outline of everything one needs to know to be a Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva is someone who decides to work towards achieving enlightenment and to not give up this task until all other sentient beings are liberated. The Bodhisattva's Way of life begins by explaining how and why to make offerings to the Three Jewels and how take the bodhisattva vow (which is still being done this way 1,400 years later). The book also covers how to develop compassion towards those we like and also those who want to harm us. It explains the need to develop selflessness and how to actually do this, as well as how to develop patience with those people and things that obstruct us. It also describes how we should carry ourself in a peaceful and pleasing way to others and how to develop diligence and how to practice meditation. The famous ninth chapter, finally, explains how we should understand emptiness of all phenomena. This edition of The Bodhisattva's Way of Life is unique because it combines both a translation of the root text with each verse or set of verses followed by a lucid and relevant commentary by Thrangu Rinpoche. Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche is very well suited for this task, being a renowned Buddhist scholar who has had three decades of experience teaching students in centers across Asia, Europe, and North America. Thrangu Rinpoche has been teaching Western and Asian students Buddhism for thirty years and is author of 50 books on Buddhism. He holds the highest Lharampa degree for mastering the major teachings of all four lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. Because of his outstanding scholarship he was appointed by the Dalai Lama to be a personal tutor for the Seventeenth Karmapa.




The Bodhisattva Path to Unsurpassed Enlightenment


Book Description

Ārya Asanga’s Bodhisattvabhūmi, or The Stage of a Bodhisattva, is the Mahāyāna tradition’s most comprehensive manual on the practice and training of bodhisattvas—by the author’s own account, a compilation of the full range of instructions contained in the entire collection of Mahāyāna sutras. A classic work of the Yogācāra school, it has been cherished in Tibet by all the historical Buddhist lineages as a primary source of instruction on bodhisattva ethics, vows, and practices, as well as for its summary of the ultimate goal of the bodhisattva path—supreme enlightenment. Despite the text’s seminal importance in the Tibetan traditions, it has remained unavailable in English except in fragments. Engle’s translation, made from the Sanskrit original with reference to the Tibetan translation and commentaries, will enable English readers to understand more fully and clearly what it means to be a bodhisattva and practitioner of the Mahāyāna tradition.