bodhisattvacaryāvatāra

The Bodhicaryavatara

A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life

David Tuffley

To my beloved Nation of Four

Concordia Domi – Foris Pax

Who looks outside, dreams.

Who looks inside, awakens

– Carl Jung

Acknowledgement to Santideva, the Sugatas, the Buddha

and all the Bodhisattvas who have gone before to show the

Way to enlightenment.

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Contents

Introduction ............................................................................ 2

Chapter 1 The Benefit of the Spirit of Awakening................. 3

End of sample. Another 9 chapters follow which progressively

build towards how a sincere seeker might achieve

enlightenment. ........................................................................ 8

Santideva's Guide to Enlightenment

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Introduction

The Bodhicaryavatara is an ancient text written in Sanskrit

around 700 CE by Santideva, Buddhist monk and scholar

who lived at the Nalanda Monastic University in India.

The Bodhicaryavatara roughly translates to A Guide to the

Bodhisattva's Way of Life. A Bodhisattva is an enlightened

being on their way to attaining full Buddhahood for the

benefit of all sentient beings. The text has ten chapters that

explain how to develop bodhicitta, or the enlightened mind.

Earlier English translations of this text are accurate but

difficult to understand for many readers living in the 21st

Century. The mode of expression and the figures of speech

are the product of that far-off time. This book faithfully re-

expresses in modern day language the underlying message

of the original text. Every effort has been made to preserve

the underlying spirit of the message.

There will be those who object to the changing of the

outward form of this much-loved classic. While I respect the

beauty of the original text, my greatest wish is to bring the

even greater beauty of the underlying message to a whole

new audience in the modern world who might otherwise

find the original less than easy to fully understand.

Throughout, the first person “I” is Santideva, not me.

David Tuffley

Redland Bay,

Australia.


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Chapter 1

The Benefit of the Spirit of Awakening

1. Being mindful of all that is holy I shall outline to those

who are interested how to go about becoming

enlightened.

2. Nothing in this book is new. It has all been said before.

Nor do I consider myself to be an expert writer, so my

work is unlikely to have much influence on others. I write

simply to help me in my journey towards enlightenment.

3. This work is therefore an act of faith made in order to

cultivate virtue. It may also serve as a helpful guide to

others who are in the same position as me.

4. I am grateful for the opportunity to write this when so

many people must work hard all day just to live. If one

has such an opportunity, it is important to use it for the

benefit of as many people as possible, since who knows

when another opportunity will arise?

5. In the same way that flashes of lightning in the night sky

illuminates the clouds, through divine providence, so too

are peoples’ minds momentarily illuminated by glimpses

of the divine. After that, they are naturally drawn

towards a fuller experience of the divine.

6. But if divine virtue is experienced for only a moment and

not very often, and vice is our constant companion in

daily life, then the power that these bad habits has over

us is great indeed. If it were not for the sublime spirit of


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perfect awakening that draws us on towards the divine,

then it is likely that we would dwell in vice all our lives.

7. The Holy Ones have been meditating for eons on the

nature of enlightenment. They know that this momentary

flash of insight that leads a person to want to move

towards the divine is a blessing that brings happiness

into people’s lives and can help them towards

enlightenment.

8. The spirit of awakening should never be forsaken by

anyone wishing to transcend the difficulties of their daily

life, or to help as many people in the world as possible to

do the same.

9. When the spirit of awakening arises in a person they

become worthy of being called a child of the Holy Ones,

even though they have been wretchedly bound in the

cycle of suffering.

10. So it is that an impure person, bound in sorrows and

misery, can be transmuted into an enlightened person by

the spirit of awakening. But to do so, they must attend

closely to the quicksilver flash of the spirit of awakening,

that brief flash of lightning that dispels the darkness.

11. The Holy Ones who have walked the path of

enlightenment before me recognize the value of the spirit

of awakening in achieving enlightenment. They strongly

recommend that aspirants hold tightly onto the spirit of

awakening as the best way forward.

12. Notice how an ordinary banana tree begins to die after it

has finished bearing fruit. It is the same with the various

virtues of earthly life. They go into decline and gradually

turn into their own opposite. But the tree of the spirit of


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awakening is beyond this earthly cycle. It bears perpetual

fruit that never decays.

13. When the spirit of awakening is embraced, it protects me

from the various misfortunes of earthly life. It calms my

fears and gives me confidence. It is puzzling why more

people do not seek refuge from the ills of the world in the

spirit of awakening. In their proud ignorance, they

overlook or dismiss it.

14. The spirit of awakening has a powerfully transformative

effect on the extremes of earthly existence, moderating

them into an ideal state. The Buddha has told us this.

15. The spirit of awakening is expressed in these two ways;

the spirit of aspiring to awaken, and the spirit of

venturing towards awakening.

16. For example, there are those who would like to travel,

and those who actually do travel. In the same way that I

can learn to recognize the difference between these two, I

must also be able to discern the subtle difference in the

spirit of awakening within myself.

17. The spirit of aspiring to awaken brings many benefits to

my earthly life; however these are out-weighed by the far

greater benefits that derive from the spirit of venturing to

awaken.

18. This greater and continuous stream of benefits begins to

flow from the time I embrace the spirit of venturing to

awaken with a whole-hearted and irreversible

commitment to help with the liberation of all sentient

creatures.

19. From the moment of whole-hearted commitment

onwards, I become part of a vast flowing river of divine


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energy that continues even when I am asleep or

distracted by worldly affairs.

20. The truth of this is confirmed by Tathagata (the name by

which the Buddha referred to himself instead of the

personal pronoun “me”, myself”, “I”) in the holy

scriptures of both the greater (Mahayana) and lesser

(Theravada) vehicles of Buddhism.

21. A person who embraces the spirit of venturing to awaken

and aspires to help all sentient beings to be released from

their suffering therefore accumulates virtue in great

measure.

22. How much more virtue is derived by the person who

wishes to go further and not only release sentient beings

from their suffering but also then endow them with

immeasurable happiness?

23. Was there ever a mother or a father who had such

benevolent altruism towards their children? Would even

the gods and sages have such altruism?

24. Before anyone can have the desire to help all sentient

beings, they must first wish to end their own suffering.

25. But how does this magnificent jewel come into existence

when it can not normally be found in the hearts and

minds of people, even when it is in their own-self-interest

to find it?

26. And how can one measure the virtue of this jewel of the

heart and mind that has the potential to remedy the

world’s suffering?

27. If altruism is more virtuous than simply being reverential

towards the Buddha, how much more virtuous then is

wishing to end the suffering of all sentient being?


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28. It is a great irony in life that in seeking to escape from

suffering, most people hurry straight towards it. The

person who desires happiness often succeeds in

destroying their happiness through ignorance and

delusion.

29. The person who embraces the spirit of venturing to

awaken and seeks to end the suffering of all sentient

beings seeks to bestow great happiness on those who are

starved of it, and in so doing eliminate the various

sorrows that afflict them.

30. Such a person dispels delusion and ignorance. Could

there be any more saintly a person, or any greater friend

than this?

31. When a person reciprocates someone’s kind deed, the

world will often praise them for it. How much more

praiseworthy is the person whose good deed is

unsolicited?

32. The philanthropist who makes a small gift to a needy

person is praised by the world as being virtuous.

33. How much more virtuous is the person who wishes to

end the suffering of all sentient beings?

34. It is rightly said by the Holy Ones that a person who is

ungrateful for the blessings they have received will

experience great suffering.

35. If however a person cultivates an attitude of gratitude for

the many blessings received, they experience happiness

at the spontaneous generation of virtue. This creates a

buffer between them and the world which protects them,

even when extreme events occur.


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36. Therefore I pay great respect to those enlightened people

in whom this precious jewel of the mind has arisen. They

are praiseworthy indeed. It is to these enlightened ones

that I go for refuge and protection, even when in my own

ignorance I cause them harm. The jewel of their mind

transforms the harm into happiness.

End of sample. Another 9 chapters follow

which progressively build towards how a

sincere seeker might achieve

enlightenment.

bodhisattvacaryāvatāra

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