ACCORDING TO LEGEND, Shantideva’s great eighth-century text, the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, (the Bodhisattvacharyavatara, which can be shortened to the Bodhicharyavatara), is said to have been spontaneously spoken by Shantideva, in rhymed Sanskrit verse, as he slowly floated up into the air above Nalanda University. Even when he was entirely out of sight, people could still hear his booming voice. The text he spoke is as amazing as the story of its composition. It compels not only for its cleverness and outrageousness, but also because it strikes a familiar and inspiring chord in the human imagination.
Humans have always imagined that life is more than it appears to be: that the tangible, difficult world we live in is not all there is, and that we ourselves are much more than we appear to be. Yes, we are poor souls lost in the struggle for survival and recognition, huddled together with our friends, surrounded by troublesome and sometimes hostile others. At the same time, though, we imagine we are more: loving and courageous creatures motivated by our dedication to the well-being of others.
We imagine—and we cherish this, we can hardly live without it—that the world can be a better place.
Given human history and our own everyday experience, these hopes and dreams seem preposterous. And yet we have held onto them for millennia.
In the Bodhicharyavatara, Shantideva tells us that these hopes and dreams are not only worthy, but that they can, and must, become real. The alternative, he says, is gruesome and insupportable.
If we don’t become bodhisattvas, altruistic spiritual heroes, Shantideva says, if we insist instead on our small-minded, self-centered way of living, we are guaranteed to suffer terribly. Individually, we’ll be stressed out, dissatisfied to the point of despair, and compelled to take
