Who Is Śāntideva

Śāntideva (c. 685–763 CE) was an Indian Buddhist monk and scholar associated with the great monastic university of Nālandā. According to traditional accounts—which blend hagiography with historical detail—he was a prince who renounced royal life, came to Nālandā, and was regarded by his fellow monks as lazy and useless, apparently doing nothing but eating, sleeping, and wandering. The other monks, hoping to embarrass him into leaving, invited him to give a public teaching—expecting humiliation. Instead, he delivered the Bodhicaryāvatāra ("A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life"), a work of such extraordinary depth and beauty that it became one of the most important texts in all of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Whether the story is literally true is beside the point; it perfectly captures the text’s own teaching that genuine realization often appears in unexpected, unimpressive forms.

Śāntideva matters for IMHU’s mission because the Bodhicaryāvatāra is arguably the single most practically useful text on compassion, patience, and ethical transformation in the Buddhist canon—and one of the most psychologically sophisticated ethical treatises in any tradition. It doesn’t just tell you to be compassionate; it walks you through the cognitive and emotional obstacles to compassion and provides specific contemplative techniques for overcoming them. Its sixth chapter, on patience (kṣānti), is the most detailed phenomenological analysis of anger and its antidotes in classical Buddhist literature—and has direct relevance to contemporary work in emotion regulation, cognitive reappraisal, and compassion-focused therapy. The Dalai Lama has called it his favorite Buddhist text, and it is the primary source he draws on in his own teachings on compassion and ethics.

Core Concepts

1. Bodhicitta—the awakening mind as the engine of transformation
   • Śāntideva’s central teaching is that the most powerful force for personal and collective transformation is bodhicitta—the aspiration to attain full awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings. This isn’t sentimental niceness; it’s a radical reorientation of motivation from self-centered to other-centered that, according to Śāntideva, transforms every action—however ordinary—into a cause of awakening. He distinguishes between aspirational bodhicitta (the wish to benefit all beings) and engaged bodhicitta (the active practice of the six perfections: generosity, ethical discipline, patience, joyful effort, concentration, and wisdom).
2. The exchange of self and other (tonglen)
   • Śāntideva’s most famous contemplative technique is the practice of exchanging self and other: systematically training the mind to treat others’ suffering as one’s own concern and one’s own happiness as something to be given away. This practice—which later became the foundation of the Tibetan tonglen ("sending and taking") meditation—works by directly attacking the cognitive habit of privileging one’s own experience over others’. The argument is both ethical and psychological: the boundary between "self" and "other" is constructed, not given—and loosening it reduces suffering on both sides.
3. Patience as the supreme discipline
   • Chapter six of the Bodhicaryāvatāra is a tour de force on patience—not as passive endurance but as the active, intelligent refusal to let anger destroy your equanimity and your relationships. Śāntideva systematically examines every justification for anger and shows why none of them hold up under analysis. His key move: if a problem can be fixed, there’s no reason to be angry; if it can’t be fixed, anger serves no purpose. This is cognitive reappraisal avant la lettre, and it remains one of the most effective contemplative approaches to working with reactive emotions.
4. The emptiness of self as the basis of compassion
   • Śāntideva’s ethics are grounded in Mādhyamaka philosophy—the view that all phenomena, including the self, are empty of inherent, independent existence. Far from making compassion irrelevant, this insight makes it more urgent: if there is no fixed boundary between self and other, then others’ suffering is as much "mine" as my own. Emptiness doesn’t negate compassion; it universalizes it.
5. Vigilance and mindful self-monitoring
   • Śāntideva devotes significant attention to apramāda (vigilance or conscientiousness)—the ongoing practice of monitoring one’s own mental states, catching destructive impulses early, and redirecting attention toward beneficial states. This is essentially a classical Buddhist version of metacognitive awareness—watching the mind watch itself—and it’s directly relevant to contemporary mindfulness-based approaches to relapse prevention, emotional regulation, and behavioral change.

Essential Writings

• The Way of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicaryāvatāra) (trans. Padmakara Translation Group)
  • The definitive English translation of Śāntideva’s masterwork, with an excellent introduction by the translators and a foreword by the Dalai Lama. Ten chapters covering the generation of bodhicitta, confession, patience, joyful effort, meditation, and the perfection of wisdom. The verse form is accessible and often beautiful.
  • Best use: the essential text. Read the whole thing, but if you’re pressed for time, chapters 6 (patience), 8 (meditation/exchange of self and other), and 9 (wisdom) are the peaks.
• A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (trans. Vesna A. Wallace and B. Alan Wallace)
  • An alternative scholarly translation that is somewhat more literal and includes detailed notes. Useful as a complement to the Padmakara version for serious study.
  • Best use: for readers who want to work closely with the text in a study group or academic context.
• For the Benefit of All Beings: A Commentary on the Way of the Bodhisattva (Dalai Lama)
  • The Dalai Lama’s own commentary on selected chapters of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, drawing out the practical applications of Śāntideva’s teachings for contemporary life. Warm, accessible, and deeply informed by decades of personal practice with this text.
  • Best use: the best companion text for first-time readers who want guidance on how to apply Śāntideva’s teachings in daily life.