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|text=In chapter 6 Śāntideva presents the topic of patience as the antidote to the most destructive emotion of anger. The chapter consists of verses on overcoming anger, cultivating patience, and respecting all sentient beings. Anger, according to Śāntideva, is never justified and is an emotion wholly destructive of positively accumulated karma. As this is the case, Śāntideva instructs through rational argument why the spiritual aspirant should see enemies not as objects worthy of anger or retaliation but as beings caught in the grips of their own afflictive emotions. | |text=In chapter 6 Śāntideva presents the topic of patience as the antidote to the most destructive emotion of anger. The chapter consists of verses on overcoming anger, cultivating patience, and respecting all sentient beings. Anger, according to Śāntideva, is never justified and is an emotion wholly destructive of positively accumulated karma. As this is the case, Śāntideva instructs through rational argument why the spiritual aspirant should see enemies not as objects worthy of anger or retaliation but as beings caught in the grips of their own afflictive emotions. | ||
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With a strong grounding in ethical discipline, and with our minds guarded by mindfulness and vigilant introspection, Śāntideva now moves on to another essential factor in protecting ourselves from the harm caused by our own internal negative emotions—the practice of patience. | |||
Chapters 4 to 6 cover the second major section of the ''Bodhicaryāvatāra'', which deals with how to prevent the bodhicitta which we have developed from declining. As the structure of the text unfolds, Śāntideva combines this structure of progressive development of bodhicitta with the main practices on the bodhisattva’s path, that of the six perfections (''pāramitā''). | |||
The first two of the perfections, generosity and ethical discipline, are discussed earlier in chapters 1 to 5. From chapter 6 onward, Śāntideva devotes each of the next four chapters (from chapter 6 to chapter 9) to how to train in the remaining four perfections of patience, diligence, meditative absorption, and wisdom. | |||
Chapter 6 is devoted to the perfection of patience (''kṣānti pāramitā'') and the identification and methods of overcoming the direct antagonist of patience, anger. The reason that Śāntideva devotes such a long chapter to overcoming anger is that it is the mental factor that most clearly lies in opposition to the mind of enlightenment, bodhicitta, and our wish to attain the highest state of perfection for the welfare of all beings. | |||
As Śāntideva clearly puts it in one of the opening verses, there is no mental state worse than anger, and there is no greater positive practice than that of developing patience in the face of challenging circumstances. | |||
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