No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
| Line 148: | Line 148: | ||
|quote-text=Some aspirations that we make can be fulfilled and some cannot. For instance, if I wish for a beautiful flower to appear on my table, no flower will appear, no matter how long I pray for it. If, on the other hand, there is soil, a pot, some water and seeds, then there is a good chance that the prayer for a flower will be fulfilled. | |quote-text=Some aspirations that we make can be fulfilled and some cannot. For instance, if I wish for a beautiful flower to appear on my table, no flower will appear, no matter how long I pray for it. If, on the other hand, there is soil, a pot, some water and seeds, then there is a good chance that the prayer for a flower will be fulfilled. | ||
So it is important that we | So it is important that we don't just pray or wish that things come about by themselves, but we must also try the best to the best of our capabilities to develop the conditions for our wishes to flourish. In samsara the realm of sentient beings is vast. In all directions there are sentient beings and when there are sentient beings, there are disturbing emotions and suffering. Now we pray that all these sentient beings be endowed with perfect happiness, to continually enjoy this happiness which is beyond the happiness that occurs in samsara, and that they remain in perfect happiness from the virtue of our good activities.<ref>Thrangu Rinpoche, ''A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life of Shantideva: A Commentary by the Venerable Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche'', trans. Ken and Katia Holmes and Thomas Doctor (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2016), 230.</ref> | ||
}} | }} | ||
Here, the point being stressed is that we also have to take an active role in helping our lofty wishes come to fruition. It is not enough to just stand on the sidelines and pray. We must act to put the causes in place for the desired result to bear fruit. | Here, the point being stressed is that we also have to take an active role in helping our lofty wishes come to fruition. It is not enough to just stand on the sidelines and pray. We must act to put the causes in place for the desired result to bear fruit. | ||
Revision as of 16:47, 14 May 2024
Dedication for the Propagation and Prosperity of the Buddha's Doctrine
The chapter concludes with Śāntideva's verse of dedication to Mañjughoṣa and to his gurus. Mañjuśrī's kindness enabled Śāntideva to give up all his attachments to worldly life and to make sincere effort in the virtuous practices of learning, contemplation, and meditation.
And now to Mañjughoṣha I prostrate, Whose kindness is the wellspring of my good intent. And to my virtuous friends I also bow Whose inspiration gave me strength to grow.
Page(s) 171
Blankleder, Helena, and Wulstan Fletcher (Padmakara Translation Group), trans. The Way of the Bodhisattva: A Translation of the Bodhicharyāvatāra. By Śāntideva. Rev. ed. Shambhala Classics. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2006.
Particularly because of Mañjuśrī, the wish to cultivate bodhicitta and the urge to compose the Bodhicaryāvatāra arose in Śāntideva, and so he pays his respects and offers his body, speech, and mind up in homage. In Crosby and Skilton's translation from the Sanskrit, we read the following:
I bow down to Mañjughoṣha through whose inspiration my mind turns to good. I honour the spiritual friend through whose inspiration it grows strong. (10.58)[1]
This translation gives the feel of how Mañjughoṣa's influence was the initial cause that helped turn Śāntideva's mind to good. Once turned in a positive direction, his gurus then helped him to build on this inspiration and make firm in his mind the realizations related to hearing, contemplation, and meditation.
Khenpo Kunpal says the following of this homage to the gurus:
In the same vein he prostrates respectfully to the holy beings thanks to whose kindness he was able to take monastic ordination and receive the bhikshu vows—the same beings who spread and propagate the Dharma of transmission and realization, namely, the ordaining abbot Jinadeva and the other teachers of the glorious monastery of Nalanda and elsewhere. To all his spiritual teachers, therefore, Shantideva bows down.[2]
This provides us with the link back to Śāntideva's history—his gurus and the tradition of Nalanda. Khenpo Kunpal continues by saying that
in the same way, we too should consider as our teachers all those through whose kindness our minds have absorbed some of the qualities of the Dharma of transmission and realization. And remembering their kindness, we too should respectfully reverence them in thought, word, and deed.[3]
We should always be reminded that while these are personal reflections of Śāntideva on his experiences of training, they are also an indirect form of advice for ourselves. This is true of the text as a whole. In the first chapter, although he says the text was only composed to familiarize his mind with the topics, inadvertently his audience also gains a complete instruction on the way of the bodhisattva.
For us also, it is important to continually remember the kindness of our teachers. Through them we have received the inspiration to turn our minds toward the Buddhist path. And it is through their continued support and guidance that we traverse the road that leads to buddhahood.
