8. Geshe Lhakdor: Shantideva “A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life” | Session 8 - 29.04.2023
Channel: Tushita Meditation Centre
Date: 10/05/2023

Geshe Lhakdor: Shantideva “A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life”
April 25 – May 1, 2023
Shantideva “A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life” (chapter 4 – 7)

Special 7-day residential course with Geshe Lhakdor! Appropriate for beginners and advanced students.

Don’t miss the rare opportunity to study this famous text with this eminent teacher!

In the whole of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there is no single treatise more deeply revered or widely practiced than A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. Composed in the eighth century by the Indian Bodhisattva Shantideva, it became an instant classic in the curricula of the Buddhist monastic universities of India, and its renown has grown ever since.

Shantideva presents methods to harmonize one’s life with the Bodhisattva ideal and inspires the reader to cultivate the perfections of the Bodhisattva: generosity, ethics, patience, zeal, meditative concentration, and wisdom.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama said:

If I have any understanding of compassion and the Bodhisattva path, it all comes from studying this text.

Shantideva composed his text in the form of an inner dialog. He turned his own weapons upon himself, doing battle with his negative emotions. Therefore, when we teach or listen to this text, it is important that we do so in order to progress spiritually, rather than making it simply a subject of academic study.

Teacher
rVenerable Geshe Lhakdor was born in Yakra, Western Tibet in 1956 and left Tibet in 1962 following the communist Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959. Geshe received his novice monk ordination in 1964, attended the Central School for Tibetans, in Dalhousie, India from 1972 to 1976 and studied specialized Buddhist Philosophy in the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala, India until 1986.

From December, 1986 to May, 1989 he served as translator and research assistant in Tibet House, the Cultural Centre of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in New Delhi. In August 1989, Geshe joined the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama where he has served as Religious Assistant and Translator and has accompanied His Holiness the Dalai Lama to over thirty countries in the Americas, Europe, Australia, Africa and Asia.

Beside the Master of Prajnaparamita in 1982, he also received the Master of Madhyamika in 1989 and the Master of Philosophy (MPhil) from the University of Delhi. In 1995 he received the Geshe Degree from Drepung Loseling Monastic University in South India. In 2008, he was also conferred Honorary Professorship by the University of Delhi, Department of Psychology.

Since 2005 he has been the director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamsala, after serving as His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s official translator for 16 years (still occasionally travels with H.H. as translator).

Geshe Lhakdor has also co-translated and co-produced several books by His Holiness, including The Way to Freedom, The Joy of Living and Dying in Peace, Awakening the Mind and Lightening the Heart, and Stages of Meditation, among others.

Geshe Lhakdor is a trustee of the Foundation for Universal Responsibility, established by His Holiness, Director of the Central Archive of His Holiness, a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Tibetan Classics in Montreal, Canada, and Honorary Professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada.

Please visit Tushitas website for more information: https://tushita.info/events/a-guide-to-the-bodhisattvas-way-of-life-2023/