NOTES

1.Rinpoche tends to use the Sanskrit term paramita (gone beyond) rather than perfection (which he saves for samsaric perfections). But because this subject is generally known as the six perfections, we have used that term throughout. “Transcendental perfection” is another translation, closer to the Sanskrit, which consists of two syllables: param, or “other side”; and ita, or “to go.”

2.Over the years, Rinpoche has used many names for this sort of patience, such as the patience of not being disturbed by the harm done by others, having patience for the enemy, the patience of not getting angry, the patience of thinking how dare I hurt the being who harms me, and so forth. Other sources use names such as the patience of remaining calm in the face of your attackers (Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand) and the patience of disregarding harm done to you (Tsongkhapa, Lamrim Chenmo; and Geshe Lhundub Sopa, Steps on the Path to Enlightenment).

3.Ringu Tulku’s online biography of Shantideva says he was born in South India (some sources cite Saurastra in Gujurat) to King Kalyanavarnam. He was given the name Shantivarnam. B. Alan Wallace’s introduction to Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (1997) says, according to the sixteenth-century scholar Taranatha, like the Buddha, Shantideva was born into a royal family, but on the verge of his coronation Manjushri and Tara appeared to him and urged him not to accept the throne, and so he left the kingdom and retreated into the wilderness, attaining siddhis.

4.Manjushri (Jampalyang), the bodhisattva of wisdom, is the recipient of the wisdom lineage of Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings, which he passed on to Nagarjuna.

5.In another version, Rinpoche says Shantideva married a girl named Tara. When he realized he couldn’t live with her, he accepted being thrown in the river in a box, and thus escaped householder life.

6.Nalanda was the great Mahayana Buddhist monastic university founded in the fifth century in North India, not far from Bodhgaya, which served as a major source of the Buddhist teachings that spread to Tibet. His Holiness the Dalai Lama often refers to Tibetan Buddhist philosophy as the “Nalanda tradition.”

7.Condensed Advice: A Compendium of Trainings (Shikshasamucchaya; Lappa küntü) is composed of twenty-seven stanzas that deal with, like the Bodhicharyavatara, the practice of the bodhisattvas. The Compendium of Sutras (Sutrasamuccaya; Dokü le tüpa) is an extremely short text and no longer extant in any translation. There is a text by Nagarjuna of the same name.

8.In another version, Rinpoche says that he placed his hand on the throne and it got smaller until he could easily get onto it.

9.In present-day Bihar. The capital was Rajagriha (Rajgir), where the Buddha gave the prajnaparamita (perfection of wisdom) teachings. Magadha existed from about 500 BCE to around the time of the Gupta empire in the sixth century CE.

10.The three realms of existence where there is great suffering: the hell realm, the hungry ghost realm, and the animal realm.

11.This rare human state, which is the ideal condition for practicing the Dharma and attaining enlightenment, is qualified by eight freedoms and ten richnesses. The eight freedoms are freedom from being born as a hell being, from being born as a hungry ghost, from being born as an animal, from being born as a long-life god, from being born as a barbarian, from being born in a dark age when no buddha has descended, from holding wrong views, and from being born with defective mental or physical faculties. The ten richnesses are being born as a human being, being born in a Dharma country, being born with perfect mental and physical faculties, not having committed any of the five immediate negativities, having faith in the Buddha’s teachings, being born when a buddha has descended, being born when the teachings have been revealed, being born when the complete teachings still exist, being born when there are still followers of the teachings, and having the necessary conditions to practice the Dharma, such as the kindness of others. See Rinpoche’s The Perfect Human Rebirth (Zopa 2013).

12.The three realms are the desire realm (where the human realm is), the form realm, and the formless realm.

13.Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo (1871–1941) was the root guru of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s senior and junior tutors. He also gave the teachings compiled in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.

14.There are eight hot hells: the hell of being alive again and again (the “lightest” suffering in hell), the black-line hell, the gathered and crushed hell, the hell of crying, the hell of great crying, the hot hell, the extremely hot hell, and the inexhaustible hot hell. For a similar explanation of the length of time endured, see Pabongka, as translated by Richards 1991, 265.

15.Shantideva 1.5.

16.It seems that Gómez’s translation has missed a bit and combined two verses into one. In Batchelor’s translation (1979), verse 8 ends with “for this enemy has no other function / than that of causing me harm”; and Wallace (1997) reads “for that foe has no function other than to harm me.”

17.Rinpoche has taught on these thought-transformation practices in books such as The Door to Satisfaction (Zopa 2001) and Transforming Problems into Happiness (Zopa 1994).

18.The psychophysical constituents that make up a sentient being: form, feeling, discriminative awareness, compositional factors, and consciousness.

19.Potowa Rinchen Sal (1027–1105) was one of the chief disciples of Dromtönpa and was the custodian of the Kadam authoritative treatises.

20.The eight types of suffering are the sufferings of birth, old age, illness, death, encountering what is unpleasant, separation from what is pleasant, not getting what you want, and the five appropriated aggregates. The six types of suffering are nothing is definite in samsara, nothing gives satisfaction in samsara, we have to leave this samsaric body again and again, we have to take rebirth again and again, we forever travel between higher and lower in samsara, and we experience pain and death alone.

21.Lama Je Tsongkhapa, Losang Dragpa (1357–1417), was the founder of the Geluk tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and revitalizer of many sutra and tantra lineages and the monastic tradition in Tibet.

22.Rinpoche calls them Uma Devi and Mahadevi but seems to be referring to Parvati and Shiva. Shantideva mentions Durga, the warrior form of Parvati.

23.Compare with Batchelor’s 1979 translation: “The victorious warriors are those / who, having disregarded all suffering, / vanquish the foes of hatred and so forth; / (common warriors) slay only corpses.”

24.Shantideva 5.13–14.

25.Of the ten nonvirtuous actions, there are three of body (killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct); four of speech (lying, speaking harshly, slandering, and gossiping); and three of mind (covetousness, ill will, and wrong views).

26.An imprint (pagcha) is the seed, or potential, left on the mind by positive or negative actions of body, speech, and mind.

27.This is the third of five paths a practitioner progresses through to attain enlightenment. The five paths are the paths of merit, preparation, seeing, meditation, and no more learning.

28.Disturbing-thought obscurations (kleshavarana, nyöndrib) are the less subtle of the two types of obscurations, the ones that block liberation. The second type, obscurations to knowledge (jneyavarana, shedrib), block enlightenment.

29.Rinpoche is referring to the massacre at Columbine High School, where twelve students and a teacher were killed and many injured.

30.Shantideva often uses the device of an objector intervening and being answered.

31.Editor’s note: This is a huge sticking point for many Westerners. Many UK Buddhists call this the “Glenn Hoddle moment” referring to the time when the ex–English football team manager publicly talked about karma in such a way as to imply disabled people deserved to be disabled because of something they had done in the past. (That is how it was understood at least.) It caused a public uproar, reduced Hoddle to a laughingstock, and did people’s understanding of karma no good at all. We do all have the karma to be crippled, or murdered, or become murderers. Over countless lifetimes we have accrued countless karmas. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama said once, when asked about the karma of those on death row in the US, “We’re all on death row.” The point here is not to apportion blame but to accept that what happens to us is the result of some action we have done in the past.

32.The Wheel of Sharp Weapons can be found in Jinpa 2006, 133–53.

33.Chen Ngawa Tsultrim Bar (1033/38–1103) was one of Dromtönpa’s main disciples. It is said the Kadam lineage of essential instructions stems from him.

34.Jinpa 2008, 585.

35.For these four ways of practicing patience, see Jinpa 2008, 581–84.

36.Shantideva 9.152–53.

37.Shantideva 7.6.

38.Nagarjuna v. 55, as translated by the Padmakara Translation Group 2005, 117.

39.Khunu Lama Tenzin Gyaltsen (1894–1977), also known as Negi Lama and Khunu Rinpoche, was an Indian scholar of Sanskrit and Tibetan and a great master and teacher of the Rimé (nonsectarian) tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He famously gave teachings to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. He was also a guru of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. His wonderful text The Jewel Lamp: A Praise of Bodhichitta is translated into English as Vast as the Heavens, Deep as the Sea.

40.Khunu Lama v. 162, as translated by Sparham 1999, 79.

41.Geshe Langri Tangpa (1054–1123) was an important Kadampa geshe, his most famous work being Eight Verses on Mind Training. From Jinpa 2006, 275.

42.Shantideva 8.135.

43.Shantideva 8.129–32.

44.Shantideva 8.134.

45.Jinpa 2006, 276.

46.While progressing through the five paths to enlightenment, a practitioner passes through ten levels of concentration called bhumis, or grounds. The two stages of highest yoga tantra are the generation stage (kye rim) and the completion stage (dzog rim).

47.Jinpa 2006, 275.

48.The five immediate negativities, or five uninterrupted negative karmas, are actions so heavy they cause us to immediately be reborn in hell after we die. They are killing our mother, father, or an arhat; maliciously drawing blood from a buddha; and causing a schism in the Sangha.

49.The two truths are the two ways we can relate to phenomena. Conventional truth is the truth to a worldly mind. Ultimate truth is the truth to a mind engaged in ultimate analysis, such as the understanding of emptiness.

50.The fourth-century Indian master who received teachings directly from Maitreya Buddha.

51.Shantideva 1.27.

52.Tathagata (dezhin shekpa), literally, “one who has realized suchness,” is an epithet for a buddha.

53.Kadampa Geshe Chayulwa (1075–1138), also known as Zhonnu Ö, was a Kadampa geshe renowned for his impeccable devotion to Geshe Tolungpa and Geshe Chen Ngawa (1038–1103). See Zopa 2009, 109–10.

54.Jinpa 2006, 275.

55.Khunu Lama v. 31 as translated by Sparham 1999, 35.

56.Ben Gungyal (Tsultrim Gyalwa) was an eleventh-century student of Kadam master Gönpawa (1016–1082) who was beloved for his colorful life, having been a robber before he encountered the Dharma.