THE LIFE STORY OF SHANTIDEVA
The Life Story of Shantideva
"While their evil ripens in me, may all my virtue ripen in them."
Shantideva was born north of Bodhgaya around 700 C. E.
His father's name was Victorious Armour, so probably he was the king of the warrior caste and Shantideva, like so many other great masters, had Brahmanic training. His given name was Armour of Peace, a suitable name indeed for his path.
During his childhood he showed all the normal attributes of a good son and his friends respected him. While he was still young, his father died and legend has it that his father chose early death in order to show sentient beings that all are subject to impermanence.
True or not, this untimely death had a great impact on Shantideva, who developed a great spiritual interest in impermanence and death. At the time there was no natural inheritance of Kingship, so it is a great comment on his popularity and his sense of justice that the people asked Shantideva to take the throne.
A sense of duty led him to accept. The night before the ceremony he had a strange dream. He was about to sit on the throne when the Mahasattva Manjushri appeared and declared, “You are going to sit on my throne. You are my student. How could a student and disciple sit on the same throne?"
When he woke, he tried to interpret his dream and saw that his nature was more spiritual and that he would be more beneficial to the world if he became a monk than a king.
The same night, like so many others, he left for Nalanda monastery. When he came to Nalanda, he went to see the abbot and the foremost scholar of Nalanda. He was accepted for ordination and received the name Shantideva.
Under his master, Shantideva also became skilled in debate and an excellent scholar.
Because he was a great scholar and modest, he did not show this knowledge openly to others, so others didn't know. He was clearly a person ruled by his sensitivity more than his mind.
Students at Nalanda, thriving in the tense atmosphere of intellectual study, had no liking for Shantideva, and wanted him put out of the University. They repeatedly denounced him, declaring that he was not dedicated to scholarship and was only interested in his own comfort, eating, sleeping and making his ablutions. They gave him the name “lazy bones” which literally translated means "Eats-Sleeps-Shits."
What they did not see was his sensitivity, which could go beyond words to the essence of the matter studied, thus no intellectual discourse or debate was necessary.
The most arrogant set a trap for Shantideva. On a special occasion, during which members of the region's various monasteries gathered together, they ridiculed him by naming him to represent Nalanda and speak before the assembly. They had sufficient influence to have it declared that his refusal would be tantamount to resignation.
Shantideva actually refused the first time but, on the second asking, accepted. Joyfully they expected to make him appear ridiculous in front of the gathering, for they really and truly thought him indolent and completely useless.
To aid their plan they built the traditional speaking throne in a way in which it was difficult to mount.
Legend says that when Shantideva come to the throne he barely touched it and it immediately became easy to mount. This immediately set great alarm running through them, but Shantideva’s few friends were delighted.
Then Shantideva sat on the throne and asked the group what kind of teaching he should give, “something ordinary” or “something extraordinary”? The monks requested him to teach something that has never taught before.
So Shantideva decided to speak on “Undertaking the Way to Awakening.”
Shantideva gave this teaching, and legend says that when his teaching came to a phrase in the ninth chapter (the Wisdom chapter), "…whatever is existent and non-existent..." , he rose to the sky, and from the sky he gave the tenth chapter. He was invisible for the people, but they could hear his teachings.
Those who liked Shantideva felt very sad as Shantideva was now gone, and even those who had been his enemies repented their folly.
They pleaded and brought him back to the monastery but once more he was abused, so he went to live in the forest with animals and leaving monastery life forever wandered from place to place, perhaps becoming Avaivartika by his natural behaviour and Awakened as Hui-neng was in his time.
A COMMENTARY
One of the central sources for the Bodhisattva ideal in Mahāyāna Buddhism has been the Bodhicaryāvatāra —this “ Undertaking the Way to Awakening” which Shantideva taught. His talk has been a source of inspiration for the Bodhisattva ideal and the title by most Mahayana schools has been changed to Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra — A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life.
This teaching is particularly remarkable in that it is the only public discourse known to have been given by Shantideva.
His talk on BODHICARYAVATARA had the following sections: the first three chapters are an explanation of how an awakening mind can be aroused, the next three explain the methods by which one maintains an awakening mind and prevents it from deteriorating, and the three chapters which follow are to increase Bodhicitta when it has been engendered. The final chapter is a traditional dedication.
Praise of the Awakening Mind
Confession of Faults
Adopting the Awakening Mind
Vigilance regarding the Awakening Mind
The Guarding of Awareness
The Perfection of Forbearance
The Perfection of Vigour
The Perfection of Meditative Absorption
The Perfection of Understanding
Dedication
This text has been a source of inspiration for the Mahayana gradual path, which the Tibetans call Lam Rim, but the Bodhisattva ideas are pertinent to all branches of Buddhism, be they Theravadin or Mahayana.
The poem which is given below, one of his many poems, echoes the sentiments of his talk and speaks to all upon the Buddha Dharma path.
Let there then be no differences between us.
“Whatever joy there is in this world
All comes from desiring others to be happy,
And whatever suffering there is in this world,
All comes from desiring myself to be happy.”
But what need is there to say much more?
The childish work for their own benefit,
The Buddhas work for the benefit of others.
Just look at the difference between them!
Shantideva
Why?
Some central questions regarding the Bodhisattva Ideal which really must be dealt with before we talk about the Bodhisattva Path are:
“Why should we care if other people are suffering?”
“What does it matter to us?”
“Why should we care if other people are happy?”
“What does it matter to us? “
“Why should we care if other people are free?”
“What does it matter to us? “
The first point arising from this is “Who are the others? As Buddhists, we include all sentient creatures, which embraces all animal life, but it is clear in this age when man’s actions are so destructive and in which we understand the bio-system, that we should extend this “others” to all plant life as well.
The essence of these questions are the processes of Egoism and Altruism, which psychologically rule most behaviour and are in fact one of the great differences between the human creature and other sentient beings.
Egoism is to be without concern for the welfare (pain, suffering, happiness and freedom) of others, and to be without motivation to do something to prevent or remove the pain and suffering of others or to promote their happiness, except in so far as it promotes our own welfare.
Altruism then is defined as concern for the welfare (pain, suffering, happiness, and freedom) of others, and to be with motivation to do something to prevent or remove the pain and suffering of others or to promote their happiness.
But Buddhism goes further than these loose definitions and speaks about Egoism in terms of Craving and Clinging, so that there is a sense of “not others, me”. If then we speak about a refined sense of Altruism we must speak in terms of “Not me, others”.
It is this case, then, that central to every question is who is this “Me” and what is this relation of “Me “ to “Others”?
There are two ways of considering this Identification. There is first the reductionism concept of a person presented by the Vaibhānika Abhidharma School and interpersonal holism. In this former view there is no self or others and in the latter, others are perceived not only as more or less similar to oneself, but as oneself.
The reductive idea is that the person is nothing but the sum of his apparent parts, or rather, elements. The parts (dharmas) are supposed to have primary reality (dravyasat) with an ontological nature of their own (svabhāva) as indivisible momentary energetic elements of experience. From this we construct our conceptions (illusions) of persons, living beings and other things. These constructions can be analysed into compounds of parts, they are nothing in themselves, and they are without any self (pudgala-nairātmya).
The holistic concept understands the person as something more than the sum of its apparent parts, which is no way spiritual in nature. This holistic self is, of course, only also illusion, it is a conventional truth (sattvatisatya), and not the highest truth (paramārthasatya), in which there is indeed nether a substantial self (anatman) nor duality. The true state is characterised by emptiness of own-being (svabhāvaśūnyatā).
As a useful illusion arising from discrimination and the evolution of language, it is given name and form (nama and rupa) which provide the base for the illusion of “Self-identification” which is transformed into the belief in a “True Self”, a delusion of the Dual mind.
It is this second point of view that Shantideva has taken and the human conceptual problems and conflicts are between those who perceive this union of all sentient creatures (understanding the truth of non-duality) and those who do not.
Here then we have the essence of the Bodhisattva Ideal. It is that we mistakenly believe that we are individuals and thus there is unnatural competition between us, in which “I” must be the first to survive and “enjoy”.
When we realize that we are inseparable then clearly “We must survive and enjoy”. Do you see however that one question leads to another?
Survival is an easy concept to understand, but “enjoy” is quite another. As Buddhists we say that any “natural enjoyment” that arises from our true nature with sensitivity, discrimination and natural intelligence, is correct and to be encouraged and developed to its full.
But “ego enjoyment” has no natural sensitivity, discrimination or natural intelligence and thus must be considered incorrect.
The Bodhisattva path then is one that transforms the amplified egoism into an amplified altruism which leads us to the unity of all sentient creatures.
But we must be exceedingly careful to not fall into the trap of considering that we are then parts of the whole. That is an error.
We are a whole who has the capacity to perceive ourselves as a part. It is the error of the Dual mind that makes that illusory and useful perception a delusion in which one believes that one actually exists.
Shantideva's path then is designed to open our awareness of this whole and lead us by way of the Bodhisattva Ideal towards the dissolving of suffering, the development of true happiness and liberation from Identity.
The Bodhisattva path is understood as a transformation from the divided self to the whole self which then transforms into a non-self within the highest truth. There has been, since Vedic times, a clear knowledge of the defects in society of Egoism, which fails to interact with any social group. As a result, the religious world has presented various solutions such as the duty and obligation which prevailed in the Vedas, justice (essential for a society for auto-protection), utility (which is a form of social egoism), virtue (religious integration), and the idea of human rights (a new and apparently noble concern which is a mental concern not a natural one). All have failed. Only the Bodhisattva ideal remains firm and clear.
The transformation is based on wisdom, implying insight into the real nature of the person (pudgala), and hence of the ego.
Appearance does not match reality. If we believe it does, then that is due to our basic ignorance, the possession a belief in Duality, which engenders unwholesome effects such as greed and hatred, and these unwholesome roots engender suffering. Liberation from suffering is insight into this root delusion, and that is crucial to the development of wisdom.
This wisdom, the highest truth, is that a person is not a substantial self (pudgala-nairātmya), but is characterized as such by illusion. The person is really empty of “independent own-being” (svabhāva-śūnyatā).
But the Bodhisattva is not motivated by these intellectual considerations. He does not wish to remove all pain and suffering simply because there is pain or suffering, for indeed that may suppose a universal identity.
There is really no motivation, there exists simply a natural impulse to destroy the delusion of suffering. In most people, there exists, before Awakening, the three poisons (confusion/doubt, greed, and hostility/aversion). In the bodhisattva, however, his true nature will shine forth again in proportion as he or she removes these hindrances.
Perceiving this to be the Truth, it is the normal justification for taking a Bodhisattva pledge to follow the path to liberation for all human creatures, who are known to be nevertheless illusion. In this pledge one sees oneself under the influence of Duality.
The pledge, therefore, must be taken with a full understanding of the truth of non-duality, a knowledge of one’s own folly, and the desire to reach the natural Bodhisattva state.
May all who read this text of Shantideva see that the way is open for all. May they take the Bodhisattva path and the affirmation, which is essential if this world is to be eventually freed from the chains of Mara. May they convert that pledge into action and the spread of the Buddha Dharma.
Shan-jian