A GUIDE TO THE BODHISATTVA WAY OF LIFE by Shantideva, trans. by Vesna A. Wallace & B. Alan Wallace

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 Santideva, it became an instant classic in the curricula of the Buddhist monastic universities of India, and its renown has grown ever since. Santideva 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.

“…will stand for many years as the standard English translation of this key Tibetan Buddhist text.”–Publishers Weekly

“The Wallaces have produced a concise, literal, and elegant translation. The extant Sanskrit edition frequently differs from the one used in Tibet a millennium ago, and the Wallaces have noted these differences in copious footnotes. These features make their translation both highly readable and an excellent source for scholars of the original languages.”–Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

“Wallace and Wallace succeed with admirable eloquence where some earlier translations (such as S. Batchelor’s) flounder under the weight of the scholarly apparatus used to represent the voices in the text.”–Liz Wilson, Religious Studies Review