> [!summary] Progressive Summary # Structured Notes ## Definitions bodhi - awake chitta - heart or mind shantideva - a prince in 8th-century India, who wrote the Way of the Bodhisattva (Bodhicharyavatara) mahayana - the branch of Buddhism that seeks to free all beings from suffering; it is adopting [[A Wider Lens How to See Your Life Differently]] in which suffering is minimised samsara - Einstein's quote "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and thinking we'll get different results" captures the notion of samsara. Shantideva refers to being trapped in the "dungeons of samsara" ## Chapter Summaries ### Introduction It is told that the night before his coronation, Shantideva had a dream in which Manjushri (the bodhisattva of wisdom) came to him and told him to renounce his worldly life. He left home immediately and began pursuing a spiritual path. He ended up in Nalanda University, the foremost monastery at that time. It seems he didn't show up for anything, and his fellow monks said that his "three realisations" were eating, sleeping and shitting. To teach him a lesson, they invited him to give a talk to the entire university, thinking this would shame him into changing his ways. He asked them if they wanted a traditional teaching, or something new. They asked for something new. To their astonishment, he went on to deliver the entire Way of the Bodhisattva. Patrul Rinpoche was a wandering yogi of 19th-century Tibet who taught the text hundreds of times, teaching it to anyone who would listen. Inspired by his interest, Pema Chödrön studied the text extensively. This book is based on a series of talks she gave at Gampo Abbey's monastic college. # Rough Notes # Quotes > We baby bodhisattvas don't design our lives to escape the chaos of the world; we go into the thick of things and work with whatever we find. Samsara becomes our practice ground, our boot camp, so to speak. If we find we continually get hooked into the drama, we temporarily retreat to work on ourselves. But our passion is to alleviate ever greater depths of suffering and meet ever greater challenges with equanimity.