Stephen Harris, "Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Santideva on Virtue and Well-Being" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Jul 20, 2024
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Stephen Harris, an expert in Buddhist Ethics, discusses Śāntideva’s Guide to the Practices of Awakening, focusing on virtues like compassion and wisdom. He explores how the bodhisattva path benefits individuals and the connection between ethical virtues and emptiness in Buddhism.
Bodhicaryāvatāra guides virtue, compassion, and wisdom for Bodhisattvas.
Altruistic path benefits both others and the practitioner.
Practice empathy and perspective shifts to develop compassion.
Joy counters anger and fosters virtues like patience and generosity.
Deep dives
Shanti Deva's Dedication to Universal Compassion and Virtue
Shanti Deva, an 8th-century CE Buddhist philosopher, explores the concept of universal compassion and the elimination of suffering for all beings through his works. Focusing on his moral philosophy, Shanti Deva emphasizes the importance of virtues like generosity, patience, and compassion. He delves into the interconnectedness of virtue, metaphysics, and moral psychology, highlighting the benefits of dedicating oneself to the happiness of others. His teachings advocate that all happiness stems from helping others and that dedicating oneself entirely to others leads to personal and collective well-being.
Shanti Deva's Philosophical Journey into Buddhist Ethics
Stephen Harris's book delves into the philosophical teachings of Buddhist philosopher Shanti Deva, focusing on his moral psychology and the virtuous mental states he advocates. By studying generosity, patience, and compassion, Shanti Deva's work emphasizes the importance of eliminating craving, fostering well-being, and developing virtuous character. Harris's analysis showcases Shanti Deva's belief that all suffering comes from harming others, endorsing a philosophy rooted in altruism and compassion for universal well-being.
Shanti Deva's Integration of Compassion and Understanding in Cultivating Virtue
Shanti Deva's teachings on cultivating compassion emphasize perspective-taking and cognitive-emotional shifts crucial to developing compassion. The equalizing self and other argument and the exchanging self and other meditation techniques aid in fostering empathy and the desire to alleviate the suffering of all beings. Shanti Deva's approach challenges the prioritization of self-interest over the well-being of others, advocating for a philosophy grounded in compassion, altruism, and interconnected virtuous mental states for personal and collective flourishing.
Cultivating Compassion through Understanding One's Position
The practice of exchanging oneself with others, as discussed by Shanti Deva, involves empathizing with individuals from different social positions to understand their feelings. By contemplating the envy or emotional distress experienced by others, one can develop compassion towards them. This practice aids in recognizing and addressing one's own negative traits, such as envy and arrogant pride, through a perspective shift that fosters compassion and eliminates selfish tendencies.
The Significance of Joy in Shanti Deva's Philosophy
Shanti Deva's inclusion of joy as a key aspect of his philosophical framework serves as an antidote to mental pain, particularly in countering anger. The pursuit of joy is intertwined with the virtues cultivated by individuals, leading to a transformative psychological impact. Joy plays a vital role in virtues like patience, generosity, and compassion, aligning with the overarching goal of achieving enlightenment and eliminating negative emotions.
Navigating Emptiness and Ethical Frameworks in Philosophical Discourse
In addressing the metaphysical nihilism objection related to emptiness and ethics, Shanti Deva navigates the interconnected nature of metaphysical positions and ethical cultivation. By emphasizing emptiness as the rejection of intrinsic existence and demonstrating how an understanding of emptiness transforms experience, Shanti Deva counters the concern of ethical voidness. Through his philosophical and psychological discourse, he reconciles emptiness with the cultivation of virtues, ensuring a foundation for ethical frameworks and moral psychology.
Exploring Dedication and Virtuous Intentions in Shanti Deva's Teachings
The dedication chapter in Shanti Deva's teachings focuses on the intention and commitment to the Bodhisattva path, emphasizing the importance of cultivating virtues and moral psychology. Despite presenting high expectations for Bodhisattvas, the text also aims to engage a broader philosophical audience in contemplating human values and ethical conduct. By encouraging the dedication of accumulated merits to benefit all beings, Shanti Deva's teachings extend beyond individual spiritual growth to promote universal compassion and ethical virtues.
An influential eighth-century Buddhist text, Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra, or Guide to the Practices of Awakening, how to become a supremely virtuous person, a bodhisattva who desires to end the suffering of all sentient beings.
Stephen Harris’s Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Śāntideva on Virtue and Well-Being (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024) is a study of the Guide. It articulates Śāntideva’s moral psychology and virtue theory in chapter-length treatments of four central virtues: generosity, patience, compassion, and wisdom. According to Harris, Śāntideva thinks these virtues benefit human persons, and thus the radically altruistic bodhisattva path is also a self-interested one. Harris’s book also explores how this ethical project coheres with the emptiness of all things, the famous Madhyamaka denial of intrinsic nature.
