Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Buddhist Studies
Episode: Stephen Harris, "Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Santideva on Virtue and Well-Being" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Description: An influential eighth-century Buddhist text, ĹÄntidevaâs BodhicaryÄvatÄra, 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 Harrisâs Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: ĹÄntideva on Virtue and Well-Being (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024) is a study of the Guide. It articulates ĹÄntidevaâs moral psychology and virtue theory in chapter-length treatments of four central virtues: generosity, patience, compassion, and wisdom. According to Harris, ĹÄntideva thinks these virtues benefit human persons, and thus the radically altruistic bodhisattva path is also a self-interested o...