COURAGEOUS COMPASSION offers an in-depth look at bodhicitta, arhatship, and buddhahood that you can continuously refer to as you progress on the path to full awakening.
COURAGEOUS COMPASSION
by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with Thubte Chodron
Wisdom Publications, May 2021
COURAGEOUS COMPASSION, the sixth volume of the Library of Wisdom and Compassion series, continues the Dalai Lama’s teachings on the path to awakening. The previous volume, In Praise of Great Compassion, focused on opening our hearts with love and compassion for all living beings, and the present volume explains how to embody compassion and wisdom in our daily lives. Here we enter a fascinating exploration of bodhisattvas’ activities across multiple Buddhist traditions—Tibetan, Theravada, and Chinese Buddhism.
After explaining the ten perfections according to the Pali and Sanskrit traditions, the Dalai Lama presents the sophisticated schema of the four paths and fruits for sravakas and solitary realizers and the five paths for bodhisattvas. Learning about the practices mastered by these exalted practitioners inspires us with knowledge of our minds’ potential. His Holiness also describes buddha bodies, what buddhas perceive, and buddhas’ awakening activities.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama (b. 1935) is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. For sixty years, he was the also the political leader of the Tibetan people, first from the Potala Palace in Lhasa and then helping his compatriots adapt to the modern world from his residence in northern India. An advocate for science, ethics, and harmony among people of different faiths, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and travels widely in support of Buddhism, the cause of Tibet, and human happiness.
Thubten Chodron has been a Buddhist nun since 1977. A graduate of UCLA, she is the founder and abbess of Sravasti Abbey in Washington State. She is a popular speaker and author of numerous books, including Buddhism for Beginners.
Andy Norman has spent years studying the destructive forces that can flip the minds of sensible people to understand how they take hold. He calls them mind-parasites, ideas that can poison our thinking and leave us more susceptible to wild conspiracies, lead us to reject scientific evidence, and convince us to double down on unfounded beliefs. Just as the body can be weakened by foreign organisms that make us sick, the mind too is vulnerable to infection. But just as antibiotics can be used to attack the biological organisms causing physical illness, we can treat the mind parasites that invade our heads. He shows us how to engage in productive discussion, analyzes the psychological evidence about how to change minds, and reveals how we can safeguard ourselves and protect those around us from mind-parasites like conspiracies and fake news. In MENTAL IMMUNITY Andy Norman calls for the study of cognitive immunology, a way of thinking where individuals and society learn to differentiate facts and reasons from disinformation and false memes. By strengthening our mental immunity, we become open to other ideas and learn how better to communicate about beliefs and policy without dissolving into partisan finger-pointing. Norman offers suggestions to create a value- and respect-based system of dialogue that can help us bolster cultural cognitive immunity as we protect our own minds from succumbing to bad ideas.
Ian Olasov answers questions such as:
As graduates embark on the next phase of their lives, what better way to get them accustomed to the rat race they are about to enter than by introducing them to the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre? Cleverly told through the story of a pair of rats trapped in the labyrinth of existence, this allegory humorously conveys the key ideas of Sartre’s existential philosophy in graphic novel form—accessible for students and readers of all ages. In addition, two reputable Sartre scholars have contributed the introduction and afterword: Gary Cox, a British philosopher with a doctorate from the University of Birmingham, and Christine Daigle, professor of philosophy at Brock University in Canada.