Courageous Compassion

Courageous Compassion, the sixth volume of the Library of Wisdom and Compassion, continues the Dalai Lama's teachings on the path to awakening. While volume 5, In Praise of Great Compassion, focused on opening our hearts to others and generating the compassion, joy, and fortitude to make our lives meaningful by benefiting them, this volume ventures further to describe buddhahood, the path of no more learning-the premise being that all sentient beings will become fully awakened buddhas. We learn about the ten perfections as well as how âsråavakas, solitary realizers, and bodhisattvas progress along the paths of their respective vehicles to ultimate bodhicitta. A sophisticated schema of the five paths (of accumulation, preparation, seeing, meditation, andno more learning) and of the eight and ten grounds of the Fundamental Vehicle and the Bodhisattva Vehicle, respectively, serves as a concise framework for studying a grounds-and-path text in depth. Finally, His Holiness describes the buddha bodies, what buddhas perceive, and the awakening activities of buddas. Throughout, we see how the Dharma is taught in Tibetan Buddhism, in the Påali tradition, and in Chinese Buddhism--