How to be Caring:
Shantideva's Bodhicaryāvatāra
with Jay L. Garfield
Mondays, Jul 13, 20 & 27, 7–8:30pm EDT ONLINE
Shantideva’s masterful Bodhicaryāvatāra still sparkles with relevant insights for personal growth and for a stronger social contract. In his recent book, How to Be Caring: An Ancient Guide to a Compassionate Life, Professor Jay L. Garfield interprets selected verses from Shantideva’s work to both build a coherent guide to Buddhist ethics and to suggest ways to conquer our own psychopathologies.
The path to be followed by aspiring bodhisattvas can be taken as a structure for Buddhist ethics, which is distinctive in its concern for not just what we do but how we understand our relations to others. From a Buddhist ethical standpoint, we are not just desire-satisfaction machines. Buddhist ethics doesn’t begin with action but with perception. It begins with how we see others and how we see the world. Bodhisattvas seek to cultivate an attitude of universal care. As we interact with the world as engaged Buddhists, we need this clarity of ethical perspective to help us confront social problems and the ethical implications of new technology.
Professor Garfield returns to the Shantideva Center having previously led courses on Yogacara (YouTube link) in 2024 and on Candrakirti’s Prasangika Madhyamaka (YouTube link) in January 2026.
Dharma Office Hours
In the Buddhist tradition, teachers are special kinds of spiritual friends, or kalyanamitras, who play a significant role in inspiring, encouraging, and challenging us in our practices. Shantideva Center presents a rare opportunity to meet with our skilled teachers directly in a 25-minute one-on-one personal meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to foster a space for Dharma practitioners to bring questions specific to developing Dharma practice.
3 students will have an opportunity to meet with Jay L. Garfield on Jul 27 via online. To register, please click here.
Important Note
This is an online-online event that is administered using Zoom*.
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Registration
Suggested: $20 per session
Other offering options: free, $5, $10, $30
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Additional Materials
If you are a registered student, you may access the course materials on our password protected page. Please refer to the confirmation email (or receipt email) for the page link and password. Please contact us at registration@shantidevanyc.org if you have questions about accessing this page.
Recordings
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About the Facilitator
Jay L. Garfield is Doris Silbert Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy and Buddhist Studies at Smith College, Visiting Professor of Buddhist philosophy at Harvard Divinity School, Professor of Philosophy at Melbourne University and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies. Academicinfluence.com has identified him as one of the 50 most influential philosophers in the world over the past decade.
Garfield’s research addresses topics in the foundations of cognitive science and the philosophy of mind; metaphysics; the history of modern Indian philosophy; topics in ethics, epistemology and the philosophy of logic; the philosophy of the Scottish enlightenment methodology in cross-cultural interpretation; and topics in Buddhist philosophy, particularly Indo-Tibetan Madhyamaka and Yogācāra. He is the author or editor of over 30 books and over 200 articles, chapters, and reviews.
Garfield’s most recent books are How to Lose Yourself (with Maria Heim and Robert Sharf 2024), Getting Over Ourselves: How to be a Person Without a Self (2022), Knowing Illusion: Bringing a Tibetan Debate into Contemporary Discourse (with the Yakherds 2021, Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration (2021), ̛What Can’t Be Said: Paradox and Contradiction in East Asian Thought (with Yasuo Deguchi, Graham Priest, and Robert Sharf 2021), The Concealed Influence of Custom: Hume’s Treatise From the Inside Out (OUP 2019), Minds Without Fear: Philosophy in the Indian Renaissance (with Nalini Bhushan, 2017), Dignāga’s Investigation of the Percept: A Philosophical Legacy in India and Tibet (with Douglas Duckworth, David Eckel, John Powers, Yeshes Thabkhas and Sonam Thakchöe, 2016) Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy (2015), Moonpaths: Ethics and Emptiness (with the Cowherds, 2015) and (edited, with Jan Westerhoff), Madhyamaka and Yogācāra: Allies or Rivals? (2015).
