Shantideva was a seventh-century Buddhist master who taught at Nalanda, one of the great monastic universities of ancient India, and Shantideva's Bodhicharyavatara deeply influenced the Dalai Lama, who once remarked that his own understanding of the bodhisattva path is based entirely upon Shantideva's text. Shantideva's work is required reading for an understanding of Tibetan Buddhism.

As long as space endures,
As long as sentient beings remain,
May I likewise remain
To dispel the sorrows of the world.
—Shantideva

The Way of Awakening is without question the most comprehensive single commentary on this text available. Expounded by an accomplished scholar and deeply realized meditator, it is a resource for a lifetime of study. Chapter by chapter and verse by verse, it maps the Bodhicharyavatara, helping us to deepen our understanding of its teachings and apply them to our lives.

Praise & Reviews "The present work contains a thorough practical guide to the Bodhicharyavatara by Geshe Yeshe Tobden. He has that rare distinction of being not only qualified as a scholar, but also of having gained long acquaintance through many years of meditation in the mountains. As a result, his explanation has the special flavor of heartfelt personal experience." —from the foreword by the Dalai Lama "Geshe Yeshe Tobden studied at one of the world's greatest Buddhist monateries, Sera. Not only did he master the subjects of philosophy, logic, wisdom, metaphysics, and morality, his presentation shows that he also has experiential understanding. His combination of knowledge and experience is greatly needed today."—Gehlek Rimpoche, author of Good Life, Good Death

Geshe Yeshe Tobden, Author Geshe Yeshe Tobden was born in 1926 to a family of wealthy farmers in Ngadra, a village one day's walk south of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and became a monk at age twelve. After the Chinese invasion of his homeland in 1959, he was arrested, but escaped, and spent two years crossing the Tibetan Plateau on foot until reaching the border with India. He completed his geshe studies in India, and spent several years teaching at the university in Varanasi. When he was forty-four, he told the Dalai Lama of his desire to live out his days in meditation retreat, for, from his boyhood, he had deeply desired the realization of reununciation, bodhichitta, and emptiness. Released from his duties at the university, he made his main residence a one-room hut above McLeod Ganj, the town in India where the Dalai Lama lives. There he lived for the remainder of his life, apart from a few teaching tours abroad, notably to fledgling Buddhist centers in Italy where these teachings were delivered. Geshe Yeshe Tobden passed away in McLeod Ganj in 1999. Fiorella Rizzi, Editor