Shantideva now goes on to describe what our life will be like if we don’t follow the path of wisdom. Actually, he is describing what our life is like now.

(9.154ab) I beseech you, O reader, who are just like me,
Please strive to realize that all phenomena are empty, like space.

Again and again throughout Shantideva’s guide he portrays himself as no different than us. He is just a practitioner, striving to do his best to progress along the bodhisattva’s path. He wrote his Guide as a personal practice to try deep in his own familiarity with the teachings that he has received.  His Guide is his own personal meditation on the bodhisattva’s path he compiled to clarify it within his own mind. Geshe-la’s commentary to the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life is called Meaningful to Behold. The meaning of this is Shantideva said that he prepared the guide to familiarize himself with the teachings, but if others find it meaningful, then all the better. When Geshe-la looks at the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, he finds it something to be meaningful to behold, and he encourages us to do the same.

I have spent the last many years providing my understanding of Shantideva’s Guide to Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. This for me has likewise been my own personal meditation on what Shantideva has written. By familiarizing myself with what he said, and writing down my understandings of what it means, I have clarified to an extent by own understanding of the bodhisattva’s path. I have shared my understanding on my blog in the hopes that others might also find these reflections helpful.

In the last few years of Geshe-la teaching publicly, he said many times that we need to write our own commentaries to the practices he has given us. He provides us this encouragement not to replace his commentaries, but rather to deep our familiarity with the teachings. By writing down our understandings, it forces us to clarify our thoughts about the Dharma. I have found this to be incredibly helpful and beneficial over the last many years. Writing this series of post has in many ways been one of my most important spiritual activities. None of what I say here should ever be considered definitive, it is just simply my understanding as of the time in which I wrote these words.

All of the buddhas that came before us were once practitioners just like us. They were full of delusions, worries, and preoccupations just like us. But they felt a spark of inspiration and decided to use their precious human life to familiarize themselves with Dharma. Overtime, their familiarity grew and grew and they became happier and happier. They then sought to share their understandings with others in the hopes that they too could find a similar happiness.