The Bodhicaryavatara is an 8th century text written by Shantideva, a Buddhist monk from the monastic 'university' at Nalanda, India, and Dhammadinna presented this material over three sessions on an Order retreat called "Teaching the Bodhicaryavatara." She says at the beginning that she isn't giving a formal talk and, indeed, the title is her description of what she was doing.... sharing some thoughts on the Bodhicaryavatara.

At various points in the talk, Dhammadinna asks us questions relating to the text - do we believe this? does this language still work for us in the 21st century? do we need to rephrase it for our generation and culture? or do we just need to try harder to be receptive to Shantideva's insights?

The three sessions were a preliminary to main activity of the retreat where each Order member present chose some verses from the text and led a session of study / discussion on them.

Given at Taraloka, October 2008