Pabitrakumar Roy

Mapping the Bodhicaryavatara is an interpretive study of the great Mahayana ethical treatise focusing on Bodhisattvayana as it is variantly called.

The objective of this book is to provide a theory of selfless ethical love in the context of our technological age with logical clarity. Its first part discusses various basic issues concerning the logic of ethics. It argues that ethics is not non-cognitive, not a priori transcendental, not subjective, and not relative: it is possible to have empirical scientific moral and spiritual knowledge.

The lectures revolve round the crucial importance of loving kindness or Karuna, the most worth cultivating state of mind in Buddhism. The first lecture traces the development of the concept to show its relevance for our own times. The idea was first germinated in a celebrated Pali sutta, and later epitomized by Asanga, the Yogacara philosopher. He asked what would happen if we did not have loving kindness in our hearts, if the attitude of love is lacking, without love what follows?