Reddit mentions of Practicing Wisdom: The Perfection of Shantideva's Bodhisattva Way

For learning more about the Bodhisattva ideal, I highly recommend Shantideva's The Way of The Bodhisattva, which is a poetic text that lays out in extreme detail the entire path of the Bodhisattva. This is a very important text within Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhism. I highly recommend this book if you are serious about practicing the Bodhisattva path, as well as The Dalai Lama's main commentary on the book, and his commentary on the difficult 9th chapter of the text.

 

Though I agree with others here that if you have difficulties being open minded towards the supernatural elements (particularly rebirth), then Mahayana Buddhism might not be a good fit. In general, I would say Mahayana Buddhism has more emphasis on supernatural elements compared to Theravadan Buddhism, at least how they are presented here in the West. I used to be very skeptical of rebirth, but now I'm very open minded too it, in fact, I pretty much believe in it now. Basically I came to the conclusion that Buddhism simply doesnt make sense without Rebirth, and that Rebirth plays a far more integrally important role to the Buddha's teachings than Western Buddhism may have you believe. For learning more about the Buddhist understanding of Rebirth, I recommend the following (long) article, or the Dalai Lama's explanation of reincarnation is very helpful too.

If you're interested in a deeper understanding of Buddhism, I highly recommend Practicing Wisdom.

The book was written by the Dali Lama. It's a heavy read and goes very in depth into a crucial chapter of Shantideva's Way of the Bodhisattva. It focuses on key verses from Way of Bodhisattva and analyzes them through the lenses of two differing schools of Buddhist thought with the Dali Lamas thoughts interjected. It's fantastic.

When I was in my early twenties I took this book everywhere with me. I've read it from a cafe in Amsterdam to a tent on the plains of the Serengeti. It deserves to be read thoughtfully and thoroughly. I read it in small bits and would reflect on passages for days at a time before moving on or rereading parts I wanted to understand more. This turned into a little longer than just a book recommendation, but anyway.
its p good lmao