August 2025 Lhagsam Newsletter

by Christine Klingler

At Lhagsam, Venerable René Feusi shared the story of Shantideva, revered author of the Bodhicaryāvatāra and one of the 84 mahasiddas who fascinated me ever since I first heard of them at Gomde Austria in 2023. These tantric masters of Indian Buddhism, who lived between the 8th and 12th centuries, were people like you and me from all walks of life — princesses, craftsmen, housewives, monks. Their message, still valid today: A life of radical compassion is possible for everyone, regardless of their social standing. Keith Dowman’s Masters of Mahamudra: Songs and Histories of the Eighty-Four Buddhist Siddhas brings their colourful stories to life. Once enlightened, says Dowman, a siddha cannot help but act for the benefit of all beings. Karl Brunnhölzl, translator of the „Sounds of Innate Freedom” series, once compared the radical compassion of the mahasiddhas to OCD.

Shantideva’s story showed me that we have to be careful with judgment. As a monk at Nalanda, he seemed to do nothing but eat and sleep, shunning every debate, much to the annoyance of his fellow monks. Warned by the abbot that he might be expelled, Shantideva responded by composing the Bodhicaryāvatāra literally overnight. After presenting it to the baffled assembly, he demonstrated his siddhi by levitating into the sky and vanishing. According to the legend it is thanks to these amazing events that we have Shantideva’s beautiful work, which includes the famous lines often quoted by His Holiness the Dalai Lama:

“For as long as space remains, for as long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too remain to dispel the miseries of the world.

For me, this represents the core of Buddhist endeavor.