Roundtable on Stephen Harris’s Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Śāntideva on Virtue and Well-Being (Bloomsbury Academic 2023)

Bringing together scholars in the fields of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and Buddhist ethics, this roundtable discusses Stephen Harris’s new book Buddhist Ethics and the Bodhisattva Path: Śāntideva on Virtue and Well-Being (published by Bloomsbury Academic 2023). Building on previous studies on Śāntideva’s Introduction to the Practices of Awakening (Bodhicaryāvatāra), Harris delves deeper into this crucial text to enhance the scholarly understanding of virtues and delineate Buddhist ethics as a virtue theory. In a close examination of Harris’s work, the panelists will engage with the analysis of virtues and their cultivation, subsequently addressing methodological questions on how to study Buddhist ethics. Together, they will also explore the social benefits of the development of Buddhist virtues.