Living Wisely: Advice from Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland

How do we live wisely? Sangharakshita outlines how in this companion volume of commentary on Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland, showing us how to use our positive ethical position, our momentum in goodness, to develop a deep understanding of the nature of life. In the companion volume, Living Ethically, Sangharakshita showed us that to live a Buddhist life we need to develop an ethical foundation. Ethical living means being motivated increasingly by love, contentment and awareness. However, from a Buddhist viewpoint, this ‘being good’ is not good enough. We become good in order to be wise. Although ultimately the most satisfying of all human endeavours, here we learn that the development of wisdom is also not an easy task. The truth of things is elusive, subtle and even frightening. So we need to get to it by developing both a more non-literal and reflective intelligence, and greater maturity and courage.