The following story recounts in brief some of the events in the life of the great bodhisattva Shantideva. It is a paraphrase of sections from the Life Stories of the Lineage Teachers of the Steps of the Path (Lam-rim bla-ma brgyud-pa'i rnam-thar) written by Yongdzin Yeshe Gyeltsen (1713-1793), the teacher of the eighth Dalai Lama.
After spending many years at His teacher’s side, Geshe Michael teaches us the Steps of the Path to Enlightenment using beautiful examples and stories of how His own teacher’s life reflected these Lam Rim teachings. One of the greatest ways to learn these teachings is simply to observe the behavior of a great teacher who has received and mastered these teachings themselves.