All too often, though, even so-called Buddhists misunderstand bodhichitta and reduce it to little more than compassionate loving-kindness. Love, compassion and wanting to make people happy are very popular ideals these days and are often promoted as bodhichitta’s most important features. We forget that without bodhichitta there would be no mahayana or vajrayana Buddhism, and that the most crucial aspect of both these yanas is the wisdom of understanding shunyata (emptiness). Without wisdom, compassion alone is not “bodhichitta,” and vice versa; both qualities are essential.

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Further quotes from the book Not for Happiness:

• Our fundamental problem
• We must also practice it
• Altruism bolsters self-confidence
• Nothing genuinely works in samsara
• Our most important companion
• Self Trapped
• Relative and absolute truth
• Being able to start practicing right away
• Obstacles Create Fertile Ground for Practice
• It cannot be fixed
• Just space
• Life is a stream of sensory illusions
• Rip that ego apart
• Sign of a mature practitioner
• Not designed to cheer you up
• Three higher trainings
• Dawn of wisdom
• Avoid being distracted
• Without the personal advice of Buddha
• Mara’s five arrows