 For Śāntideva, as for other Mahāyāna Buddhists, the spiritual path that is shaped and motivated by the Awakening Mind involves the cultivation of six crucial qualities or virtues known as the Perfections (or perhaps “Transcendences”, Sanskrit pāramitā). This well-known list has great importance for Śāntideva, as it provides the main structural framework for the organization of the BCA; members of the list also occur in the titles of four of the chapters of the ŚS. The six perfections are: