This may be helpful to keep in mind if at times we find ourselves progressing more slowly than we had hoped. Once we realize that our personalities are not fixed and that we can decide to actively change them, we might become inspired and expect to be able to push ourselves to change rapidly. But compassion and other inner qualities are not solid things that we can just decide to acquire, install, and power on. They do not exist as discrete or unrelated entities but rather need to be cultivated gradually, over time, and in concert with other qualities.
17th Karmapa
from the book
Read a random quote or see all quotes by the 17th Karmapa.
Further quotes from the book Interconnected :
- You exist in connection with others
- Extend yourself and connect
- Remaining indifferent to the suffering of animals
- The opportunity to love
- Our life is like a vast net
- Time to act
- The air we breathe
- Extending gratitude in all directions
- An important source of closeness and love
- The imagination to see the other as free and happy
- Self-reliance
- Knowing more is not a substitute for feeling more
- The interdependence between us and the world
- Acting against self-serving impulses
- Noticing the collective effects of our individual actions
- Webs of interdependence
- Interdependence at work
- Our closest and most reliable allies
- Touching the core of our equality
- His Loneliness