When we sip our tea or coffee, start our car, enter a shop, or exchange greetings with someone while out for a stroll, we are enjoying those experiences as a direct result of interdependence. All these moments bear direct witness to the workings of interdependence. Such daily occurrences are a continuous procession of opportunities to […]
Over the years, we may have done a lot of spiritual practice, performing prostrations, making offerings, and meditating on the yidam deities, and we hope that blessings will come to us from doing all this. Yet we have neither tamed nor transformed our minds. The fundamental reason for our lack of progress is that we […]
Since the future is limitless and sentient beings are limitless, our aspirations can be limitless too. With this attitude, we can reach the end of any problem, because we can make our aspiration unlimited and project it as far into the future as needed until that problem is solved. This can make our resolve to […]
Our grasping at what is me and mine puts up walls that can make our world close in on us. We end up peering through narrow windows and seeing what goes on around us through a myopic lens. No wonder there is such a sense of alienation and loneliness in the world. Opening up to […]
We are in many ways creatures of habit. If we live within certain conditions long enough, they come to seem natural to us. But if we had lived in different conditions, they would seem equally natural. Looking at the cultural, religious, or material conditions that others have become habituated to may make us feel that […]
Interdependence is not a mere theory or interesting philosophy. It impacts our lives directly every single day. By deepening our awareness of interconnectedness, we can create a far more harmonious and healthy society and live far more satisfying lives. For that to happen, we can’t just stop our analysis at the interdependence of the physical […]
With compassion, you need to be able to envision the end goal – the happiness that you want the other to attain. It is not the case that when you feel compassion you only see suffering and pain and cannot see anything beyond that. Rather, you have the imagination to see the other as free […]
Our attitude is that of someone doing research, looking into the different characters and inclinations that living beings have. We should never think, “I’m fine. I’ve learned enough. I don’t need anything more. I’m great.” Rather, we can look at our encounters with living beings in all their brilliant variety as a chance to be […]
Living interdependence is the opportunity you have been waiting for. Perhaps the most valuable opportunity it offers is the opportunity to love. We need to expand our access to the love we have within us. This requires that we put ourselves in situations that ask us and allow us to love. 17th Karmapa
Training in compassion is about shortening the distance we feel between ourselves as the one in a good situation who has compassion and others in a bad situation who are the objects of our compassion. Fully accepting our involvement with people, we rely on the feeling that the two, subject with compassion and object of […]
I would like to share something on my own personal experience. I am not sure how this would work in other contexts but it helped me move beyond this sort of conflict. I mentioned that since I left home for the monastery when I was seven years old, I have had different caretakers and guardians. […]
Self-mastery entails self-discipline, but neither self-mastery nor self-discipline is a matter of applying superior force. It is not like a parent pushing a child to do her homework long enough that she finally grudgingly does it to avoid being scolded by her parents. Self-discipline can be developed joyfully rather than as a burden we impose […]
We have within us already the most important resources we need for living interdependence well. We have tremendous mental flexibility that allows us to adopt new positions in relation to changing circumstances. As I will explore in the following chapters, I believe that we have the basic ability to open our hearts to others, to […]
Generosity need not be applied only in the material realm. We can also cultivate a spirit of generosity in whatever problem we are working on. We do this by making an offering of ourselves – offering a hand, offering a word, offering heart and mind – as a positive condition in any situation we find […]
Just as equality must ultimately be applied universally, so must our compassion, love, and sense of responsibility. They must continue to expand until we willingly and enthusiastically embrace the opportunity to benefit any being with whom we come into contact. 17th Karmapa
When many other people join in a trend, we are less likely to look beyond the pack to think about the consequences of our collective actions, but actually we should think more. This becomes particularly acute in the twenty-first century, when technology further intensifies the reach of such collective actions. 17th Karmapa
Some people find it hard to see their own inner beauty. They wish to learn to be kinder to themselves but do not know how to go about doing so. I would say that in being loving and affectionate towards others, you can discover affection and kindness towards yourself. The best way to love oneself […]
Recognizing our intimate dependence on the natural environment allows us to see its true value and treasure it. One reason that people living in cities nowadays need to be told so much about the importance of caring for the earth is because they did not grow up feeling direct, unmediated connections to it. For them, […]
Empathy enables us to reach across differences and connect as equals. It does so by cutting straight through the walls that we build up around us and allowing us to touch the core of our equality: the ability to experience pain and joy 17th Karmapa
Humans are set apart from other types of sentient beings by their ability to naturally connect with sharp intelligence and with nonviolence, loving-kindness, and compassion. From the moment we are born, we are constantly chasing after happiness, thinking of ways we can become happy and free from suffering, and we actively try to bring those […]
