As I grew up and began studying Buddhist philosophy and teachings, I discovered great harmony between Buddhism and the environmental movement. The emphasis on biological diversity, including ecosystems — in particular, the understanding that animate and inanimate beings are parts of a whole — resonates closely with Buddhism’s emphasis on interdependence. The essence of Buddhism […]
Gratitude is a value of interdependence. It is an inner orientation that aligns us emotionally with the outer reality of our lives. Bringing heart and mind together, gratitude is an affective state that can be produced by an awareness of interdependence. We identify interdependence at work and train ourselves to respond to that awareness with […]
When we practice various kinds of meditations on compassion, it is not enough for us simply to feel a compassionate sensation in our minds. We must bring our meditation on compassion to the deepest level possible. To make our compassion as deep as possible, we must reflect on the suffering of sentient beings in all […]
Within each of us there is a deep well of potential goodness — of radiance and nobility. The problem is that we do not always know how to draw from this well or make it a source of ongoing sustenance and support. You could think about it this way: Perhaps when you feel lonely, its […]
When you feel authentic love toward others, you will be deeply moved to act. You will not rest until you have found ways to secure the happiness of all those you are able to include in your feelings of love. As you learn to love more and more widely, your love will motivate you to […]
Determining who we are or how we are doing in life by comparing ourselves to others will never give us a stable or reliable measure of our well-being, because comparative judgments always shift based on who we are comparing ourselves to. We do not need to live our lives measuring ourselves against external standards set […]
When we are trying to cultivate a capacity to feel closeness to others, we do not need to create anything new. We are cultivating a latent ability, albeit one that might have been neglected or impaired during the course of our lives. There is every indication that the ability to experience genuine closeness is an […]
We hold nothing back – not our effort, not any resources we might have, not time itself. We do not even hold our futures to ourselves. If we limit our aspirations to short-term aims and allow our aspirations to end when we attain those limited results, we will not create the momentum needed to maintain […]
Our interdependent lives are shaped not only by material conditions but also by our emotional states, by the strength of inner qualities like patience, love, or wisdom, and by the beliefs and perceptions that influence our decisions — in short the whole suite of cognitive and affective forces at work within us. When I speak […]
If you know that you harbor within you kind thoughts and goodhearted feelings, that itself can be enough. If you lose heart just because no one else sees it, this is a sign you yourself do not truly appreciate the value of your positive thoughts and feelings. You need to delight in them yourself, and […]
To ease loneliness we first need to find friends within ourselves. We can start by connecting with our own positive qualities, such as love and compassion. We can learn to treasure and value these inner qualities and draw our strength from them first and foremost. These qualities are our inner conditions for interdependence and are […]
Ideally, advice is instruction tailored to the circumstances, both immediate and long-term. The person giving advice should have the motivation to help others and the wisdom to distinguish right from wrong. The person receiving it should have the intelligence to understand it and the willingness to follow directions. It should be presented in just the […]
In the past, perhaps people could justify actions that had a harmful impact because they didn’t have access to the right information. We no longer have that excuse. On the contrary, we have more than enough information. Once we know where to find it online, we already have all that we need to describe in […]
Compassion is not something to keep locked inside yourself. It is something to express in action. This compassion must persist beyond the thought, “If only their suffering would come to an end.” If we focus too long on wishing for something that we never pursue and that never happens, we run the risk of falling […]
The wisdom that arises when we fully comprehend our interdependence is a force that can dismantle the walls that separate us from others. Compassion, or an altruistic outlook, can have the same effect. Wisdom and compassion can grow from the awareness that we are all absolutely equal in our wish for happiness and in our […]
Spiritual practice must be a way for each of us as, an individual in touch with our own mind, to give meaning to our life and come to an understanding of the fundamental meaning and value of our life. Having access to a religious tradition should feel like an opportunity to explore our inner world […]
Put simply, we can see ourselves as independent individuals or we can acknowledge our interdependence on one another and on the planet. A great deal is at stake in which of these two views — individualism or interdependence — we choose to adopt. We experience our lives differently, we relate to others differently, and the […]
Viewing others through the lens of interdependence helps us see that we are not separate from people on the other side of these seeming gaps. We are capable of seeing causal connections that link us to others who appears to be remote from us, even if such links are not visible to the naked eye. […]
All parties are changed by being in relationship. Just being connected to someone or something means we are each forming part of the other. This is true in all forms of interdependence, from those that form planetary systems to our most intimate and personal relationships. For example, in the case of parents and children, although […]
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 […]
