You can train yourself in this way to feel surrounded on all sides by goodness and benefit. Everything and everyone is benefiting you. The whole world becomes your personal benefactor and is part of you. You have not only been benefited in material terms. Those whose ideas you find useful, who brings out the best in you, who challenge you to grow — they are also your personal benefactors and form part of who you are.
Teaching yourself to see and feel in this way will make it much easier for you to feel close to others. It can make a tremendous contribution to your personal happiness and can certainly make you a more positive force in the interdependent world.
17th Karmapa
from the book Interconnected: Embracing Life in Our Global Society
Read a random quote or see all quotes by the 17th Karmapa.
Further quotes from the book Interconnected:
- The deeper common ground all living being share
- The imagination to see the other as free and happy
- Inner conditions of interdependence
- The interdependence between us and the world
- The impulse to connect
- Cultivating a spirit of generosity
- Interdependent individuals
- A greater sense of possibility
- Interdependence at work
- Interdependence always works both ways
- Our innate ability to connect with others
- Thinking about the consequences of our collective actions
- Collective actions and attitudes
- Viewing others through the lens of interdependence
- Our intimate dependence on the natural environment
- Extend yourself and connect
- The opportunity to love
- Noticing the collective effects of our individual actions
- The full vividness of direct contact