In order to make your sense of closeness more vivid, you could take a further step in connecting to the people who have benefited you from afar. You could take a look at the labels on the clothes you are wearing to see where they were made. Taking advantage of the easy access to information and images that the Internet affords you, you can investigate to actively educate yourself about working conditions and the experiences of factory workers in the place your clothes were made. Do not wait for news of their lives to reach you. Extend yourself and connect with them. Do this with the awareness that, no matter how different the backdrop of their lives appears, just like you they yearn to be happy and free of suffering.
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:
- Limitless aspirations
- When we ignore our interdependence
- Freedom
- We hold nothing back
- Keeping the door to improvement open
- Thinking about the consequences of our collective actions
- Naturalness
- The workings of interdependence
- Being an interdependent individual
- Inner freedom is key
- The ability to experience genuine closeness
- Becoming stuck in a quagmire of self-obsession
- Enthusiastically benefiting whomever we come in contact with
- Our innate ability to connect with others
- Interdependence always works both ways
- Enjoying the goodness of what you are doing
- A Vast and Complex Web of Causality
- A greater sense of possibility
- Concealing our weaknesses
- Cultivating a spirit of generosity