Even setting aside what it inspires you to do for others, when you cultivate gratitude, you certainly gain a great deal yourself in terms of well-being and happiness. When you feel grateful, you recognize that you are the beneficiary of others’ kindness. You feel fortunate. Gratitude just feels good, and it can be extended in all directions, since not only clothes but every single thing you use comes to you from others. At mealtime, you can feel grateful for each and every ingredient on your plate, for those who did the cooking and the planting, even for sunlight, for rainfall, and for the minerals that enrich the soil.
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:
- 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
- Gradual change
- Time to act
- Recollecting kindness
- Outer and inner world
- Interdependent individual
- Knowing more is not a substitute for feeling more
- Becoming stuck in a quagmire of self-obsession
- Freedom
- The best way to love oneself
- Gratitude
- Focusing on our inner interdependence
- A main condition for our selfishness
- His Loneliness
- Concealing our weaknesses
- Inner freedom is key