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 in the more obvious sense parents produce children, yet it is only by having children that people become parents. We could even say that parents are born in the moment that their first child comes into their life. Before they had children, a woman and a man were not a mother or father. In that sense, children also make their parents “parents”. Interdependence connects us on many levels and always works both ways.”
17th Karmapa
from the book
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Further quotes from the book Interconnected :
- Self-discipline
- The full vividness of direct contact
- Dismantling the walls that separate us
- Inner conditions of interdependence
- You exist in connection with others
- Extend yourself and connect
- The opportunity to love
- Remaining indifferent to the suffering of animals
- Time to act
- Our life is like a vast net
- The air we breathe
- Extending gratitude in all directions
- The imagination to see the other as free and happy
- An important source of closeness and love
- Knowing more is not a substitute for feeling more
- Self-reliance
- The interdependence between us and the world
- Acting against self-serving impulses
- Webs of interdependence
- Noticing the collective effects of our individual actions