We actively nurture our love by working wholeheartedly on ourselves. This is the way our own spiritual practice can become a condition that helps love to last. Spiritual practice means transforming ourselves. It means changing. We cannot hope to just find love and keep it on a shelf – as if I have given you my love, you have given me your love, and now we just have to brush the dust off it from time to time, and we are basically done. Contrary to this, love is a living thing. Like a tree, it needs to grow continually, yielding fresh cycles of leaves and flowers and fruit. If this stops, the tree stagnates and eventually dies. Once we embrace love as a fully active practice, only then can we begin to speak of undying love.

17th Karmapa

from the book The Heart Is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out

translated by Ngodup Tsering Burkhar & Damchö Diana Finnegan


Read a random quote or see all quotes by the 17th Karmapa.

Further quotes from the book The Heart Is Noble:

• Capacity for Change
• Who are you
• Let the moon be the keeper of my love
• True Wealth
• Taking delight in your inner nature
• Reality is your teacher
• We need space to grow and learn from our own mistakes
• Interdependent reality
• Protective Inner Wisdom
• The Wealth of Contentment
• Social action
• Life in Balance
• Boxing Love with Our Expectations
• Just Love
• There are no fixed starting points
• Nothing is intrinsically bad
• Difference without Division
• Breaking barriers
• Healthy relationships
• Take joy in your sincere intentions