When we think of containers, we often overlook the ways in which the contents can affect the container itself — warming or cooling it, staining or bleaching it, stretching or strengthening it and even breaking it. The word used in Tibetan for “contents’ in this analogy also literally means “nutrients”, such that we ourselves are like the nourishment for the world that contains us. Indeed, as I have mentioned, the carbon dioxide we exhale nourishes the trees and plants, and our bodies also return to the earth and nourish it after we have died. The natural environment, in turn, nourishes us and provides us with the conditions we need for life. What this signals is that the connections of interdependence between us and the world we live in are far closer and more reciprocal than we normally envision.

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 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
• Acting against self-serving impulses
• Webs of interdependence
• Noticing the collective effects of our individual actions
• Our closest and most reliable allies
• Interdependence at work
• Touching the core of our equality
• His Loneliness
• The deeper common ground all living being share
• Collective actions and attitudes
• Delight in positive thoughts
• Gradual change
• Our intimate dependence on the natural environment
• Interdependent individuals
• Opening up to the view of interconnectedness
• A main condition for our selfishness