The aim is to be able to feel the extent to which others are extremely important and integral to you and also to gain an emotional awareness that you are never, ever really separate from them. Others are part of you, just as you are part of them. You exist in connection with others. When you see this, you can also see that your happiness and suffering depend upon others. If you think solely in terms of yourself and your own happiness, it simply does not work. There is no happiness without relying upon others.
17th Karmapa
from the book
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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