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 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
- Interdependent individuals
- Opening up to the view of interconnectedness
- A main condition for our selfishness
- Outer and inner world
- Self-reliance
- The best way to love oneself
- Everything and everyone is benefiting you
- 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