“Just to simply relax and rest in your own natural state is all that you need to do.”

Chapters: 57. Wu Wei

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“Nothing is intrinsically or ultimately bad. Any situation that arises is only relatively good or bad based on many factors, including—most significantly—how you perceive the situation and how you respond to it.”

Chapters: 20. Unconventional Mind

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“This is the dark side of the ‘American dream.’ We blame the poor, accusing them of being poor because they do not work hard enough. Yet for the most part, the poor have less because the rich have taken more.”

Chapters: 75. Greed

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“Building our society or personal lives on competition means we are building lives of guaranteed dissatisfaction... Competition has yielded some important immediate results in the areas of survival and material development, but we should not let these advantages blind us to the serious disadvantages of competition.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“The yearning to live is something we share... this sense of having a living relationship with the earth's resources is necessary for us to change the way we relate to them and treat them.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“When we place our interconnectedness at the center of our life, empathy and contentment can become the primary resources that we turn to first.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Habits can be reshaped. We can shift to productive, sustainable practices that end our current cycles of harm—harming other people, animals, and the natural world.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“change is not only possible but inevitable—Being connected means we change one another,,, We can direct that change in positive, productive ways.”

from Interconnected

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“with friends we learn to enjoy what we like and not look for faults. It does not mean there is no awareness of shortcomings... We do not reject them simply because we notice a blemish. We put their faults in context because we keep most prominently in mind all that we have found to admire and enjoy in them.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“what we cultivate first is equanimity... developing our ability to feel the same sense of closeness and affection toward people we find annoying and people we do not know as we do toward our loved ones.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“we often use the language of karma to describe the relationship between intentional actions and their full range of results... Our actions have ripple effects beyond the direct results we readily perceive”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Finding ourselves in situations that we did not choose but that have come about through our previous actions is simply another facet of living within webs of causality that we ignore at our own risk.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“equality is based not in what we have or how we look, but in who we are... our desire to be happy and our shared inner potential to create the conditions that lead to happiness form the foundation of universal human equality... we are all absolutely equal in our wish for happiness and in our longing to be free of pain and suffering...”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“where is this I that is exclusively me?... it should be evident that 99% of what we call I is not really I. It is what we usually consider 'other.'”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“until the moment when we have an unbearable, unconditional response to the suffering of all beings without exception, our empathy as not yet reached the limits of how far it can grow.”

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“While he was obviously incapable of feeling any empathy whatsoever toward Jews and many other groups of people, nevertheless Hitler is known to have displayed great tenderness and empathy toward certain dogs. As such, it does not appear he was completely incapable of empathy but that its scope was terribly limited.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“The one resource we are all seeking, all the time—happiness—is unlimited, renewable, and most certainly increases when it is shared. When we truly and fully experience the truth of that fact, everything changes.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Essentially the same problem arises whether it is in our relationships to other human beings, to animals, or to the planet—and the solution is also the same: cultivating a much broader awareness of the chains of causality that link us to other, and cultivating the feelings of closeness that can inspire us to act.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“We can train ourselves to shake the habits of deception and manipulation that creep into our human relationshlps, but this will take a conscious and concerted effort.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“consumer culture actually uses the ideal of equality as a marketing tool, to stimulate a personal sense of inequality that we can overcome only by buying more goods.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“if you have abundance, instead of building a higher fence, you might just build a longer table”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Having an excess can remind you that others are hungry or impoverished. It can inspire you to do something about that fact.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“See our natural resources as an inheritance that we are holding in trust for all the generations to come. We see ourselves not as owners but as stewards treasuring and protecting this inheritance.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Living anywhere on the planet entails an intensive use of water [but] We act as if having easy access to something entitles us to squander it if we wish... There is absolutely no basis for thinking that the earth's water belongs to some people more than others.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“The essence of our life is not limited within the confines of our bodies but rather is distributed across all the people and things that we are connected to... like a vast net connecting us to all other lives on this planet”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“the very society we create differs based on whether we believe ourselves to be fundamentally separable and independent, or fundamentally connected and interdependent.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“We do not need to live our lives measuring ourselves against external standards set for us by others.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“interdependence permeates global society and pervades all our own personal interactions with others”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“The only contradiction is between reality and our view of reality.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Consumer culture takes hold within us and spreads throughout society because we are trying to measure up... determining our worth by comparing.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“We expect science to save us from ourselves... we are following science and technology with even more blind faith than the blind faith with which people used to follow religions.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“In the 21st century, religion's promise of eternal life in heaven has been supplanted by science and technology's promise of an eternally rising standard of living on earth.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“The problem is our willingness to believe unquestioningly when we are told what we want to hear—that our way of life can last forever.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“We can each apply our own intelligence by questioning the viability of the promise that our consumerist way of life can continue unchecked.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“if we are serious about protecting the planet's resources, it is indispensable that we find it in ourselves to change our feelings toward and our habits of consumption.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Our desire for the comfort that is driving our consumption of these resources has no natural limit. It must be self-imposed, and the time to limit our desires is now, not after it is too late.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“we live in a constant state of possibility... Every moment is a fresh opportunity. Every instant is a new life.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Thanks to impermanence, we never need to feel stuck... Change brings opportunity.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“True happiness is not superficial or fleeting. It is complete freedom from any reason to suffer.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Cultivating humility... can be enhanced by a heartfelt awareness that we are always in a state of development... there is always room to grow.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Pride, by contrast, closes that door. You sit behind that closed door... the egocentric walls that box us in... telling yourself you are better than everyone else.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Confidence is a virtuous form of pride... with confidence we feel able to act.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Our clinging to a sense of ourselves as separate individuals, and the selfish behavior it enables, blinds us to our intimate connectedness to the environment.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“It is not pragmatic to hope that the world's resources can meet the demands of our unbounded greed... Instead of greed we can base our lives in contentment and moderation.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Turning away from competition and toward the connections of interdependence can be a conscious act of resistance... we can liberate ourselves from the inner forces that leave us vulnerable to manipulation.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Our ego makes us a prisoner in a self-made jail, our self-absorption acs a a warden that keeps us shut off from the rest of the world.”

from Interconnected

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“The forces of globalization and consumerism are working together to bring everyone in a single direction but we cannot simply continue in this way. We have abundant evidence that our exploitation of the planet's natural resources is not sustainable.”

from Interconnected

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“The skies could be clear and healthy where you buy the product, while the air breathed by the factory workers and their families may be full of smog, and it could be rare to even see blue skies.”

from Interconnected

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“The world today is sorely lacking in love, and that lack stems in large part from a failure to appreciate the contributions of others to our own well-being.”

from Interconnected

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“hierarchies are social orders we create ourselves for particular purposes in particular historical conditions. When a hierarchy has outlasted its purpose, it is time to look for other ways to organize ourselves.”

from Interconnected

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“The single biggest issue we are facing this century is the environmenal crisis... the manifestation of a failure to honor basic equality”

from Interconnected

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“We have taken over by force, inflicting terrible pain and damage on everything and everyone in our way. The number of animals we have killed for our own comfort, pleasure, or entertainment is inconceivable...”

from Interconnected

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“how we divide ourselves based on differences in sex and gender... Not only do we feel that men and women have entirely different natures, but we also create power hierarchies based on those differences... But times have changed... If we are going to assign a gender to the qualities we most need it is more likely to be feminine than maasculine.”

from Interconnected

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“we need to learn new habits of connecting from the heart across differences. To that end, our basic capacity for empathy is a powerful resource... to see things from the perspective of those who need us to act can boost our courage immensely.”

from Interconnected

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“We are generally much more aware of the impact our outer circumstances have on our inner states and tend to grossly underestimate the effect of our inner world on the outer world.”

from Interconnected

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“We exercise our intellect to manipulate concepts and think that we are actually connecting with reality. This may look like a display of intelligence, but it is actually ignorance.”

from Interconnected

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“Learning to break a situation down into its constituent conditions and parts is necessary in order to see how things can be changed.”

from Interconnected

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“Courage is the root of compassion. Compassion means you have the strong aspiration and in fact a firm resolve to do something to end the suffering.”

from Interconnected

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“when your awareness of others' suffering remains mere knowledge without full affective involvement, it can cause you pain and distress. Once you connect completely on the level of feelings, that distress goes away.”

from Interconnected

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“With real compassion, even if you see nothing to be done at that moment, you do not withdraw your concern. In fact, you reinforce it with the resolution to keep looking until you find a way to ease their pain.”

from Interconnected

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“to change any situation in life or in the world, we must first examine its causes. From there we can discover where we as agents of change can make a difference... We can open up new vistas, and make powerful inner changes, just by altering our way of seeing our situation.”

from Interconnected

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“Climate change may seem to be taking place up there in the sky, but many of it causes are right down here on the earth in human hands.”

from Interconnected

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“we are bombarded with the unrealistic promise that our lives can be lived in isolation from the consequences of our actions.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“this sense of having a living relationship with the earth's resources is nedessary for us to change the way we relate to them and treat them... if human beings acted with emotional awareness of plants' yearning to live, life on our earth would be a great eal healthier.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Waiting for someone else to take the first step just leaves us stuk in the same place.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“Too often we fail to look past the national borders that divide one country's citizens from another's. Interdependence does not stop at national borderlines.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“that vital truth of interdependence—that others are part of who we area and that we are part of others... this expandable sense of connectedness in not so easy to generate using the model of global citizenship. This is why thinking of one another as family holds such promise.”

from Interconnected (2017)

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“The possibility of music—its beauty—is rooted directly in the reality of impermanence. The sound changes from one note to another and in this lies the essence of music.”

from Interconnected

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“Every single moment we are simultaneously starting a new future but also bringing the past to an irrevocable end... we are also born into a whole new life that begins right then.”

from Interconnected

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“The example of Milarepa remains with us today not as a sign that we should follow the path that he chose, but rather as a sign that the best path for us could be a path no one else has chosen.”

from Interconnected

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“It is possible to be happy in all circumstances, if you draw on your inner resource of wisdom—wisdom that knows what true happiness is.”

from Interconnected

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“because of the close interdependence between producers and consumers, if we consumers change our behavior, producers will invariably change as well.”

from Interconnected

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“daring to aspire to the impossible serves us greatly when we seek to accomplish the possible.”

from Interconnected

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“our imagination allows us to dare to consider making our aspirations a reality... our imagination helps shape the reality we are creating.”

from Interconnected

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“Now more than ever, His Holiness the Karmapa’s teachings provide tools for all of us—beyond background, nationality, and culture—to work together in our interdependent, interconnected worldwide community. Everyone, and the world itself, will benefit from the profound teachings in [his] book.”

— Pema Chödrön 1936 CE –
(Deirdre Blomfield-Brown)
First American Vajrayana nun

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“The songs of the Karmapas enable us to transcend hope and fear. Through total devotion, the blessings of auspicious coincidence are realized, so that we become genuine dharmic people.”

— Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Rain of Wisdom

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“Hope lies in the generation who belong to the twenty-first century. If they can learn from the past and shape a different future, later this century the world could be a happier, more peaceful, and more environmentally stable place. I am very happy to see... the Karmapa Rinpoche taking the lead and advising practical ways to reach this goal.”

— Dalai Lama XIV Tenzin Gyatso 1935 CE –

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