Our ideas about what it means to be a woman or a man – that is, our gender constructs – are given meaning and importance in our day-to-day reality. Gender identities permeate so much of our experience that it is easy to forget that they are just ideas – ideas created to categorize human beings. Nevertheless, the categories of masculine and feminine are often treated as if they were eternal truths. But they are not. They have no objective reality. Because gender is a concept, it is a product of our mind – and has no absolute existence that is separate from the mind that conceives of it. Gender categories are not inherently real in and of themselves.
17th Karmapa
from the book The Heart Is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out
Read a random quote or see all quotes by the 17th Karmapa.
Further quotes from the book The Heart Is Noble:
- There are no fixed starting points
- Loving Responsibility
- Boxed limitless potential
- Authentic love
- Our life is vast
- Just Love
- We truly have everything we need already
- Disconnected from our own noble heart
- Look what he did
- Interdependent reality
- Who are you
- Our relationship to the material world
- The kindness we receive from others
- Making healthy relationships possible
- Take joy in your sincere intentions
- Distinguishing between wants and needs
- Breaking barriers
- Boxing Love with Our Expectations
- Facing Impermanence Wisely
- Greed is a recipe for dissatisfaction