We actively nurture our love by working wholeheartedly on ourselves. This is the way our own spiritual practice can become a condition that helps love to last. Spiritual practice means transforming ourselves. It means changing. We cannot hope to just find love and keep it on a shelf – as if I have given you my love, you have given me your love, and now we just have to brush the dust off it from time to time, and we are basically done. Contrary to this, love is a living thing. Like a tree, it needs to grow continually, yielding fresh cycles of leaves and flowers and fruit. If this stops, the tree stagnates and eventually dies. Once we embrace love as a fully active practice, only then can we begin to speak of undying love.
17th Karmapa
from the book The Heart Is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out
translated by Ngodup Tsering Burkhar & Damchö Diana Finnegan
Read a random quote or see all quotes by the 17th Karmapa.
Further quotes from the book The Heart Is Noble:
- 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
- Let the moon be the keeper of my love
- Making healthy relationships possible
- Take joy in your sincere intentions
- We need space to grow and learn from our own mistakes
- Distinguishing between wants and needs
- Breaking barriers
- Boxing Love with Our Expectations
- Social action
- Facing Impermanence Wisely
- Greed is a recipe for dissatisfaction
- Balanced Life
- The intention to work for others