The tradition of nonviolence, optimism, concern for the individual, and unconditional compassion that developed in Tibet is the culmination of a slow inner revolution, a cool one, hard to see, that began 2,500 years ago with the Buddha's insight about the end of suffering. What I have learned from these people has forever changed my life, and I believe their culture contains an inner science particularly relevant to the difficult time in which we live.
Robert ThurmanHowever, because of your interconnectedness with all things, other beings still have a problem, and when you realize that you have no absolute self apart from things, you realize that essentially, you are all the other beings.
Robert ThurmanGreed, the desire to incorporate, is magnified and fed back to produce the pretan realms, just as hate creates the hells.
Robert ThurmanYou feel so happy about that, that you feel loving towards these poor being who are suffering in their separateness, and their alienation Then have the problem of how to help them get free, because just by your knowing that they're essentially free, that doesn't free them. Just by your being blissful, it doesn't release them from their knot of separation and false self absolutization.
Robert Thurman