So long as people give priority to material values, then injustice, corruption, inequity, intolerance, and greed - all the outward manifestations of neglect of inner values - will persist.

So what are we to do?

Certainly religion has helped millions of people in the past, helps millions today, and will continue to help millions in the future. But for all its benefits in offering moral guidance and meaning in life, in today’s secular world religion alone is no longer adequate as a basis for ethics.

What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics.

— His Holiness the Dalai Lama in his book, “Beyond Religion”

There is no transformation of the Earth without you.
You are the transformation of the Earth.

— J. Krishnamurti 

I have nothing to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.

— M.K. Gandhi

The view of interdependence makes for a great openness of mind. In general, instead of realizing that what we experience arises from a complicated network of causes, we tend to attribute happiness or sadness, for example, to single, individual sources.

But if this were so, as soon as we came into contact with what we consider to be good, we would be automatically happy, and conversely, in the case of bad things, invariably sad. The causes of joy and sorrow would be easy to identify and target. It would all be very simple, and there would be good reason for our anger and attachment.

When, on the other hand, we consider that everything we experience results from a complex interplay of causes and conditions, we find that there is no single thing to desire or resent, and it is more difficult for the afflictions of attachments or anger to arise. In this way, the view of interdependence makes our minds more relaxed and open.

By training our minds and getting used to this view, we change our way to seeing things, an as a result we gradually change our behavior and do less harm to others. As it says in the sutras:

Abandon evildoing;
Practice virtue well;
Subdue your mind:
This is the Buddha’s teaching.

— The Dalai Lama in “A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night: A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.” 

Emotion always has its roots in the unconscious and manifests itself in the body.

— Irene Claremont de Castillejo

The only thing a man must renounce if he wishes to attain the Supreme Truth is the notion of individuality. Nothing else.

— Swami Ramdas

Every moment you are a full statement of your being.

— Ram Dass

Success is determined not by what you get for reaching your destination, but by what you become by reaching it.

— Zig Ziglar