We usually appreciate only half of the cycle of impermanence. We can accept birth but not death, accept gain but not loss, or the end of exams but not the beginning. True liberation comes from appreciating the whole cycle and not grasping onto those things that we find agreeable. By remembering the changeability and impermanence of causes and conditions, both positive and negative, we can use them to our advantage. Wealth, health, peace, and fame are just as temporary as their opposites.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

from the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist

Read a random quote or see all quotes by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.

Further quotes from the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist:

• Relationships
• Not paranoid but prepared
• Not a buddha yet
• I don’t give a damn
• The cup that holds the teachings
• Bound by practicality
• Enlightened beings may seem insane
• Buddhist renunciation
• What is life?
• The Self
• The habit of self
• Pride and pity
• Emotionally not possible
• Change is inevitable
• Beyond nonviolence and meditation
• Eventually we are disappointed
• Like a child at the cinema
• Four seals
• Enjoying the bliss of ignorance