Even though we don’t consider ourselves to be so desperate, and believe that we are well educated, sane, and sober, when we see and feel that everything truly exists, we are behaving like the man in the desert. We rush to find authentic companionship, security, recognition, and success, or simply peace and quiet. We may even succeed in grasping some semblance of our desires. But just like the wanderer, when we depend on external substantiation, eventually we are disappointed. Things are not as they seem: they are impermanent and they are not entirely within our control.

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:

• Today is the death of yesterday
• Being a Buddhist
• Primordial purity
• Clinging to our hopes and fears
• A practicing Buddhist
• A simple, scientific fact
• Living fully
• Our true nature is like a wineglass
• The spiritual path is a temporary solution
• Buying into emotions
• Pride and pity
• Like monkeys
• Your own ignorance betrays you
• Relationships
• Not paranoid but prepared
• Not a buddha yet
• I don’t give a damn
• Appreciating the whole cycle of impermanence
• The cup that holds the teachings
• Bound by practicality