If you cannot accept that all compounded or fabricated things are impermanent, if you believe that there is some essential substance or concept that is permanent, then you are not a Buddhist.

If you cannot accept that all emotions are pain, if you believe that actually some emotions are purely pleasurable, then you are not a Buddhist.

If you cannot accept that all phenomena are illusory and empty, if you believe that certain things do exist inherently, then you are not a Buddhist.

And if you think that enlightenment exists within the spheres of time, space and power, then you are not a Buddhist.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

from the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist

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

• A practicing Buddhist
• Beyond nonviolence and meditation
• Relationships
• Emotionally not possible
• What is in the mind of a Buddhist
• Buying into emotions
• The primordial absence of defilements
• Acts of Generosity
• Living fully
• Not paranoid but prepared
• Primordial purity
• Buddhist renunciation
• The impossible is possible
• The real source of fear is not knowing
• Driven by ambitions
• Shielding ourselves and others from the truth
• Pride and pity
• Not a buddha yet
• Bound by practicality