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

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

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

• The real enemy
• What is in the mind of a Buddhist
• Acts of Generosity
• 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