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