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:

• Like a child at the cinema
• Enjoying the bliss of ignorance
• The impossible is possible
• The real source of fear is not knowing
• Happily ever after
• Like moths to the flame
• Shielding ourselves and others from the truth
• Fearlessness
• Driven by ambitions
• Understanding the nature of enlightenment
• Corrosion begins as soon as creation begins
• Nonviolence
• The primordial absence of defilements
• Products and parts
• Emptiness
• Where will they scatter my ashes
• The real enemy
• What is in the mind of a Buddhist
• Acts of Generosity