Clearly, in order to end one’s own suffering, there is nothing more important than to realize that when one acts as if the body and mind constituted a lasting, separate, independent self, one unthinkingly attributes to them qualities which they simply do not have. Nothing in the whole stream of mental and physical phenomena that constitute one’s experience of body and mind has the quality of separate, independent, lasting existence. It is all change and impermanence, moment by moment and so none of it can be ‘self and it is one’s persistent effort to treat it as if it were, that makes it a constant stream of suffering (duhkha).
Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche
from the book
translated by Shenpen Hookham
Read a random quote or see all quotes by Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche.
Further quotes from the book Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness :
- What exactly is feeling hurt
- Our constant pre-occupation
- Perceiver and Perceived
- The wisdom that realizes not-self
- Buddha Nature
- The source of all our suffering
- Simply a vague concept